[Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.].

Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/30 (page 48)
    Similar instances are given,. and reference is made to the “Mortality Committee’s Report,” presented a few years previously to the Health Committee. The conclusions arrived at by the Mortality Committee are expressed in the following words:— “ The result of the enquiry is the conviction, supported by a mass of evidence, that the proximate causes of the increased death-rate are intemperance, indigence, and over¬ crowding—these two latter being found in the train of intemperance, although all three act and re-act on each other as cause and effect.” The chief recommendation of the Committee was, that the legislature should place greater restrictions upon the sale of Intoxicating Liquors. The mass of evidence referred to was obtained from medical meu, the clergy of various denominations, relieving-officers, house-agents, and others, and it abounds in instances similar to those given by Drs. Parkes and Sanderson. DRUNKENNESS PREVAILS IN PROPORTION TO THE NUMBER OF PUBLIC-HOUSES. On this point, the testimony of those who gave evidence before the Mortality Committee is very emphatic; the statement is reiterated over and over again, to the effect that “the more numerous the public-houses the greater the drunkenness, and the greater the drunkenness the greater the mortality.” This is the substance of the evidence given by medical men of great experience in Liverpool, including Dr. Gee, Dr. Cameron, and Dr. Shearer; Father Nugent, Rev. Dr. White, and others. The pith of the evidence and Reports of Drs. Parkes and Sanderson, and of the Mortality Committee, may be expressed in one sentence, thus:— Drunkenness absorbs the means of providing proper food, clothing, and house accommodation; the result is over-crowding, exposure to cold, starvation and death; and drunkenness is increased with the increase of public-houses. The accompanying Map is a copy of that given in Dr. Parkes’ Report of the block of streets selected on account of the high death-rate in the locality. The public-houses and gin-palaces are marked, and their size given to scale from measurement by a practical surveyor. The total street frontage of the whole of the block is 2,914 yards; the total frontage of all public-houses and gin-palaces is 425 yards, or one-seventh of the total frontage. The number of public-houses and gin-palaces in the block is twenty, the population 5000, or one public-house for every fifty families of five persons. The “ takings ” in each gin-palace per week cannot be less than £25, and in some £100 would be near the mark. We1 shall be within the mark, therefore, in estimating that one with another, each family in this locality spends from 10/ per week and upwards in drink. This sum, if properly applied, would go far to provide house accommodation, food, clothing, and other necessaries of life and health. As the block in question would probably be one of the first to be dealt with in Liverpool under the “ Artizans’ Dwellings Bill,” it has been suggested that the Local Sanitary Authority should be enabled to get possession of the public-houses and gin-palaces within and around unhealthy areas where the number is found to be excessive, in the same manner as it is proposed in the Bill to obtain possession of other property in such areas, in order to convert such public-houses to other purposes, providing that the licenses of such public-houses shall lapse upon compulsory purchase, and not be removed to other localities. Issued by the Liverpool Permissive Bill Association, 42, Renshaw Street, where every information may be obtained. N. SMYTH, Agent. Liverpool Series,