to their families, which of course must starve, or be thrown on the parish. And as this evil (wherein the masters may perhaps find their own account, by drawing back the greatest part of their workmen's wages) will naturally go on increasing, and extend to most other trades where numbers of workmen are employed, your Committee apprehend, it may (if not timely prevented) affect our manufactures in the most sensible manner, and be of the last consequence to our trade and welfare. "Under this head it may be proper also to take some notice of the pernicious influence, the permitting of chandlers, and other inferior trades, to deal in this destructive liquor, or any other strong-waters, has in this town, on the servants of the nobility and gentry; it being too common a practice among chandlers and others, where servants are continually going on one occasion or other, to tempt and press them to drink, and even to give them drams of this liquor, which we may reasonably suppose must be paid for by the masters, either in the price, weight, or measure of the goods they are sent for, and which, besides the immediate damage, encourages them to wrong their masters in greater matters, and, as we conceive, may be one cause of the great complaints that are made against servants. "And if we may judge what will happen in other workhouses now erecting, by what has already happened by that of St. Giles's in the Fields, we have reason to fear, that the violent fondness and desire of this liquor, which unaccountably possesses all our poor, may prevent in great measure the good effects proposed by them, and which in all other respects seem very hopeful and promising; it appearing by the return from Holborn division, wherein that workhouse is situate, that notwithstanding all the care that has been taken, Geneva is clandestinely brought in among the poor there, and that they will suffer any punishment or inconveniences rather than live without it, though they cannot avoid seeing its fatal effects by the death of those amongst them who had drank most freely of it; and it is found by experience there, that those who use this liquor are not only the most lazy and unfit for work, but also the most turbulent and ungovernable, and on that account several of them have been turned out, and left to struggle with the greatest wants abroad, which they submit to, rather than they will discover who brought in the Geneva to them, though they have been offered to be forgiven on that condition. "Your Committee, having thus laid before you the numbers of the houses and places wherein Geneva and other strong-waters are sold, as also some of the many mischievous effects derived from them, submit to the consideration and judgment of the Sessions, how far it is in their power, and by what means, to suppress this great nuisance; or whether any, and what application to superiors may be proper in order to a more effectual remedy. "_Jan. 13, 1725._