a very large proportion of the crimes of violence brought before us are traceable either directly or indirectly to the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors;" and finally the late Sir William Bovill, who was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, wrote: "I have no hesitation in stating that in the north of England, and in most of the large towns and manufacturing and mining districts, intemperance is directly or indirectly the cause of by far the largest proportion of the crimes that have come under my observation." If any further proof of the intimate association which exists between habits of intemperance and criminal lives, the reader might be referred to some of the evidence given before the Habitual Drunkards' Committee by some of those who are in charge of prisons in England. Thus, the governor of the prison at Kingston-upon-Hull stated that 79 per cent. of the prisoners in that prison attributed their fall to habits of drink.'

2 350. Connection between Drunkenness and certain kinds of Crime.-The words of the Judges quoted in the last paragraph would lead the reader to suppose that drunkenness, when it led to crimes, was generally productive of crimes of violence. This might have been concluded upon other grounds than those of judicial experience. Drunkenness has, as we have seen, the effect of depriving a man of those very human qualities of control and reason, the effect of letting loose passion and lust; and the direct offspring of these is violence. But we have further seen that the drunkard is almost invariably of low moral tone: he is, after all, a man ruled by the craving of his organism rather than by the high and pure desires of his mind. When such a man is deprived of reason, what can one expect from his physical force. No habits of peace and humanity are there to rule in the interregnum between the rules of reason. When he has his reason, one vice checks another: thus, his miserliness may check his lust, his fear may limit the exhibition of his hatred; but when his cunning is asleep under the influence of stimulants, these evil tendencies are no longer reigned or governed. No wonder, then, that for the most part the crimes which are

It may be well to consult Dr. Sabben's work upon "Drunkenness, Crime, and Insanity."

directly due to excessive use of intoxicants are crimes of violence. But one or two curious circumstances have been observed in relation to this subject which bear upon the question we have in hand. Thus, Sheriff Barclay of Perth has placed in the hands of Dr. Peddie, who has devoted much and intelligent attention to this subject, the notes of several interesting cases in which there was a curious uniformity in the character of the crimes from time to time committed by those who repeatedly indulged. From the year 1844 to the year 1865, one woman was committed to prison 137 times for being drunk, and when drunk her invariable practice was to smash windows. Another man, when he was drunk, stole nothing but bibles. He was an old soldier who had been wounded in the head: when drunk, the objects of his thieving propensity were always bibles, and he was transported for the seventh act of bible stealing. Then, according to Dr. Peddie, another stole nothing but spades; one woman nothing but shoes; another nothing but shawls; while a man who was brought before Sheriff Barclay and indicted for stealing a tub, was found guilty, and transported for the offence, it appearing that he had been found guilty of stealing on seven previous ocessions, and that upon all of these, save one, the offence consisted of tub-stealing.'

351. The relation between Drunkenness and Insanity. The cases alluded to above would probably lead any one to surmise that there must be a close relation between drunkenness and insanity. The curious uniformity of the crimes alluded to would of itself suggest abnormal mental action which produces acts curiously out of relation to the environing circumstances of the individual who is affected, and it would seem that there was considerable incongruity in six consecutive thefts of tubs. But there is ample evidence upon this point. Thus, Dr. Skae, late medical superintendent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, stated to the committee of the House of Commons his belief that of the males admitted into the asylum of which he had the charge, the insanity had been brought on by drinking in 16 per cent., and

1 See evidence of Dr. Peddie before the Habitual Drunkards' Committee.

that of the females admitted the insanity had been brought about by the same cause in 7 per cent. Dr. Crichton Browne, of the West Riding Asylum at Wakefield, when he gave evidence before the same committee, stated that having taken special means of making his inquiry exhaustive and complete, he found that of 404 cases of insanity, 58 were due to intemperaace, which gives a little over 15 per cent., and that that corresponded with the results of an inquiry which he had undertaken at the instance of Archdeacon Sandford, in which he found that 75 cases out of 500 admitted into his asylum were directly due to inebriety, which gives an average of 15 per cent. of the cases coming under his notice.' His conclusions were strikingly confirmed by the evidence both of Dr. Arthur Mitchell, one of the commissioners in lunacy for Scotland, and by Mr. Mould, superintendent of the lunatic asylum in Cheshire. M. Lunier, too, in an instructive article, maintains that there is a striking increase of insanity in France, that that increase is an increase in the number of cases of general paralysis, and that that is due to the excessive indulgence in absinthe."

