Locality of each Division. No. of Officers employed in each Division.Computed Population in each Division, according to the Parliamentary Returns.1831.1832.1833.Public-Houses and Beer-Shops in each Division.
Males.Females.Total.Males.Females.Total.Males.Females.Total.Public Houses.Beer-Shops.Total.
A. Whitehall1206,23840623063638424362737122859932537
B. Westminster16853,1471,5968002,3961,8298312,6601,8641,1933,05718658244
C. St. James’s188105,8622,2901,1273,4172,1191,0553,1742,2081,2563,46430220322
D. St. Marylebone166122,2061,3757272,1021,3006501,9501,0196051,62414854202
E. Holborn16875,2411,7851,0792,8641,2418972,1388796181,49724919368
F. Covent Garden16841,0102,2381,5553,7932,1651,6173,7821,6651,3883,05330928332
G. Finsbury236115,2662,1411,4233,5642,1921,4403,6321,9161,2703,186368100468
H. Whitechapel191119,0421,2538122,0651,6311,2682,8991,8031,2953,098359102461
K. Stepney296143,1378995741,4731,3877322,1191,1257621,887437131568
L. Lambeth191101,5611,7321,2713,0031,5811,2342,8151,2919442,23518370153
M. Southwark189107,5371,6551,0502,7051,4709822,4521,2848432,12732166387
N. Islington269140,4078503731,2231,1655731,7388264091,235267144311
P. Camberwell24377,82525687343201752762038028313896234
R. Greenwich21258,77836313750051324075341821062828351334
S. Hampstead223112,1365733018746133269396973191,01613874212
T. Kensington18470,2961242414830310941246413760122093313
V. Wandsworth18662,03921235247210602702355529013376209
Total3,3981,511,72819,74811,60531,35320,30412,33232,63618,26811,61229,8804,0731,1875,155
Locality of each Division. No. of Officers employed in each Division.Computed Population in each Division, according to the Parliamentary Returns.1831.
Males.Females.Total.
A. Whitehall1206,238406230636
B. Westminster16853,1471,5968002,396
C. St. James’s188105,8622,2901,1273,417
D. St. Marylebone166122,2061,3757272,102
E. Holborn16875,2411,7851,0792,864
F. Covent Garden16841,0102,2381,5553,793
G. Finsbury236115,2662,1411,4233,564
H. Whitechapel191119,0421,2538122,065
K. Stepney296143,1378995741,473
L. Lambeth191101,5611,7321,2713,003
M. Southwark189107,5371,6551,0502,705
N. Islington269140,4078503731,223
P. Camberwell24377,82525687343
R. Greenwich21258,778363137500
S. Hampstead223112,136573301874
T. Kensington18470,29612424148
V. Wandsworth18662,03921235247
Total3,3981,511,72819,74811,60531,353
1832.1833.Public-Houses and Beer-Shops in each Division.
Males.Females.Total.Males.Females.Total.Public Houses.Beer-Shops.Total.
38424362737122859932537
1,8298312,6601,8641,1933,05718658244
2,1191,0553,1742,2081,2563,46430220322
1,3006501,9501,0196051,62414854202
1,2418972,1388796181,49724919368
2,1651,6173,7821,6651,3883,05330928332
2,1921,4403,6321,9161,2703,186368100468
1,6311,2682,8991,8031,2953,098359102461
1,3877322,1191,1257621,887437131568
1,5811,2342,8151,2919442,23518370153
1,4709822,4521,2848432,12732166387
1,1655731,7388264091,235267144311
201752762038028313896234
51324075341821062828351334
6133269396973191,01613874212
30310941246413760122093313
210602702355529013376209
20,30412,33232,63618,26811,61229,8804,0731,1875,155

Now, comparing these returns with those of the year before last, we find that the decrease of intemperance in the metropolis has been most extraordinary. In the year 1831, 1 in every 48 individuals was drunk; in 1832 the number increased to 1 in 46; whereas in 1833 it decreased to 1 in 50; and in 1848 the average had again fallen to 1 individual to every 110. This decrease of intemperance was attended with a similar decrease in the number of metropolitan beer-shops. In 1833 there were 1182, and in 1848 only 779 beer-shops in London. Whether this decrease preceded or succeeded, and so was the cause or the consequence of the increased sobriety of the people, it is difficult to say. The number of public-houses in London, however, had increased during the same period from 4073 to 4275. Upon the cause and effect of this I leave others to speculate.

