The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-28 00:00:00

DRINKING !
(From Eliza Cook's Journal.)
Whether it be attributable to our chilly northern
skies and foggy atmosphere, or to the strong native
appetite for stimulus which, from time imme-
morial, has characterised our race, certain it is that
the people of Great Britain are a very drinking
people, consuming enormous quantities of ardent
spirits, wine, and fermented liquor of various sorts.
They seem to have a hot spark in their throats, which
stands in need of perpetual cooling, or to be troubled
with a thirst which is perennial, or almost un-
quenchable.
The drinking of intoxicating liquors enters into
and pervades our entire social system. We drink
at births, marriages, and deaths. We drink in celebra-
tion of our successes, and we drink to console ourselves
for our defeats. We drink to enhance joy, and we
drink to drown sorrow. When friends meet they
drink, and when they part they drink. Men drink
because they are together, and they drink because
they are alone. Political rejoicings, social meetings,
party gatherings, are all crowned with drink. Com-
mercial men treat their customers to drink, working
men gain.their " footings" by drink, Members of Par-
liament secure many " most sweet voices" by drink.
In winter we drink to keep out the cold, in wet wea-
ther to keep out the wet, in summer to keep out the
heat. We drink to make our food digest ; we drink
to " qualify" this, that, and the other dish ; we drink to
keep away the cholera—in short, one would almost
imagine, from the various uses of the kind to which
drink is put, that it was the immortal Catholicon,
the Grand Universal remedy. But excuses to drink
in every way and on every occasion, are always ready
at hand ; and when it is employed in such a variety
of ways, and on such a multitude of occasions, it
needs scarcely be matter for wonder that the quantity
consumed in thiscountry should be so very prodigious.
We consume yearly about thirty million gallons
of ardent spirits alone. The average annual con-
sumption is above two quarts for every man, woman,
and child in England and Ireland, and about two
gallons a piece for every man, woman, and child in
Scotland. In the latter country whiskey is cheap,
the climate raw, and the people " drouthy ;" and
hence the enormous consumption of the natives—
each Scot consuming as much ardent spirits yearly as
every two Irishmen or every three Englishmen. The
favourite potation of the latter is beer and stout, of
which the consumption in England quite as much
exceeds. that of Scotland as the latter ex-
ceeds the former in its consumption of ardent
spirits. About twenty-five million bushels of grain
—equivalent to some fifteen hundred million pounds
of bread (were the grain converted into bread instead
of malt)—are consumed annually in England in the
manufacture of beer, porter, ale, stout, and such like
drinks.

Englishmen are generally quick at counting the
cost of things; and a word may be said on this head.
A little " Black Book" was recently published, show-
ing the cost of the Government at something like
sixty millions a year—truly a formidable sum—the
details of which have excited no small amount of in-
dignation. But what will the people say when they
are told, as we now tell them, that not less than forty
millions a year are voluntarily spent by them upon
drink ? We do not defend the former excessive ex-
penditure, nor can we say anything in defence of the
latter. But we must remember, that for the expen-
diture on the purposes of Government, we have at
least an admirable post-office, an army and navy,
courts of law, diplomatic and consular establishments,
penitentiaries, Queen, Lords, and Commons, and a
great deal more. And what have we in return for
our other expenditure ? Only a prodigious quantity
of poison, producing poverty, demoralization, and
crime ! A searching reform in our public financial
affairs may be very urgently called for; but we think
it will be admitted, that there is even a still more
imperative necessity for an equally searching reform
in our personal and social expenditure, in respect of
drink.

From the year 1801 to the year 1846, the people
of the United Kingdom spent nearly fifteen hundred
millions of pounds sterling in intoxicating drinks;
about 800,000,0001. on spirits, 176,445,0001. on
wines, and 595,904,0001. on malt; or equal to about
double the amount of the present national debt ! The
duty alone which was paid on the above articles
during these forty-five years, amounted to
644,968,5531., or equivalent to about five-sixths of
the national debt.

Our army costs us about ten millions a year, which
we think a great deal too much ; but then we volun-
tarily spend about fifteen millions a year on whiskey,
gin, brandy, and their villanous compounds! Our
navy costs about eight millions ; but our beer, ale,
and porter, cost from thirteen to fourteen millions !
We pay less than a million for our admirable post-
office, and more than four millions fur our wines!
The taxes we pay for our courts of law and justice
amount to a little above a million : the taxes we pay
on our tobacco and snuff are above four millions!!
Financial reform is surely needed, but at home and

in the public-house as much as anywhere else. Under

two millions a year are spent on Life and Health As-
surance; and about forty millions on drink hf all
kinds. Are not these facts most discreditable to us as
a nation ?

