No case against the United Kingdom Alliance and the permissive bill : a reprint and review of a pamphlet issued by the executive committee of the Provincial Licensed Victuallers' Defence League, entitled "The case against the United Kingdom Alliance and the permissive bill" / dedicated by the Executive Council of the United Kingdom Alliance to the sober judgement of the British Parliament and public.

Date:
[between 1872 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: No case against the United Kingdom Alliance and the permissive bill : a reprint and review of a pamphlet issued by the executive committee of the Provincial Licensed Victuallers' Defence League, entitled "The case against the United Kingdom Alliance and the permissive bill" / dedicated by the Executive Council of the United Kingdom Alliance to the sober judgement of the British Parliament and public. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    public opinion, because the Permissive P>ill is not to operate without the desire of the large body of the ratepayers. Another restrictive experiment has been tried, and is still on trial, in Scotland. It is known as the Forbes Mackenzie Act, and was passed in 1853. It may be fittingly and adequately described as a Maine Liquor Law for Sundays, all places for the sale of liquors being absolutely and entirely closed on that day, except to lodgers and bona-fide travellers—an expression that has caused much difficulty in construction. There is no doubt that the law is evaded. In Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, we are told that “ various devices have been attempted to evade the stringency of the pro¬ visions, the most successful of which has been the plan of forming clubs with a nominal entrance-fee, where the members have stores of their own, from which they can be supplied in the club-house. The police returns also show that numerous arrests for drunkenness continue to be made on Sunday, a fact which proves that drink can be and is still obtained by those who desire it.” But the most complete account of the working of the act is contained in an elaborate historical report by Mr. John Walsh, superintendent of the Perthshire police, and from it the subjoined extracts are taken :— “ The expected reformation is to all appearance as far off' as ever. This condition of things does not exist because the Public-houses Acts have not been put into fair operation, for few acts have been as well enforced. * * * The source from which mischief proceeds is the ‘ shebeens/ This evil cannot be laid at the doors of the public-house keepers, but sprang into existence on the hours of the regular trader being curtailed ; and their con¬ tinuance is due to the difficulty of detection, and the smallness of the penalty and imprisonment imposed, on a conviction taking place. Shebeens, as they now exist, are not frequented except at the time the regular licensed houses are closed, unless it be by those who have given themselves up to the practice of every kind of vice, and have no home. A considerable quantity of drink is sold in these houses every day, but Sunday is the principal one for business. A person going into the lane or street in which there is a number of these houses would, in all probability, observe no movement amongst the inhabi¬ tants ; whether shebeens existed there or not he could not tell ; but if two or three constables go in (one is of little use in such a case) they would see a movement. No sooner do they enter at the one end, than all those standing at the doors apparently taking the air, disappear, and preparations are quickly made in case of a visit. All those houses which, before the constables appeared, had their little parties sitting drinking, are at once so changed as to cause one to imagine that the Maine Liquor Law was in force in that district ; but no sooner do they pass on to another part of the town, than the state of matters existing before they appeared is resumed. As it is not in the shebeen keeper’s house where he generally keeps his drink, but in the house of some friend, it is most difficult for the police to make a detection. Large quantities of drink are also carried away, to be drank elsewhere ; but it is only to those whom the shebeen keeper knows well will not inform upon him that he sells it to.” From all which it would appear that the chief effect of the Forbes Mackenzie Act has been to substitute secret drinking, even with all its con¬ comitant evils, for the open, responsible, regulated, and respectable trade which it has supplanted. The Sunday Maine Liquor Law in Scotland.