The Distracted Preacher (14 page)

Appeal to quarter sessions.

52
If any person feels aggrieved by any order or conviction made by a court of summary jurisdiction, the person so aggrieved may appeal therefrom, subject to the conditions and regulations following:

(1) The appeal shall be made to the next court of quarter sessions for the county or place in which the cause of appeal has arisen, holden not less than fifteen days after the decision of the court from which the appeal is made;

(2) The appellant shall, within seven days after the cause of appeal has arisen, give notice to the other party and to the court of summary jurisdiction of his intention to appeal, and of the ground thereof:

(3) The appellant, immediately after such notice, shall enter into a recognizance before a justice of the peace, with two sufficient sureties, conditioned personally to try such appeal, and to abide the judgment of the court thereon, and to pay such costs as may be awarded by the court, or shall give such other security by deposit of money or otherwise as the justice may allow:

(4) Where the appellant is in custody the justice may, if he think fit, on the appellant entering into such recognizance or giving such other security as aforesaid, release him from custody:

(5) The court of appeal may adjourn the appeal, and upon the hearing thereof may confirm, reverse, or modify the decision of the court of summary jurisdiction, or remit the matter to the court of summary jurisdiction with the opinion of the court of appeal thereon, or make such other order in the matter as the court thinks just. The court of appeal may also make such order as to costs to he paid by either party as the court thinks just.

Continuance of license during pendency of appeal against justices refusal to renew.

53
“Where the justices refuse to renew a license, and an appeal against such refusal is duly made, and such license expires before the appeal is determined, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue may, by order, permit the person whose license is refused to carry on his business during the pendency of the appeal upon such conditions as they think just; and, subject to such conditions, any person so permitted may, during the continuance of such order, carry on his business in the same manner as if the renewal of the license had not been refused. Where a license is forfeited on or in pursuance of a conviction for an offence, and an appeal is duly made against such conviction, the court by whom the conviction was made may, by order, grant a temporary license to be in force during the pendency of the appeal upon such conditions as they think just.

Conviction, &c. not to be quashed for want of form, or removed by certiorari.

54
No conviction or order made in pursuance of this Act, originally or on appeal, relative to any offence, penalty, forfeiture, or summary order, shall he quashed for want of form, or, if made by a court of summary jurisdiction, he removed by certiorari or otherwise, either at the instance of the Crown or of any private party, into any superior court. Moreover, no warrant of commitment in any such matter shall be held void by reason of any defect therein, provided that there is a valid conviction to maintain such warrant, and it is alleged in the warrant that the party has been convicted.

As to record of convictions of licensed persons for offences under Act.

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With respect to the record of convictions of licensed persons for offences under this Act committed by them as such, the following provisions shall have effect in cases where this Act requires the conviction to he recorded on the license; that is to say,

(1) The court before whom any licensed person is accused shall require such person to produce and deliver to the clerk of the court the license under which such person carries on business, and the summons shall state that such production will be required:

(2) If such person is convicted, the court shall cause the short particulars of such conviction, and the penalty imposed, to be endorsed on his license before it is returned to the offender:

(3) The clerk to the licensing justices shall enter the particulars respecting such conviction, or such of them as the case may require, in the register of licenses, kept by him under this Act:

(4) If the clerk to the court he not the clerk to the licensing justices, he shall send forthwith to the last-mentioned clerk notice of such conviction, and of the particulars thereof :

(5) Where the conviction of any such person has the effect of forfeiting the license, or of disqualifying any person or premises for the purposes of this Act, the license shall he retained by the clerk of the court, and notice of such forfeiture and disqualification shall be sent to the licensing officer of the district, and if the clerk to the court is not the clerk to the licensing justices to such last-mentioned clerk, together with the forfeited license.

For protection of owners of licensed premises in cases of offences committed by tenants.

56
Where any tenant of any licensed premises is convicted of an offence against this Act, and such offence is one the repetition of which may render the premises liable to be disqualified from receiving a license for any period, it shall be the duty of the clerk of the licensing justices to serve, in manner provided by this Act, notice of every such conviction on the owner of the premises. Where any order of a court of summary jurisdiction declaring any licensed premises to be disqualified from receiving a license for any period has been made, the court shall cause such order to be served on the owner of such premises, where the owner is not the occupier, with the addition of a statement that the court will hold a petty sessions at a time and place therein specified, at which the owner may appear and appeal against such order on all or any of the following grounds, but on no other grounds :

(a) That notice, as required by this Act, has not been served on the owner of a prior offence which on repetition renders the premises liable to be disqualified from receiving a license at any period; or

