The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-18 00:00:00

THE WINE ErC'EN,SES BILL.

Let us imagine some native of the sober South
taking, about 10 o'clock last night, an observant
and rambling walk through the streets of London,
' making his way deviously from the region North of
Holborn, and bent upon witnessing the proceedings
of the British Legislature. He would pass through
the Seven Dials; he would wander to and fro in a
maze of courts and alleys until he emerged into
Coventry•street; he would pass down the Hay-
market, and would find himself by way of huha-
l-neat street at his destination. What would be the
prevailing idea upon that man's mind when he ar-
rived at the lobby of the House of Commons ? A ethe
corner of every street, and midway between the cor-
ner of every street, in the most wretched of the tho-
roughfares he passed, he had found magnificent
palaces lit up like the seine of an Eastern story. He
had pushed, open the swinging doors, and, peering
in, had beheld rags and rottenness, had heard a babel
of curses and obscenity, and had seen a huddled
mass of filth and wretchedness. Perhaps he had
pushed his way through the bloated livid creatures,
braving the stench, the smoke, and the drunken
familiarities of the crowd, with the desire to know
what was the great and absorbing allurement
which drew them together. He had found that they
came there to drink vitriol. They called it gin, but
the gin they were drinking was a coarse burning
alcohol ; and there they sat or stood about, pouring
down this pernicious stuff from small metal mea-
sures, until they reeled, and quarrelled, and fought,
and shrieked, and blasphemed. Ever and anon as
they had emptied their pockets and fulfilled their
measure of drunkenness, the proprietor of the pan-
demonium thrust them forth into the public
thoroughfare, or called in the paid guardians of the
pa.atis p.a.., and complaining of the disorderly con-
duct of the penniless drunkard, sent him off to pri-
son to be sobered at the public expense. It may
happen that our curious foreigner may in other
parts of the world have seen the frenzy of an African
when excited by rum ; he may have seen the con-
tortions of Arabs under the influence of hashish ;
be may have seen a Malay furious from bang, a
Turk trembling from the effects of opium, or a
Chinaman emaciated from inordinate indulgence in
the same \lee, but for a scene of sterling vice, and
lust, and filth, and frenzy, all drawn into one pit,
and fermenting under the patronage of the law, he
might search the world all over, and never find a rival
to that object of ambition to respectable vintners,
and that creation of Middlesex magistrates, " a
thriving public-house in a low gin-drinking neigh-
bourhood." After he had passed some score of
these, and had noted all their various classes, from
the rags in the Seven Dials to the mare gaily fre-
quented haunts of the Haymarket, there can be no
doubt as to 'what would be we'ihing upon his
mind ; it would be the profound feeling that
" Surely the great and absorbing vice of the lower
classes of this nation I's drunkenness."
We have broug'ut our foreigner to the lobby of
the House of commons. We will now take a liberty
with the regulations, and introduce him into the
Speaker's Gallery. He looks down upon an assem-
bly of, with all faults and exceptions, the first
gentlemen of the world. Our friend's attention is
immediately riveted by seeing that our most con-
summate orator is upon his legs. He listens, and
still he listens, first with biwilderment, and then,
with stark disappointment. That great rhetorician
is talking nonsense. He is proposing to the How
of Commons to make it penal for any person to sell
a quart of claret to be carried away in a quart jug,
or
.to allow it to be taken tilvay in any other
measure than in a quart or a pint bottle. Again, he
is proposing to the house to put a veto upon the
sale of unintoxicating wines, and to place the exer-
cise of that veto in the bands of the magistrates
who license and regulate those thriving public-
houses which he saw in operation in those low
gin-drinking neighbourhoods. If our foreigner will
listen a little longer, he will find that he is
incorrect in his obvious conclusion that these
measures are proposed with the avowed intent of
perpetuating and forcing to nightly recurrence the
scenes which he had just witnessed in the Seven
Dials and the Haymarket. They are, forsooth, con-
cessions in the interest of religion and morality.
The orator is standing at bay. lie is surrounded
by assailants. He has proposed to set up a rival to
the Gin Demon, and all the priests of this grim idol
are attacking him. They do not Call out, like the
honest shrine-Inakers of Ephesus, " Great is Diana
of the Erlllc,iana t" they can not cry, " Great is Gin,
and great, also, when ameliorated with salt and
drugs, is Beer !" They are indignant only in the
cause of virtue and sobriety. They are apprehen-
sive only of what will happen if claret should come
