On June 15, 1849, a Select Committee of the Lords, on the motion of the Earl of Harrowby, who became its chairman, was appointed ‘to consider the operations of the Acts for the sale of beer, and to report thereon to the House.’ The Committee held sittings June 25, 28, July 5, 12, 13, and 20. Next session it was reappointed, and took evidence February 28, March 5 and 19; and the report agreed upon bears date May 3, 1850. Fifteen witnesses were examined in the first session, and ten in the second session. The Committee’s report refers to the evidence and petitions which had come before them, and then proceeds: ‘On a review of all the statements and opinions which have thus been brought before them, the Committee have no hesitation in stating that the expectations of those who proposed the existing system have not been realised. Their object appears to have been to create a class of houses of refreshment, respectable in character, brewing their own beer, diminishing by the supply of a cheap and wholesome beverage the consumption of ardent spirits, and thus contributing to the happiness and comforts of the labouring classes. But it appears that of these houses only one-twelfth brew their own beer; that a very large proportion are, as in the case of public-houses, the actual property of brewers, or tied by advances to them; that they are notorious for the sale of an inferior article; that the consumption of ardent spirits has, from whatever cause, far from diminished; and that the comforts and morals of the poor have been seriously impaired. It was already sufficiently notorious that drunkenness is the main cause of crime, disorder, and distress in England, and it appears that the multiplication of houses for the consumption of intoxicating liquors, which under the Beer Act has risen from 88,930 to 123,396, has been thus in itself an evil of the first magnitude, not only by increasing the temptations to excess, which are thus presented at every step, but by driving houses, even those under the direct control of the magistrates, as well as others originally respectable, to practices for the purpose of attracting custom which are degrading to their character, and most injurious to morality and disorder.’ The increase of crime is next adverted to, and the defects of the system pointed out, such as an ‘unlimited multiplication’ of the worst class of beer-houses, the want of security as to character, the low rating, the opening of beer-houses in obscure localities--‘But, perhaps, the evil of all the most difficult to deal with is the absence of all control save by legal conviction almost impracticable to attain.’ ‘The magnitude of these evils has led to a widely-extended feeling in favour of an abandonment of that part of the existing law by which consumption