(b) That the tenant by whom the offence was committed held under a contract made prior to the commencement of this Act, and that the owner could not legally have evicted the tenant in the interval between the commission of the offence, in respect of which the disqualifying order was made, and the receipt by him of the notice of the immediately preceding offence which on repetition renders the premises liable to be disqualified, from receiving a license at any period; or

(c) That the offence in respect of which the disqualifying order was made occurred so soon after the receipt of such last-mentioned notice that the owner, notwithstanding he had legal power to evict the tenant, could not with reasonable diligence have exercised that power in the interval which occurred between the said notice and the second offence. If the owner appear at the time and place specified, and at such sessions, or any adjournment thereof, satisfy the court that he is entitled to have the order cancelled on any of the grounds aforesaid, the court shall thereupon direct such order to be cancelled, and the same shall be void. In a county the justices in quarter sessions assembled, and in a borough the borough justices, shall make rules in pursuance of which any person other than the owner interested in any licensed premises as mortgagee or otherwise shall be entitled on payment of such sum as may be specified in such rules to receive from the clerk to the licensing justices a similar notice to that which an owner of such premises is entitled to receive under this Act.

As to conviction of licensed persons of more than one offence on same day.

57
Where a licensed person is convicted of more offences than one committed on the same day, the convictions for which are by this Act directed to he recorded on his license, the court by whom he is convicted may, in their discretion, order that one or some only of such convictions shall be so recorded.

Evidence of endorsements and register.

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The registers of licenses kept in pursuance of this Act shall he receivable in evidence of the matters required by this Act to be entered therein. Every endorsement upon a license, and every copy of an entry made in the registers of licenses in pursuance of this Act, purporting to be signed by the clerk to the licensing justices and (in the case of a copy) to be certified to be a true copy, shall be evidence of the matters stated in such endorsement and entry, without proof of the signature or authority of the person signing the same.

Saving for indictments, &c. under other Acts.

59
Nothing in this Act shall prevent any person from being liable to be indicted or punished under any other Act, or otherwise, so that he be not punished twice for the same offence.

“Appeal of the Liquor Traffic Interest to the Working Men of England”
Political Cartoon from the March 16, 1872 issue of
The Leisure Hour:
An Illustrated Magazine for Home Reading

Article by Charles Beard from the April, 1872 issue of
The Theological Review: A Journal of Religious Thought and Life

A Remarkable change has passed over what may be familiarly called the ‘Teetotal' controversy. It has emerged from a social and entered a political phase. The warfare against drunkenness and its attendant evils was formerly waged in detail, from heart to heart, from will to will: the nation now, by the strong help of legislative enactment, is to be made sober in the mass. Men who were once looked upon as harmless fanatics, at worst a hindrance to good fellowship, and the fair mark for convivial sarcasm, are a thorn in the side of candidates, who anxiously ask whether they shall throw in their lot with the total abstainers or the publicans, or meditate whether it may not be possible to conciliate one party without hopelessly alienating the other. For the natural result of the political action of the United Kingdom Alliance has been the organization, under pressure of fear and self-interest, of the brewers and the publicans, and the formation of a powerful party whose programme is all comprised in the single word ‘beer.' And though a Licensing Bill was actually brought forward in the last, and is promised for the present Session of Parliament, we cannot help thinking that the question will remain open for some time to come. The opposition to any decisive interference with the liquor trade is only just waking up to a consciousness of its own strength. There seems to be a general persuasion among politicians that the question is not one with which any government will care to deal, with the near prospect of a possible appeal to the country. And the first result which follows the transference of a question from the arena of social agitation to that of serious political conflict, is a sharp scrutiny of all the principles involved in its proposed settlement; a scrutiny which, though it seems to delay, in reality first makes possible the final issue. What the so-called ‘Permissive Bill' really meant was a matter of comparatively little consequence, so long as it could be counted among the crotchets which well-meaning enthusiasts are always seeking to embody in legislation. But it assumes quite another aspect when it becomes, however remotely, a political possibility.

