Report from the Select Committee on Habitual Drunkards ; together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. Select Committee on Habitual Drunkards.
Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Habitual Drunkards ; together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    That tlie absence of all power to check the downward course of a drunkard, and the urgent necessity of providing it, has been dwelt upon by nearly every witness ; and the legal control of an habitual inebriate, either in a reformatory or in a private dwelling, is recommended, in the belief that many cases of death resulting from intoxication, including suicides and homicides, may thus be prevented. That this power is obtained easily, at moderate cost, and free from the danger of abuse and undue infringement of personal liberty, has been stated in evidence, by quotations from American and Canadian Statutes (Question 2620) as well as by the uitnesses from America. That though the habit of frequent or prolonged intoxication leads in the end to insanity, yet there is a difference between the paroxysm of intoxication and insanity nroper, so distinct as to forbid the plea, in bar of punishment, that an offence ivas committed while drunk ; still placing inebriates in lunatic asylums (except for a very brief period, <?.y., during a paroxysm of delirium tremens) is improper, and should not be allowed. The presence of recovering inebriates in an ordinary hospital for the insane is prejudicial to the other inmates in various important particulars, while the discipline and diet needed for the insane is unsuitable for the convalescing inebriate. That the question of providing more efficient laws against initial or casual drunkenness arises so naturally out of this inquiry that suggestions to remedy the avowed inadequacy of the law are here offered. That the fine of 5 s. imposed by the 4th and 21st of James I. was a much' heavier fine at the time it was enacted than it is now, and it might be expedient to raise it to a sum not exceeding 40 The fine should be recorded ai^ainst the individual in a Drunkards Register, and be made progressive ; and to the fine should be added the costs often incurred by the police or the public in conveying the offender to the station. This should apply to cases of common street drunkenness usually classed as drunk and incapable. That after three convictions within twelve months, the magistrates should be empowered to require the ofiender to tinci a surety or sureties for sobriety and goi;d conduct for a fixed period, and in default of the same, or in case the surety is forfeited by a fresh offence, then to sentence the offender to a consider- able period of detention in an industrial reforuiatory for inebriates as hereafter recommended. The system of sureties has been applied with excellent results in Sheffield; and though it appears practicable under the common law, it would be well to repeal the old statutes and enact new. There is good reason for believing that such a measure would not only have much restrictive influence on the ilrunkard, but would bring the efforts of relatives and friends, and especially of the surety, into active exercise. That all fines and convictions should be registered and recorded in the Drunkards Register, and the Court of Petty Sessions should have the power of estreating the recognisances when forfeited, without being obliged to resort to the present slow and expensive mode of recovery. That when an offender has been called upon to find sureties, and has been unable to do so, or when by a fresh offence he has forfeited them, or when he has been called upon a second time to find sureties, he should be deemed and registered as an Habitual Drunkard, and as such may be sent to an industrial inebriate reformatory by magistrate's order for a term of not less than three nor more than twelve months, the time to be governed by the frequency of the offence. That v.hen acts of violence or other offences are superadded to the <irunken- ness the oixlinary punishment awarded by law to those offences should be carried out, and if the offender comes under the definition of an habitual drunkard, a committal to a reformatory may form part of the sentence, or it may be left to the discretion of the magistrate to send him at once to an inebriate reformatory. That it is in evidence as well from those who have conducted and are still conducting reformatories for inebriates in Great Britain, as by those who are managers of similar institutions in America, that sanatoria, or inebriate reform- atories