3. _Beer is seldom at the public-house what it was at the brewery._ A late partner in one of the metropolitan breweries says:--‘It is quite notorious if you drink beer at the brewery, and at a public-house a little way off, you find it a very different commodity’ (4538). 4. The drinks are _adulterated_, as well as diluted. Mr. Ridley, who has under his management certain offices for the analysation of alcoholic liquors, states that there are several _recipes_, such as ‘To a barrel of porter [add] 12 gallons of liquor, 4 lbs. of foots, 1 lb. of salt; and sometimes to bring a head up [and lay it down?], a little _vitriol_, _cocculus indicus_, also a variety of things very minute’ (4700). Mr. J. W. McCulloch, analytic chemist, in 40 samples of brewers’ beer, found 10½ gallons proof spirit to every 100 gallons, but at several of the licensed victuallers supplied by those brewers it did not reach 7; and out of 150 samples there was not one within 20 per cent. of the brewery standard. 5. That magistrates do not enforce the law, or very rarely. 6. ‘_The beer-shop system has proved a failure._ It was established under the belief that it would give the public their beer cheap and pure; would dissociate beer-drinking from drunkenness, and lead to the establishment, throughout the country, of a class of houses of refreshment, altogether free from the disorders _supposed_ to attend _exclusively_ on the sale of spirits.’ 7. The Committee concur in the statement of the Lords’ Report on the Sale of Beer Act, that ‘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, under the Beer Act, has risen from 88,930 to 123,306.’ 8. That throughout the country ‘the publicans are completely under the thumb of the brewers.’ 9. The trade of a publican is looked upon as a _peculiar privilege_. The hope of obtaining a licence increases beer-shops. 10. It seems desirable that a higher rate of duty be paid for a licence, and more stringent regulations enforced as to character and sureties. 11. Statistics of intemperance defective. The evidence before the Committee is sufficient to show that the amount of drunkenness is very much greater than appears upon the face of any official returns.