But before we proceed to discuss the question in its present shape, we have a word to say of the old Teetotallers and their methods of action. They have borne the brunt of some just, and far more unjust obloquy. They were men of one idea. They were in some degree obnoxious to the charge of summing up all virtue in the one negative merit of not drinking. They were singularly incapable of seeing any other side of the controversy than their own, and reluctant to admit that a true zeal for human welfare might exist outside of their own ranks. They pushed their theory to extremes, which repelled men of finer taste and less one-sided philanthropy: they endeavoured to pledge the Bible to a theory which it contradicts. But all these were the errors of a genuine and noble enthusiasm, the excesses of an ardour in itself infinitely to be preferred to the cool indifference to a terrible form of human weakness and misery against which it dashed itself. We have a lively recollection of one or two pioneers of total abstinence thirty years ago; and we must confess that while time and deeper reflection have softened down much that then appeared to us unlovely and even laughable, they have brought out in sharper relief the essential strength and purity of character that lay beneath. At that time, men had not meddled much with physiological theories about alcohol. They had not found out that the wine at the marriage-feast of Cana was the unfermented juice of the grape. What they knew and felt, with an intensity all the more remarkable for the unconsciousness of the fact which surrounded them, was that drunkenness was sapping the springs of manliness, ruining the happiness of homes, bringing young men to dishonoured graves, making the lives of noble and self-denying women one long-drawn torment. And to the heat of their Christian love it was a light thing if by their own voluntary and rigid abstinence from even innocent indulgence, they could strengthen the bias of any irresolute will towards self-control, or by«the force of friendly example establish a wavering intention to good. Their argument—one not easy for the earnest Christian to withstand—was all shut up in Paul's words, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.” Their method—which was Christian at its very heart—was self-denial, not for its own sake, but for the common good, and especially for the good of the weakest. They had a hard battle to fight against social ridicule and contempt: men not wholly coarse misconceived and laughed . at them; and the usual result followed, that they drew back within themselves, pursuing their end with a more exclusive devotion, and going about their labour of sympathy in an ever narrowing spirit. But they were only a little before their age, and the revenges of time have soon manifested themselves on their side. They were the first to discern in its true light the evil which all their efforts have not availed to hinder from undermining the strength of the national character. And if the comparative fruitlessness of their efforts seems to shew that they had only in part divined the true plan of resistance, the force of public opinion which is now rising in stern resolution to abate the unbearable evil, is chiefly due to their perseverance in denouncing wrong, and their patience in enduring obloquy. To those who have bestowed any attention upon the subject, it will seem unnecessary that we should attempt to demonstrate the magnitude of the evil, or to estimate its social and economical results. Perhaps there is another class of readers who would meet any effort of this kind on our part with a half-concealed contempt of teetotal statistics, as either based upon fundamental exaggerations, or capable of being manipulated to bring out any result. The truth is, that no array of figures, however plausible, will convince those who, from happy circumstance, or lack of imagination, or the subtle pleadings of self-interest, fail to realize the facts that life will supply. Men, after all, think most of what meets their own eyes. A Peer, a Chairman of Quarter Sessions, a Cabinet Minister, who when on a journey lives in an hotel, or has a public-house or two on his estate, not too near his park gates, bids us beware of interfering with the habits of Englishmen, who are not a set of sour and morose fanatics, and thinks that if the liquor trade is to be legislated for at all, it ought to be in the direction of setting it free from all excise restrictions. But a City Missionary, who lives in the perpetual sight of drunken women and neglected children, and families settling down into depths of savagery; who finds all his efforts thwarted by this one vice, in the fruitless struggle with which he is spending his strength and giving his life for naught,—cannot look at the matter from such a philosophic eminence and in so calm a light: he will fight the foe with any weapon; and his temptation is to catch at any remedial scheme, no matter how wild and preposterous. This contrast, though actual, is extreme; but its principle is universally applicable. Men who live away from the great centres of population, or who are immersed in literature, or who have none but commercial interests, or who, it must be added, have theological passions too hot, or human sympathies too slow, for benevolence, estimate the evil lightly, and are little touched with the social shame and obligation. Even our great cities are no longer wholes, but collect round one centre incongruous populations: it is easy to live in a fashionable suburb of London or Liverpool, and know nothing of the mass of poverty and vice that seethes and festers eastward and northward. But to those who are compelled to come face to face with the facts, this matter of drunkenness is becoming more and more the great question of the day. It is possible to exaggerate its power of breeding crime, but not to state too largely its efficacy in producing poverty. It is easy to ascribe it to insufficient causes, or to seek to meet it by mistaken remedies, but difficult to over-estimate its success in fostering human wretchedness and degradation. There may be blacker sins, but none which stand so obstinately in the way of individual and social well-being. There may be deeper wrongs against the sanctities of domestic life, but none which bring alter them so large a result of shame and misery. Of the whole host of social evils, this must be first attacked, if we are to entertain any hope of final victory. For habitual drunkenness means an enfeebled will, a dulled conscience, affections not strong enough to fight against a poor physical craving: what chance has even the gospel with a weakened and embruted humanity?

