320 Proceedings of the Bntish Association for 1850. 



the duty upon which quantity amounted to £5,793,381. The 

 wholesale cost, including the duty, would probably amount to about 

 £8,000,000, a sum which would, however, be very far short of that 

 paid by the consumers. In all trades which, like that of the distil- 

 lation of spirits, are carried on for the supplying of very numerous 

 customers, and where the sum paid at any one time by each indivi- 

 dual is very small, the retail profits must necessarily be great, in 

 order to reimburse the expenses attendant on the trade, and to afford 

 a living to those engaged in it. It may likewise be fairly assumed, 

 that something greater than the average rate of profit would be re- 

 quired in order to induce persons with the necessary capital to embark 

 in a business accompanied by, or at least liable to, circumstances of 

 an unpleasant character. It is not possible to make any precise cal- 

 culations of those expenses and profits ; but a good deal of trouble 

 has been taken in order to make as near an approximation as possible 

 to the truth, and it has been given as the opinion of several distillers 

 who have been consulted, tl^at the consumer pays for every gallon of 

 spirits used three times the amount of the duty. Assuming this 

 estimate, it would appear that the cost of British and Irish distilled 

 spirits to the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, 

 in 1849, was £17,381,643, thus divided :— 



England .... £8,838,768 

 Scotland .... 5,369,868 

 Ireland .... 3,173,007 



£17,381,643 



To this must be added the sum spent for rum, nearly the whole of 

 which is used by the same classes as consume the gin and whisky, of 

 which the cost is here estimated. The consumption of rum in 1849 

 amounted to 3,044,758 imperial gallons, the duty paid on which 

 was £1,142,855. The class of consumers being the same, and the 

 means of distribution nearly, if not wholly, identical, it may fairly 

 be assumed that the cost to the consumer bears an equal relation to 

 the duty with that assigned to British spirits, in which case the ex- 

 penditure for this kind of spirit will reach £3,428,565, making the 

 whole outlay of the people for these two descriptions of ardent spirits 

 £20,810,208, thus locally divided- 

 England .... £8,205,242 

 Scotland .... 6,2«5,114 



Ireland .... 6,319,852 



£20,810,208 



If, for the purpose of the calculation, we assume that the population 

 of the three divisions of the United Kingdom was the same in 1849 