It is not, however, merely because of the
money which is worse than wasted on all this
drink, that these facts are to be lamented;
but, because of the many broken hearts, ruined
characters, blasted homes, diseased frames,
crowded prisons, vice, infamy, and moral ruin, which
have everywhere followed in the track of drink. The
money consideration is the very least—though that is
not to be overlooked ; for the money saved from drink
might have made hundreds of thousands of families
happy and independent, but it is the moral wreckage—
the brutish degradation—the frightful social suffering,
that have been produced by our drinking practices
that form the most prominent considerations in our
minds,.

Let us bear in mind, too, that by far the largest
portion of the above expenditure has been on the part
of those who could the least afford it, namely the
working classes; for at least two-thirds of all the
drink manufactured in the United Kingdom is for
their use—and we cannot fail to see in the. facts we
have stated still deeper cause for lamentation and
dismay. What hope is there for a people who aban-
don themselves to so extensive a use of intoxicating
drink ? Such is the question that at once presents
itself in appalling force to the philanthropic mind!
Drink destroys a man's self-respect, eats away his
moral character, makes bim powerless to resist the
insidious approaches of vice, saps the foundation of
his spiritual being, ruins his health, brutallizes his
intellect, impoverishes his family', desolates his home,
and spreads a moral pestilence throughout society.
The money now spent by us in drinking, might
found and maintain schools in every parish, and a
college in every county ; and it would leave a sur-
plus sufficient to provide public libraries for the free
use of the whole population •
Or, employed in another direction, it would en-
able most working men to invest themselves with the
electoral franchise, to put money in the savings'
bank, or in the assurance office, and to provide tor
the comfortable maintenance now, as well as in time
coming, of themselves, their wives, and their fa
miles.

The time which many men spend in drinking
would, if better employed, enable them to master the
entire realm of knowledge, to read every known
tongue, to procure and study every excessible boc,k.
_ _

The abolition of the custom of drinking intoxicating
drinks would empty our gaols and penitentiaries,
diminish our poor-rates, fill our churches, schools,
and mechanics' institutes, and effect a moral and re-
ligious improvement of the grandest character. It
would make homes happier, the people wiser, and
the world better in all respects.

Although drunkenness is gradually diminishing in
this country with the progress of intelligence (as
shown in a recent article in this journal), still a
great deal remains to be done in this wide field
of improvement. There is no field of philanthropic
labour we know of, that will yield more abundant
fruits than this. There is room enough for al
activities here. Those who would take part inl
this great movement must aim at the habit, and
begin at the beginning. " The diminutive chain of
habit," says Dr. Johnson, "is scarcely heavy enough
to be felt, till it is too strong to be broken." We
must begin with children. Abstinence from drink
ought to be taught in all our schools, in all our
churches, by all our teachers. It ought to be taught
in all our homes, by fathers and mothers. And
example will teach it more forcibly then than any
words can do.

When the habit is formed, comparatively little can
be done. Yet, here too is room for activity, and hope
of success. The teetotallers have shown what is to
be accomplished by well-directed efforts, in the host
of men whom they have made and kept sober, and in
the thousands of drunkards they have reclaimed. The
Teetotal missionary is one of the most beneficial
workers of the age ; and let no one discourage his
noble efforts to reclaim the erring and the lost. There
is really in politics no more vital question than this;
in physiology, none more important as regards our
sanitary wellbeing ; in morals and religion, none
more urgent, as concerns the real virtue and happi-
ness of our race. Therefore, all who earnestly desire
a purer morality, a more. spiritual religion, and a
more happy social state, must fervently wish the tem-
perance labourers " God. speed.

DIE RIVER PLATE —LIVERTOOL, SATURDAY.—
Private advices from the River Plate to the end of Nc-
vember, via Rio, state confidently that a treaty had been
ratified between Mr. Southern, the British Plenipoten-
tiary, and ROM. The documents had been dispatched
to England by the steam-ship Hydra, and may there-
fore be expected daily.

Dispatches vo ere sent off on Saturday evening from
he ColoLle-offive for the Governor of Gibraltar.