The next chapter in the history of licensing has to do with spirits, and is very instructive. Spirits were not a native product like beer; brandy was introduced from France, gin from the Netherlands and whisky from Ireland; but down to the year 1690 the consumption was small. The home manufacture was strictly limited, and high duties on imported spirits rendered them too dear for the general public unless smuggled. Consequently the people had not acquired the taste for them. But in 1690 distilling was thrown open to any one on the payment of very trifling duties, spirits became extremely cheap and the consumption increased with great rapidity. Regulation of the retail traffic was soon found to be necessary, and by an act passed in 1700-1701, the licensing requirements already existing for ale-house keepers were extended to persons selling distilled liquors for consumption on the premises. A new class of public-houses in the shape of spirit bars grew up. In the year 1732 a complete and detailed survey of all the streets and houses in London was carried out by William Maitland, F.R.S. Out of a total of 95,968 houses he found the following: brew-houses 171, inns 207, taverns 447, ale-houses 5975, brandy-shops 8659; total number of licensed houses for the retail sale of liquor 15,288, of which considerably more than one-half were spirit bars. The population was about three-quarters of a million. About one house in every six was licensed at this time, and that in spite of attempts made to check the traffic by restrictive acts passed in 1728-1729. The physical and moral evils caused by the excessive consumption of spirits were fully recognized; an additional duty of 5s. a gallon was placed on the distiller, and retailers were compelled to take out an excise licence of £20 per annum. The object was to make spirits dearer and therefore less accessible. At the same time, with a view to lessening the number of houses, the licensing procedure of the justices was amended by the provision that licences should only be granted at a general meeting of the justices acting in the division where the applicant resided, thus abolishing the power conferred by the original licensing act, of any two justices to grant a licence. This change, effected in 1729, was a permanent improvement, though it did not prevent the existence of the prodigious numbers of houses recorded by Maitland in 1732. The attempt to make spirits dearer by high excise duties, on the other hand, was adjudged a failure because it led to illicit trade, and the act of 1728 was repealed in 1732. But the evil was so glaring that another and more drastic attempt in the same direction was made in 1736, when the famous Gin Act was passed in response to a petition presented to parliament by the Middlesex magistrates, declaring "that the drinking of geneva and other distilled waters had for some years past greatly increased; that the constant and