260 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



male in Chichester drinks every day, and drinks deeply, 

 also allowing for market-day, when farmers and others 

 who come into the town on business no doubt consume 

 a good deal of beer and spirits, how is it possible for so 

 many licensed houses to exist? 



The publicans themselves told me how it was 

 managed. They assert, and complain bitterly, that 

 there are thirty or forty licensed houses too many 

 in Chichester, and that if they had to pay anything 

 approaching to the rents paid for houses of this descrip- 

 tion in other towns they could not live. Fortunately 

 (and this is the silver lining to the poor pubUcan's 

 cloud) the rents are nominal, and in very many in- 

 stances the houses are rent free. The brewers own 

 them, and find it more to their profit to give the house 

 rent free than to close it. The brewers, in fact, pay a 

 heavy premium to the drink-sellers, lest any of their 

 seventy precious licences should be lost. 



As there are some extremists about just now, it 

 is perhaps as well to say that I do not agree with 

 them ; and that, though not so enthusiastic as a clerical 

 acquaintance of mine, who assures me that he " simply 

 adores gin," I am by no means an abstainer. Wine is 

 among the kindly fruits of the earth which I appre- 

 ciate, and failing that I can drink either ale or stout, 

 or a mixture of both. But the perpetual swilling in 

 Chichester is enough to turn the stomach of even the 

 most tolerant man. 



And the clergy and ministers of the gospel — there 