It cannot be too clearly understood, that this question assumes a different aspect according to the chemical and physiological point of view from which we look at it. There are those who consider alcohol, in any quantity and under any disguise, as a poison, in the sense in which prussic acid is a poison, and therefore, like prussic acid, to be taken only in carefully regulated doses, under medical advice. Such persons, if they carried out their principle to its logical consequence (as some of them do), would desire to restrain the sale of this among other poisons ; to put a stop to both the wholesale and retail trade, except so far as they were necessary for medical purposes; to shut up not only the public-house, but the wine-merchant's cellar. In a word, they want to abolish drinking as well as drunkenness. Those, on the other hand, who think that “wine which maketh glad the heart of man” is a good gift of God and a lawful means of refreshment and exhilaration, will not only confine their efforts to the discouragement of drunkenness, without attempting to stop drinking, but even, so far as they go with the sterner ascetics, will be influenced by other motives and choose different methods. And this remark has a practical bearing upon the present state of the question. Outside the various associations which in one form or another are based upon the principle of total abstinence and prohibition, have grown up others, which aim, not at destroying, but at regulating the trade. Many excellent men, who may perhaps have given their adhesion to no formal programme, are anxious, for moral and social reasons, to throw their personal influence into the scale of sobriety. Cannot all these hosts be formed into a united army, and manoeuvred towards a single end? We are constrained to answer, that so long as the fundamental difference of view, to which we have alluded, remains, this cannot be hoped for. The ultimate object is different, however eagerly all may strive towards the same near results. It is better andsafer not to hide real divergence behind a cloud of friendly words, but to be satisfied with as much general concurrence as actually exists. The real danger is, lest advocates of entire prohibition should come to treat those whom they consider as halfhearted friends with less consideration than they are wont to shew to open foes. The partizans of the United Kingdom Alliance can hardly be expected to agree to a compromise with licensing reformers, which necessarily involves the abandonment of their characteristic principle; but, on the other hand, they will be wise to accept as friendly, and to allow free expression and development to every form of protest against the trade as it is at present carried on.

So far as we are aware, no one except the brewers and the publicans is willing to leave matters in their present state. But when we come to ask what is to be done, the answer is threefold. Say some bold theorists, throw the trade entirely open, and treat it just as you would any other. On the contrary, reply the Permissive-Bill advocates, place the power of absolute prohibition in the hands of the majority of the ratepayers of a given district. And between these are a class of politicians, larger, perhaps, even though less eager, than either of the others, who believe that by modification of the licensing laws, and police supervision thoroughly carried out, the trade may be brought within legitimate limits, and the misery produced by drunkenness diminished to as great an extent as can be effected by legislation. And in what follows, we propose to give reasons which have satisfied our own mind that this middle course is the one which offers least practical difficulty, combined with the fairest prospect of good result.

Those, then, who wish to throw the trade entirely open, begin by denying the existence of a constant ratio between the number of places where drink is sold and the amount of drinking, and point to statistics which in their opinion support this view. Take, for instance, the following table, which compares the number of apprehensions for drunkenness in Liverpool during the last five years, with that of the public-houses and beer-houses actually doing business:

Thus, while the number of public-houses remains substantially the same, and the beer-houses have decreased one-half, the apprehensions for drunkenness are greater by 50 percent. But to make these figures convincing, something more is necessary than merely to state them. We must know, first, that the number of persons arrested for drunkenness in a particular town, may be accepted as a fair test of that town's want of sobriety. Surely it is a very familiar remark in regard to statistics of this kind, that an important factor in their production is afforded by the instructions given to the police, and that a little increase or relaxation of severity at headquarters will send the figures in this column of criminal returns up and down in a very remarkable way. And then, secondly, we should know whether any other causes were at work to increase or diminish drunkenness during the period to which reference is made. No one supposes that the multiplication of drinking-places is the sole cause of drinking, or that drinking would cease were they all shut up; still less would any reasonable person expect that habits which had been fostered through many generations, and which, notwithstanding the closing of these houses, can find the means of gratification at any street corner, should suddenly be transformed. It will be time enough to appeal to statistics when the policy of restricting licences has had as long a trial as the present plan; when its results can be estimated on an average of years; when a new generation, grown up under its influence, has replaced the old. Till then, it is more to the purpose to inquire whether, after all, there be not something in the nature of the trade itself which takes it out of the ordinary operation of the law of supply and demand.