The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-18 00:00:00

POLICE INTELLIGENCE-(THIS DAY.,)

MAR LBOIIOIT TI -STRE ET.— DA n r :cc; STREET ROD-
BERY.—CAUTION TO LADIES.—Juilit L :tl, attire r!
in a loose gray coat with hanging sleeves, and John Wil-
liams, 16, were charged with stealing a purse from the
person of Mrs. Din Girling, of 3, Bruton-street, Berkeley-
square.
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From the evidence of Mrs. Girling it appeals that she
was about to enter her house on the previous afternoon,
when the prisoners came up to her and asked her the way
to Portman-square. While Williams was asking the qnCs-
flora the other prisoner interrupted, saying he was told tin, t
through Hanover-square was the best way. They cattle
close to her, and she at once felt satisfied that they were
robbing her, and putting her hand down felt Williams'
hand at her pocket, and her purse, containing Li 4s. 3d.,
gone. Her purse was picked up and given to her having
been thrown away by the prisoners.
James Alfred Grant, 3, Great Western Mews, London-
street, said that he was turning into Bruton-street en horse-
back, when he saw Lally throw away a purse and some one
bolding him.
John White, 10, Lancashire-court, New Bond-street, said
he heard a cry of "stop thief," and saw Lally running. On
stopping him he said he bad done nothing. He (witness)
then asked him why he was running, and took him towards
the station, and seeing a constable, handed him over.
Mr. Beadon said the prisoners must be remanded.
Lally wished his worship to settle it at once. He would
plead guilty.
Cole, a detective officer, and Welsh, the gaoler of the
court, said the prisoners had been convicted before.
Lally again: begged that his worship would dispose of the
case.

Mr. Beadon said he should certainly remand them for a
week, that the officer might make the necessary inquiries.
It was an outrageous thing—the lady had been robbed at
her owa door.

THAMES.—A JUVENILE CRIM/NAL.—CRITEL ROB-
BERY.—A very diminutive boy, named Monk, was brought
before Mr. Selfe, charged with stealing ls. sd. from a poor
woman named Rebecca Wyatt, who stated that she was
passing along the Cannon-street-road yesterday evening
when the prisoner put his hand in her pocket and took from
it ls. 5d., which was all the money she possessed in the
world. The prosecutrix added that the prisoner, on being
pursued, flung the money into the street, and some women
picked it up, and refused to restore it to her.
Mr. Selfe—They ought to have been given into custody
as well as this boy.
The prosecutrix said that her husband had been out of
work some time, and that her children had been without a
breakfast in consequence of the robbery.
The prisoner, in defence, said he lived in Baker's-row,
Whitechapel, and committed the robbery because he was
hungry.

16.Selfe—Last night, when you were given into custody,
you said you lived in Queen Anne-street.
Roche, the gaoler of the court, said Queen Anne-street
was close to Baker's-row.
The mother of the prisoner said her son was fourteen
years of age last April, and she had a daughter nine years
of age as big as him. She fed him well, and he turned a
wheel in Bethnal-green for 2s. 2L per week.
Mr. Selfe—The boy is a liar as well as a thief. He said
he committed the robbery because he was hungry. He is a
very bad boy indeed. He hai robbed a poor woman, whose
children have g me without food this morning in conse-
quence. I sentence the prisoner to three weeks' imprison-.
ment and bard labour.
The magistrate thee ordered 21. to be given to the prose..
cutrix from the poor-box fund:

WHISKY DRINKING IN SCOTLAND.

(From the Scottish Press.)

There are a number of public questions in which passion
and prejudice have so completely usurped the field that
arguments and even facts have no chance. Whether as a
people we are growing in sobriety or its opposite, is one of
these; and we have ever maintained that this question
could alone be settled by a reference to the Excise returns
cf the quantity of spirits entered for home consumption, and
in connexion with these the condition of the working classes
and the price of whisky. Now that Mr. Dunlop's Parlia-
mentary return is published we possess the means of testing
the fact by figures, and results must speak for themselves.
We shall not encumber the case with a reference to spirits
ether than whisky, because it is the national beverage, and
ere we have done it will be found that an enormous delu-
sion is being'practised on the people of Scotland.
To render our observations intelligible and distinct, we
shall state the quantities of whisky, given in imperial gal-
lons, entered for consumption in Scotland during the four
years before and after Whitsunday, 1854, when the Forbes
Mackenzie Act came into operation :

Deficit. Excess.
1851 ... 7,060,433 1855 ... 6,452,098 ... 608,335
1852 6,768,106 1856 5,336,538 1,431,568
1853 7,145,037 1857 7,126,057 ... 18,980
1854 ... 6,816,692 1858 6,819,169 2,477
27,820,068

25,763,862 2,058,83
2,477

Total deficit of last four years, 2,056,40G
Showing a deficit in four years of 2,056,406 gallons, or, on
an average, of 514,101/ per annum.

