178 report — 1877. 



This indicates one of two conclusions — either that the habitual drunkards are a very 

 numerous class as compared with the thieves, or else that owing to the shortness of 

 the punishments for drunkenness the same habitual drunkards are committed oyer 

 and over again. The statistics do not enable the author to analyze exactly which 

 is the true solution ; but it is obvious that if the habitual drunkards are more nume- 

 rous than the known thieves, something like the punishment of thieves should be 

 applied to such a formidable class. If, on the other hand, it is the same persons being 

 repeatedly committed within the year that swells the number, it indicates how in- 

 effectual the petty imprisonments inflicted are to reform and check the habitual 

 drunkards so punished. The calamitous effects upon the victims themselves of 

 allowing habitual drunkards to proceed in their career unchecked is shown by some 

 other figures. The deaths from excessive drinking in a year in Ireland (128) are more 

 numerous than the manslaughters, murders, and deaths aggravated by neglect (126). 

 In a portion of the population of England and Wales equal to that of Ireland the 

 proportion is still more marked, 115 deaths from excessive drinking, as compared 

 with 93 from manslaughter, murders, and deaths aggravated by neglect. In com- 

 paring the serious crime of Ireland with that of England and Wales, it has been 

 for many years from 30 to 40 per cent, less in Ireland than in a corresponding 

 population in England. One marked exception occurs to this rale; in crimes 

 against human life taken together the proportion is the other way. Takings recent 

 year for example, the Irish figures are greater than the English by about eight per 

 cent. Taking a selection of these carefully examined, it appears that 4G per cent, 

 belong to the less serious class, and 54 per cent, to the most serious class. Of the 

 most serious cases, 57 in number, 27, or nearly one half, were connected with 

 drunkenness or drink — a very large proportion, compared with G from party or 

 faction disputes, G from malicious ill-feeling, 5 from agrarian crimes between 

 landlord and tenant, 4 from immorality, 3 from protection of game, and 2 from 

 robbery. Of the 243,145 offences determined summarily in a single year in 

 Ireland, no less than 102,304, or 42 per cent., were for drunkenness, or drunk 

 and disorderly. Of the 192,857 classed punishments, 170,056, or 86 per cent., were 

 fines, and only 47 per cent, other punishments. In England and Wales 24 per 

 cent, were other vices punished, and only 79 per cent, fined. From the aspect of 

 these figures there can be little doubt that the habitual drunkards figured largely in 

 these respective cases of fines, which occupied so much of the attention of the courts 

 and police. One other aspect of the statistics should be noticed. Notwithstanding 

 the general and continuous decrease in serious crime in Ireland, when there is an 

 increase in convictions for drunkenness, the author has generally had to notice an 

 increase in offences indicating a low moral tone, such as aggravated assaults on 

 women and children, cruelty to animals, and assaidts on peace officers. The State 

 has commenced in England and Scotland protection from one species of parental 

 neglect, that of not supplying education. The necessity of this protection, so far as 

 England is concerned, was shown by the fact that in 1875 there were in England and 

 Wales 21,334 convictions for offences against the Elementary School Act. In Ire- 

 land we have no similar protection, as there is no provision for compulsory education 

 in Ireland. The analogy of protecting children by these provisions as to compulsory 

 education suggests protection of them in other respects against the results of undue 

 expenditure in drink, connected as it so frequently is with habitual drunkenness. 

 The remedies suggested were : — 



1. That punishment for drunkenness should take the form of more lengthened 

 detentions, with a view towards reformation ; in other words, that punishment 

 should be of a reformatory character. 



2. That when reformation became hopeless, the drink-craving should be treated 

 as a physical disease to be treated like any other form of insanity. 



3. That the protection of children and wives of men repeatedly convicted of 

 drunkenness should commence at an earlier stage than at present, by the men being, 

 after imprisonment, at first let out on license like younger persons released from 

 reformatories, witli a certain supervision and watchfulness over their conduct to 

 their wives and children, to see that they were adequately cared for according 

 to the means of the parent. 



