794- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment, not the county. The next effect, following from numerous 

 repetitions of the offense of drunkenness, is that the habitual drinker 

 becomes the common drunkard. Whenever he is proceeded against 

 let the liquor-seller pay not only the costs of the prosecution, but also 

 those charges for his detention and support which the place of his set- 

 tlement is now required to pay. As to the connection between crime 

 and drunkenness as cause and effect I am not entirely certain. There 

 is much to be said in favor of the view that the drunkard and the 

 criminal are liable to be one and the same because the moral diathesis 

 that tends to drunkenness also tends to crime ; that intemperance and 

 crime are coefficients, and that the criminal impulse is not the offspring 

 of intemperance. There can be no doubt, however, that vastly the 

 greater part of the abject poverty that requires the intervention of 

 public assistance is the result of intemperance. For the purposes of 

 the present discussion I claim that it all is. All such poverty the 

 liquor-seller should be required to relieve. 



There are, then, three classes of expenses thrown upon the commu- 

 nity which arise as the direct result of the use of intoxicating liquor^ 

 and indirectly from its sale : the expense of prosecuting simple drunk- 

 enness, the expense of prosecuting and maintaining common drunkards, 

 and the expense of supporting the poor; and these expenses should be 

 placed where they belong — on the liquor-seller. 



The plan, then, would be to grant licenses for the sale of intoxicating 

 liquors to all applicants who are able to furnish bonds in a sufficient 

 sum to pay their respective shares of the expenses mentioned as as- 

 sessed upon them at the close of the year for which the licenses are 

 granted. Whenever a person is prosecuted for simple drunkenness 

 and is unable to pay the fine, an effort should be made to induce him, 

 by a remission of a portion of his term of imprisonment or otherwise, 

 to disclose the person from whom he purchased his liquor. His dis- 

 closure should become of record in the case. Whenever a person is 

 proceeded against as a common drunkard, the place to which he has 

 habitually resorted should be ascertained in the same way, if possible. 

 After the end of the year for which licenses have been granted, the 

 apportionment of the sums to be paid by every liquor-seller should be 

 referred to some tribunal, which should examine the record in all 

 prosecutions named above, should ascertain the costs of such prosecu- 

 tions, and the expenses of supporting the poor throughout the district 

 over which it is given jurisdiction. It should have power to apportion 

 the sums to which such costs and expenses amount among all the 

 licensees in such parts as seem to them, after hearing the parties inter- 

 ested, justly proportioned to the expenses which they have severally 

 occasioned. How this tribunal should be formed is not now a matter 

 necessary to be discussed, but it should probably not have a less ex- 

 tended jurisdiction territorially than a county. It might be composed 

 of the county commissioners and one or more of the police magistrates. 