Of the total, 16,461 persons, male and female, who were charged with being intoxicated in the year 1848, no less than one individual in every seven belonged to the labouring class: and, excluding the females from the number, we shall find that, of the males, every fourth individual that was taken up for drunkenness was a labouring man. Taking the whole population of London, temperate and intemperate, only 1 in every 110 is a drunkard; but with the labouring classes the average is as high as 1 in every 22. Of course, where the habit of drinking is excessive, we may expect to find also excessive pugnacity. That it is the tendency of all intoxicating liquors to increase the irritability of the individual is well known. We might infer therefore, à priori, that the greater number of common assaults would be committed by the greatest drunkards. In 1848 there were 7780 individuals assaulted in London, and nearly one-fourth of these, or 1882, were attacked by labouring men, one in every 26 of the entire body of labourers having been charged with this offence. The “simple larceny,” of which the labouring classes appear, by the same returns, to be more guilty than any other body of individuals, is also explained by their inordinate intemperance. When a man’s bodily energy is destroyed by drink, labour is so irksome to him that he would sooner peril his liberty than work. What wonder, then, that as many as 1 in every 28 labourers should be charged with theft? Whereas, of the rest of the population there are only 1 in every 226 individuals. Thus, of the labouring classes, 1 in every 22 is charged with being drunk; 1 in every 26 with committing an assault; and 1 in every 28 with being guilty of simple larceny.

For the truth of the connexion existing between drink, pugnacity, and theft, I would refer to the statement of one of the most intelligent and experienced of the coal whippers,—one, indeed, to whose unceasing and heroic exertions that class principally owe their redemption:—“The children of the coal-whippers,” he told me, “were, under the old system, almost reared in the tap-room.” He himself had known as many as 500 youths that were transported; and this, be it remembered, out of a class numbering only 2000 men.

Such, then, are the proved consequences of an inordinate use of intoxicating liquors. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every one who is anxious for the well-being of the people, to diminish the occasions for drinking wherever possible. To permit the continuance of certain systems of employment and payment, which are well known, both to tempt and compel the men to indulge in intoxicating liquors, is at once to breed the very crimes that it is the office of Government to suppress. The custom pursued by the coal-merchants of paying the labourers in their employ in public-houses, as I lately exposed, appeared bad enough. The “backer,” jaded and depressed with his excessive work through the day, was entrapped into the public-house in the evening, under the pretence of receiving his wages. Once inside he was kept waiting there hour after hour by the publican (who of course was out of silver, and had to send some distance for it). Beer is called for by the men in the meantime. Under the influence of the stimulant, the fatigue and the depression begin to leave the labourers, the burden that is still on their backs (it will be remembered that such is the description of the men themselves) is shaken off, and their muscles no longer ache and are stiff, but relax, while their flagging spirits gradually revive under the potent charm of the liquor. What wonder, then, that the poor creatures finding it so easy, and when the habit is once formed, so pleasant, a cure for their ills, should be led to follow up one draught with another and another? This system appeared to me to be vicious enough, and to display a callousness on the part of the employers that quite startled me. But the system under which the ballast-labourers are now suffering, is an infamy hardly to be credited as flourishing in these days. I have, therefore, been at considerable pains to establish such a mass of evidence upon the subject as shall make all earnest men look upon the continuance of such a system as a national dishonour.

Meeting of the Ballast-Heavers’ Wives.

Before dealing with the Lumpers, or those who discharge the timber from ships—in contradistinction to the stevedores, or those who stow the cargoes of vessels,—I will give the following report of a meeting of the ballast-heavers’ wives. It is the wife and children who are the real sufferers from the intemperance of the working-man; and being anxious to give the public some idea of the amount of misery entailed upon these poor creatures by the compulsory and induced drunkenness of the husbands, I requested as many as could leave their homes to meet me at the British and Foreign School, in Shakespeare-walk, Shadwell. The meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and coal-whippers. The wives of the coal-whippers had come there to contrast their present state with their past, with a view of showing the misery they had endured when their husbands were under the same thraldom to the publican as the ballast-heavers are now, and the comparative happiness which they have experienced since they were freed from it. They had attended unsolicited, in the hope, by making their statements public, of getting for the ballast-heavers the same freedom from the control of the publican which the coal-whippers had obtained.

The meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and coal-whippers, thirty-one were present. Of the thirty-one, nine were the wives of coal-whippers, the remaining twenty-two the wives of ballast-heavers. Many others, who had expressed a desire to attend, were prevented by family cares and arrangements; but, small as the meeting was comparatively, it afforded a very fair representation of the circumstances and characters of their husbands. For instance, those who were coal-whippers’ wives appeared comfortable and “well to do.” They wore warm gowns, had on winter-bonnets and clean tidy caps underneath; the ballast-heavers’ wives, on the contrary, were mostly ragged, dejected, and anxious-looking.