England, or perhaps we should rather say Great Britain, to-day occupies a very peculiar and not a very enviable position in the history of drink. In that, as in many other respects, our island has formed a kind of halting station in the traffic between the Eastern and the Western world. Some writers attribute the worst phases of drunkenness to our wars in the Netherlands,[294] others to our Anglo-Saxon descent, and to our intercourse with the mediæval Germans; and the last view is supported by the philological resemblance between their drinking terms and ours, and perhaps also by the ordinary colloquial expressions to which reference was made when we treated of the history of drink in Germany. No doubt the invasions of such barbarians as the Danish rovers on the one hand, and the return of our own soldiery from expeditions into the Netherlands, Germany, and France on the other, have had much to do with the formation and development of our national vice. Passing westward, the Americans of to-day will tell us, in like manner, that most of their drinking is performed by Irish, German, and English emigrants and settlers; and that view is certainly borne out by the opinions of impartial English writers on America. But Great Britain ought not to be held responsible for the whole sum of her intemperance. Our seaports, especially those on the west coast, are made the receptacles of what may be called the concentrated vice of the world. In Liverpool, Glasgow, and Bristol there is a constant influx of men whose chief employment is drinking;—seamen of all nations landing with a keen thirst and full purses; improvident Irish labourers, who, after being accustomed to earn very low wages at home, suddenly find themselves possessed of more than is necessary to provide for their daily wants. In addition to these, there is the residuum of the currents which are constantly flowing backwards and forwards between the eastern and the western hemispheres. Where there is a demand for drink, the supply naturally follows, and the supply in this case is undoubtedly accompanied by infamies inexpressible, as any one may witness for himself who wanders along the docks, or visits the haunts of the vicious classes in the great seaports which have been named, or, indeed, in any considerable seaport in Great Britain. It is to this class of society chiefly that England owes her unenviable reputation for drunkenness amongst the nations of the world, but before dealing with this lowest phase of the subject, it will be instructive to cast a glance over the whole of our society in the present day.