A comparison of the duty paid on whisky during these
various years, and of the means taken by spirit dealers to
meet the difficulty of a high-priced article, will inevitably
establish two propositions—first, that so determined in
Scotland is the love of whisky that we have paid for the
article during the last four years many millions of pounds
sterling more than we paid for it during a similar period
preceding the Forbes Mackenzie Act; and, second, that we
have during the last four years been drinking more of the
commodity sold as whisky than during an equal period
going before. We shall immediately establish the first of
these propositions. There was paid in:—
Gallons. Duty. Amount.
1551 7,060,433 Ss. Bd. X 1,294,412
1852 6,758,106 3s. Bd. 1,240,819
1853 ... 7,145,037 3s. Pd. 1,309,923
1851 ... 6,840,692 4s. Bd. 1,597,561

£5,442,715

1835 ... 6,462,098 eS. Od. £1,935,561
1856 ... 5,336,538 87:: 1011 2,112,379

1857 ... ... ... 7,126,057 Ss. Od.
1858 ... ... ... 6,849,160 ts. Od.

2,850,422
2,73”fi67

£9,638,029
Deduct first tour years .., ~. 5,442,715

Excess of duty on last four years... 24,195,314
These figures—startling though they be—give a most inade-
quate and imperfect view of the case, and we have resorted
to them to meet what is an apparent, though most erroneous
mode of arriving at the result. While the dealer—whether
publican, grocer, or spirit merchant—is paying 72 per cent.
more for whisky than he paid in 1851, the publican might as
well shut shop as propose to charge a proportional increase
to the dram drinker. The dram drinker has to be dealt with
on the philosophy which inspired the poor woman with de-
vout thankfulness, that—although the 41b. loaf had risen to
a dearth price—the bakers could not increase the price of
the " penny brieks." To realise the same profit, the publi-
can would require to get sd. a gill for what he formerly
exacted 3d. Instead of this he charges 4d. A gill, and adds
as many gallons of water as repays him for the odd penny,
so that we are entirely under the mark when we say that to
the whisky sold by publicans, and in gills and routchkins by
grocers and others, more than a million additional gallons
of water is added yearly to the aggregate; and in 1858 et
least a million more gallons of whisky—so called and sold
by the dealer, and so understood and paid for by the con-
sumer—were used in Scotland than in any of the four years
referred to prior to the passing of the Forbes Mackenzie Act.

With these preliminry explanations we shall, in a single
sentence, state how the case stands. We take the first two
and the last two years already so often referred to-1851-
1852, and 1857-1858. We select these because they were
free from all speculation on any anticipated rise of duty.
The whisky entered for consumption in Scotland was—

Gallons. Price.
1851 ... ... 7,060,433 1 6s. 6d.
1332 ... ... 6,768,106

f £2,294,640
( 2,199,631

13.828,539 11,491,274
1857 ... 7,126,0591 118. 2d. 3,978,715
1858 6,819,1695 t 3,824,127

13,975,266
0,1.00 far water added more than in
--- two Ilia 3 tais ••• 1,111,6rc
15,975,226
Paid for whisky in 11157 and 1818 ...
in 1831 and 1852 ...

... £8,919,508
... 4,494271

Excess on the last two years ..

...R t,125,23 I

So that, comparing the whisky consumed, without refer-
ence to the extra quantity of water mixed with it, we ex-
ceeded in 1857 and 1858 by 146,687 gallons the quantity
used in 1851 and 1852 ; and in the last two years we spent
£8,919,508, as against £4,491,274 spent in the first two
years, or, as near as may be, double. We challenge any man
to controvert a single statement we have put forth.
These astounding facts prepare us for encountering an-
other fallacy—that drinking is diminished in proportion as
we reduce the number of licensed houses. We have shown
that more money is being consumed in whisky, and more
whisky is drunk in Scotland, now than before the Forbes
Mackenzie Act came into operation ; and yet, to illustrate
the delusion referred to by the instance of Elinburgh, we
find, taking the three years before the Act and the last three
years, that the number of licences have been greatly dimi-
nished. The numbers that were issued were-
-1851 961 1856 796
1852 967 1857 753
1853 956 18558 737

And yet more whisky has been drunk in the last three
rears than the first three years. How is this? Either we
have increased the trade of those persons who are licensed—
a statement we believe to be very partially true—or we
have driven the supply into unlicensed and disreputable
hands—a statement we believe attested by fact and sufficient
to account for much of the whole cave. _ _

To what, then, do our calculations point ? To the re-
moval ?
B
of the
yFuourbmeseaMackenzieus.lvehold that
Act
as
cr ri ev vs olu - -
salutary principle, that public-houses should not have per-
mission—exceptional of every other trade—to pursue their
gains on the Sabbath-day. This principle, however, has,
strictly speaking, nothing to do with drinking. It merely
iptos eislavehilyish inedis ;
affirms that a salutary law shall be universally enforced. If
our statistics teach anything—and we hold them to be full
of suggestion—it is how little can be gained by physical
means in securing moral ends; and that if as a people we
are less temperate than we were, and were becoming, it is
because moral means, which alone can secure moral results,
have been all but abandoned in favour of physical restraint
and magisterial supervision, which lead to disappointment
and dismay. We would willingly have found that benefits
bad arisen out of recent legislation up to and beyond the
expectation of the most enthusiastic believer in " the Act ;"
but facts are facts, and it is an offence against truth and
tsetrays a craven spii it not to proclaim them.