Clergymen and priests, _None._ Merchants and brokers, 13 Professional men of all kinds—architects, artists, surgeons, &c., 43 Shopkeepers (including 12 publicans), 194 Clerks and agents, 175 All skilled artisans, including engineers, mechanics, joiners, masons, printers, &c., 1010 Coachmen, carmen, and carters, 342 Sailors, 894 Porters and dock labourers, 3862 All other occupations, and persons of no occupation, 487 ---- 7020 Thus it will be seen that, as nearly as possible, two-thirds of the disorderly drunkenness in the town (for there were the “drunk and incapables” besides) which ranks second upon the black list (Glasgow being usually considered the first) is caused by dock-labourers and sailors, precisely the classes to whom we said we are indebted for our unenviable reputation as a drunken people! And if the reader turns to the female statistics for the same year, he will be pained to find that of 4842 women who were apprehended under the same conditions, 421 are set down as hawkers, which means chiefly basket-women; 1364 as prostitutes; and 2565 (being nearly all the remainder) as of “no trade.” What that means we leave the reader to imagine. Of course this statement embraces the residuum of every class; but, in the author’s opinion, it presents a fair summary of the relative amount of drunkenness in the different grades of the middle and lower classes. It has been stated by some persons who have large opportunities of judging, that drunkenness is on the increase in England; whilst others as distinctly declare the reverse. Those who wish to review these opposite expressions of opinion should read the Report of the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance; but, in order to show that the evidence there given cannot be considered at all conclusive on either side, we need only take that of two witnesses. The Chief Constable of Liverpool (Major Greig) holds the opinion that, “if anything, he should say that intemperance is increasing” in that town;[297] but, on the other hand, the Rev. James Nugent, the “Father Matthew” of Liverpool, who has been twenty-nine years a priest there, and is now the Roman Catholic chaplain of the borough gaol, says that “certainly there is less drunkenness in Liverpool” than there was formerly;[298] and the same uncertainty on the subject seems to prevail generally throughout the country.