THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. i 79 



" Within a few months after it passed, Tindal tells us, the commissioners of 

 excise themselves became sensible of the impossibility or unadvisableness of 

 carrying it rigorously into execution. . . . Smollett, who has drawn so dark a 

 picture of the state of things the act was designed to put down, has painted in 

 colors equally strong the mischiefs which it produced: 'The populace,' he 

 writes, ' soon broke through all restraint. Though no license was obtained, and 

 no duty paid, the liquor continued to be sold in all corners of the streets ; in- 

 formers were intimidated by the threats of the people ; and the justices of the 

 peace, either from indolence or corruption, neglected to put the law in execu- 

 tion.' In fact, in course of time, 'it appeared,' he adds, 'that the consumption 

 of gin had considerably increased every year since those heavy duties were im- 

 posed.' " ' 



When in 1743 this Act was repealed, it was shown during the de- 

 bates that 



"The quantity of gin distilled in England, which in 1684, when the business 

 was introduced into this country, had been 527,000 gallons, had risen to 948,000 

 in 1694, to 1,375,000 in 1704, to 2,000,000 in 1714, to 3,520,000 in 1724, to 

 4,947,000 in 1734, and to not less than 7,160,000 in 1742. . . . Retailers 

 were deterred from vending them (spirituous liquors) by the utmost encourage- 

 ment that could be given to informers. . . . The prospect of raising money 

 by detecting their (unlicensed retailers') practices incited many to turn informa- 

 tion into a trade; and the facility with which the crime was to be proved en- 

 couraged some to gratify their malice by perjury, and others tbe'ir avarice ; so 

 that the multitude of informations became a public grievance, and the magis- 

 trates themselves complained that the law was not to be executed. The perju- 

 ries of informers were now so flagrant and common, that the people thought all 

 informations malicious ; or, at least, thinking themselves oppressed by the law, 

 they looked upon every man that promoted its execution as their enemy ; and 

 therefore now began to declare war against informers, many of whom they 

 treated with great cruelty, and some they murdered in the streets." 2 



Here, then, with absence of the looked-for benefit, there went pro- 

 duction of unlooked-for evils, vast in amount. To recur to our figure, 

 the original warp, instead of being made less by these direct blows, 

 was made greater ; while other distortions, serious in kind and degree, 

 were created. And beyond the encouragement of fraud, lying, malice, 

 cruelty, murder, contempt of law, and the other couspicuous crooked- 

 nesses named, multitudinous minor twists of sentiment and thought 

 were caused or augmented. An indirect demoralization was added to 

 a direct increase of the vice aimed at. 



Joining with the prevalent fallacy that results are proportionate to 

 appliances, the general political bias has the further effect of fostering 

 an undue faith in political forms. This tendency to ascribe every 

 thing to the visible proximate agency, and to forget the hidden pow- 

 ers without which the agency is worthless this tendency which makes 

 the child gazing at a steam-engine ascribe every thing to the combina- 



1 Craik, in " Pictorial History," vol. iv., p. 853. 



1 Ibid. 



