The New Sunday Liquor Law Vindicated

by J. Ewing Ritchie

Transcribed from the 1855 William Tweedie edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE
NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW
VINDICATED.

By J. EWING RITCHIE.

LONDON:
WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND.

1855.

THE
PUBLIC-HOUSE TRADE
AS IT IS:
OR
AN EPITOME OF THE EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE A
COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
IN THE
Parliamentary Sessions of 1853–4.

BY J. EWING RITCHIE.

THE
NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW VINDICATED.

An Act came into operation in August, denominated “The New Beer Bill,” requiring public-houses to be closed on Sundays, with the exception of the hours 1 to 3 p.m., and 6 to 10 p.m. No sooner was it passed than it was found there was a great decrease in the number of cases of persons charged with drunkenness at the various police stations of the metropolis. Monday, instead of being a heavy day, was the reverse—the magistrates had little or nothing to do. But this great public good was not brought about without inconveniencing some parties. The publicans felt their craft was in danger,—that they were, as Benjamin Disraeli informed them the other day at Plymouth, “in a critical situation;” and that if they acquiesced in the law, the result would be most unsatisfactory, pecuniarily, to themselves. Accordingly, they have banded themselves into one compact Defence Association—they have taken sweet counsel together—they have organised an opposition all over the land. Whether they have acted wisely is another matter: with the evidence just published in two enormous Blue Books, I think silence would become them better. And so thought the knowing ones in the trade when they accepted the new Bill instead of one that would have been harsher still. The opponents of the Bill—publicans by-the-bye—thus speak of it: Mr. Luce of Hampton Court, “thinks it a despotic and tyrannical Bill.” According to a Mr. Symes, “it is directed against all recreation on Sundays—all relaxation after the toils of the week.” Mr. Palmer said, “The Bill ought to be called the Liberty of the Subject and Licensed Victuallers’ Liberty Curtailment Bill.” I take these extracts from the report of a great meeting in Drury Lane in September. Mr. Lyne, also a publican, writes in the Daily News, that “since the curfew bell there never was a measure which produced such general discontent. Notwithstanding the genialness of the weather the social gloom which has settled in the suburbs is indescribable.” The Daily News, in the poor hope of saving itself from annihilation, by opposing the new Bill, and thus becoming the organ of the pot-house says:—“The Pharisees of our drawing-rooms and saloons ought, before they are allowed to hamper and annoy the honest poor by their enactments, to be compelled to share for a season in the labour of the poor, in order that they might have some conception of the privations which they entail upon their victims, and the possible consequences of such privation.” In another leader it draws the picture of a working man returning from Brighton and starving in the streets in consequence of the new Bill. Such is an outline of the new Bill, as described by the publicans and their champion, the Daily News. Never was there a greater outcry and so little wool. One would fancy from the above remarks that an injustice was being done—such as the world had never witnessed before. You would have thought that at least we had been robbed of habeas corpus, or that still more valued right the Englishman’s right to grumble. You would have expected every print to be filled with tales of terror—you would expect every man you met to have had a face of woe, and especially that the working classes, who have been robbed of their rights in so atrocious a manner, would have talked of armed resistance, or at least have provided themselves with pikes. The working men have not held a single meeting on the matter—not one single groan has been wrung from them by the unheard of oppression under which they now labour. So callous and indifferent are they—so utterly callous and indifferent are all other classes of society—that the publicans have been compelled to come forward and so do battle for the working man. What disinterested public spirit! English liberty, torn, bruised, bleeding, shunned by all who once worshipped her and whom she once blessed, finds refuge in a public-house! If you want her you must go to the King’s Arms, or the Red Lion, and call for a pint of beer.

But I have over-stated my case: there have been some complaints from parties not publicans after all. On looking through a file of the Daily News for the last three months I find three such. No. 1, is there placed in the largest type, and headed, “Starvation by Act of Parliament!” You are alarmed. Read on, your fears will soon cease. The writer says:—“Sir, I am a bachelor living in chambers, the resources of my ménage do not extend to cooking a dinner, and, like most persons in my situation, I generally dine at a tavern in the neighbourhood. On Sunday, I attended the afternoon service at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and upon my return at five o’clock (what a circumstantial dog he is!) I repaired with my appetite in excellent condition to my usual dining-place in Fleet-street. I was rather taken aback at finding a closed door frowning upon me; but I rang the bell, and, after a brief delay, a small part of the door was cautiously opened, and there appeared in the apeture the head of a disconsolate looking waiter, who told me that the establishment was closed in compliance with the provision of the New Beer Bill, and that consequently I could not have any dinner.” The next deep pang of anguish bursts from the bleeding bosom of a Templar, who says:—“I am a victim of this Act, being scarcely able to get any dinner before the Sunday evening service.” Another, a father of a family, says he dines at five, and he finds the beer flat. That I imagine is his own fault. Surely it was not the Act of Parliament did that. We shall next be told when the beer turns sour that was also the Act of Parliament. But perhaps I am wrong. A well-known judge declared Parliament could do every thing but make a woman a man or a man a woman. So, after all, the father of a family may be right, and the New Beer Bill may be the reason why his “arf-and-arf” is flat.