to be drunk in places where people cannot get gin,
They are fierce only in their virtue,.veheinent only
in their sobriety, zealous only in their wish to save
the lower classes from the immorality of drinking
light French wines. There is Mr. Ayrton, who re-
presents Whitechapel and its neighbourhood, NI here
all may be seen which can be seen in the Seven
Dials. He is devoured by fear lest some parent might
be so depraved as to give his son, a youth perhaps
of 14 or 15, a little claret to drink with his
dinner, and he proposes a penalty against any
one—not being one of the privileged pandemo-
nium-keepers—who shall sell a glass of wine to be
consumed by any person under 16 years old. Of
course, the pandemonium-keeper may, without law-
ful hindrance, serve gin to a woman to pour down
her infant's throat. There is Mr. Salomons, whose
glory it is that he is a Hebrew, but who is in
terrible alarm lest the Christian Sunday should be
desecrated by a draught of claret. There is Mr.
Hardy, who perhaps is only affected by a desire to
see some crotchets of his own in an Act of Parlia-
ment. There is Mr. Edwin, James ; and there are
innumerable other assailants, all attacking the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in front, in rear, and
in flank, and all proposing vexatious restrictions,
tending obviously to render it unprofitable to keep
a pastrycook's shop and sell claret-and-sherry, but
most profitable to keep " a thriving publichouse in
a low gin-drinking neighbourhood." The nonsense
which Mr. Gladstone is talking is only talked under
the compulsion of these attacks. He is giving up
what, in the name of sobriety, the licensers and
owners, and the political friends of the licensers
and owners and conductors of these horrible dens,
are squeezing him too hard to allow him to retain.
When our foreigner leaves the House of Commons
he will have added one more profound conviction to
his mental store, and will say, "Surely even the
drunkenness of the lower classes of this nation is
exceeded in its intensity; it is not so wonderful as
the hypocrisy of the higher classes."
It is, -indeed, passing strange that men can say
and do what has been said and done in resistance
to the proposed permission to sell wine in places
that may be entered without pollution ; but,
strange as all this may seem, we must not allow
those foreigners who from a distance will criticise
these debates to conclude that the action of our
Legislature is to be in any way judged by the words
spoken in Parliament. Mr. Henley spoke last
night for the Justices, and Mr. Edwin. James
for the licensed victuallers, but the great body of
the house said nothing, but voted with steadiness
in favour of common sense and civilisation. They
cannot help free Britons from passing from the
,pawnshop to the ginshop, and there making beasts
of themselves; but they acknowledge the advantage
of -giving them the choice of a milder and less
poisonous stimulant. When we consider the great
wealth, the widely ramified connexions, and the
great consequent political influence, of those who
gather to themselves the earnings of the masses
by means of these publichouses, and when we fur-
ther remember the local electoral interest which these
publichouse keepers have all over the kingdom, it
is to the credit of the House of Commons that this
valuable social reform has been so far passed. It
diminishes the power of magistrates, it deteriorates
-the monopoly of the great brewers and distillers,
and it lets loose competition against the publicans.
Against all this there is nothing to be placed but
a prospect of weakening our great national vice.
The majority by which the second reading of this
bill was voted was, under these circumstances,
quite as great as could be expected ; the
extent to which it was last night supported
was satisfactory to those who are aware of the
pressure under which many members were placed
who were stedfast in their public duty, and who
assisted the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give
his countrymen of all classes their choice between
a refreshing draught and a poisonous dram.—
Times.

In addition to the further considerable amount of
gold brought from New York by the City of Baltimore, the
Cunard steamer Africa, due on Sunday, will probably have
a large sum. Nearly the whole of this, together with the
recent Australian arrivals, will, most probably, be taken to
the Bank, the continental exchanges, after some slight
symptoms of weakness a few days back, having again as-
sumed a firm appearance. But for the determination of
France, that the commercial world shall know no confi-
dence, a general and steady augmentation of business might
now, therefore, be expected. Should the present state of
distrust be long protracted, it may cause disappointment
with regard to some of the financial calculations of the re-
cent Budget.

On the 10th inst. Prince Milosch had repeated
attacks of palpitation of the heart, and violent pains in the
head, but he rallied again in the evening.