352. Indirect Effects of Drunkenness upon Mental Health. We have not in this place so much to do with the indirect effects of intemperance upon mental health. These are, however, striking and calamitous. Many injuries to the head are received during drunkenness, and these in many cases lead to mental disease. Not only does the conduct of those husbands, sons, or brothers, who indulge in this vice cause sorrow, anxiety, poverty, and distress to wives and fathers, and others whose hopes are centered and whose support depends upon this erring individual, not only does he cause misery, evil, and disease, to those who are about him, but his sins are visited upon those who come after him. The next age has to do penance for this. The children have to

'See Report Habitual Drunkards, p. 21, Question 447.

2 See Report, p. 64.

Du role que jouent les boissons alcooleques dans l'augmentation du nombre de cas de Folie et de Suicide; Anales Medico-Psychologiques, 5 serie, t. vii., Mai 1872, p. 321.

See article on Cranial Injuries and Mental Disease, vols. i. and ii. of the West Riding Asylum Medical Reports.

suffer because their parents sinned. It was a shrewd question that of the man who asked Christ, "Was it this man or his parents sinned, Lord, that he was born blind?" Many are born mentally blind in consequence of this debasing vice of the parents. The principle of hereditary transmission has been already sufficiently illustrated in the course of this work, but in connection with no past conduct is future suffering so strikingly displayed as in connection with habits of intemperance. In a very large number of cases, the children of drunken parents become themselves drunkards; in other cases the effects of continued intemperance are to be found in reformatories and prisons; and Dr. Thompson of the Perth Penitentiary has shown that an extraordinary amount of idiocy was caused by a deterioration of the constitutions of parents which was caused by habitual intemperance, and that a large amount of epilepsy and paralysis, and other nervous and mental affects, were traceable to the same cause.2 Dr. Peddie, in his evidence, remarked, while speaking of dipsomania: "This disease, therefore, may be acquired springing out of vicious courses, but in a large proportion of instances, I believe that habitual drunkards inherit the proclivity from drunken parents."

353. The Kinds of Drunkenness. It is, it seems to us, necessary to distinguish several kinds of drunkenness, and the appreciation of the distinctions which exist between each of these will go far to make the relation of drunkards to the law and to their fellow-citizens easily understood. First, there is the accidental drunkard. Any man may get drunk by accident. Children, who know little of the effects of alcoholic liquors, are apt, when these are first presented to them, to drink to excess, and it is only when the next morning's wakening comes with a head full of wonderful aches instead of wonderful dreams that the child learns that there was "death in the pot." Men may be led astray by the hilarity of some

See Evidence of Mr. Henry Webster before the Habitual Drunkards' Committee. * See Edinburgh Medical Journal for 1858. Dr. Howe of Massachusetts, it appears from the statement of one of the witnesses examined before Dr. Dalrymple's committee, affirms that out of 300 idiots, which came under his notice, 145 had drunken parents.

occasion, by the persuasions of friends, by physical feelings which prompt to relief by means of stimulants, and may become drunk. The various stages in an ordinary fit of drunkenness have already been described. It has been remarked with truth that in a fit of ordinary drunkenness we have an epitome of an attack of mania. And it is to be remembered that during the continuance of the influence of this poison the man is to all intents and purposes insane. It is true that the attack is only temporary, but so are many incursions of mental disease: it is true that the cause of the aberration is one which the ordinary habits of the system will counteract and remove, but that remark is equally true of many of the causes of insanity. But, second, we have regular drunkards. These get drunk when it suits them. They are sober all day, and transact their business with sense and discretion, but they get drunk regularly at night; or it may be that the indulgence of this propensity comes at rarer intervals. Still, there is a regularity to be noted in connection with these "bouts." These are really sane drunkards. They have a complete control over their passions, but they voluntarily throw the reins on its neck. They could resist temptation if they chose: they do resist temptation upon all occasions when indulgence would be inconvenient or dangerous, but on other occasions they do not care to resist. Then, third, there is a class of drinkers who scarcely deserve to be called drunkards, and who must nevertheless be regarded by those who would understand the true relation of this indulgence in liquors to pathology. This class has got the name of tipplers. Sir David Lindsay in one of his poems speaks of some who were "ever dying and never dead," and this third class might be well spoken of as "ever drinking and never drunk." But these men who soak or tipple very frequently come under the cognizance of the medical psychologist, although their names may not appear on the books that are kept at the police cells. It is much to be feared that this class is on the increase. Many men boast of being "seasoned casks," meaning thereby that they can drink a great deal without showing the symptoms of intoxication; but the boast is but little, for even these men cannot escape the consequences of their acts, and a decadence of bodily and mental health is the too common