Now let us inquire on what grounds the opinion obtains that drunkenness is on the increase, and we shall find that they are twofold. The first is the increasing consumption of spirits per head of the population; the second, the police statistics. The first fact may be admitted, although there cannot at present be any accurate calculation on the subject. As to the police statistics, we shall show that they are quite misleading. In reading the evidence given before Committees of the Houses of Parliament, we are often far more accurately informed by the questions of the members of the Committee than by the replies which are given to them. For the questioners are usually statesmen of high intelligence and large experience, who have taken a more extended survey of the subject than the witnesses who have been called up from various parts of the country. These are generally advocates of some particular theory or system, and their information, which is usually of a local nature, is often distorted by the medium through which it passes, or vitiated by the method in which it is communicated. Thus, in reading over the questions put by Lord Aberdare, one of the Lords’ Committee referred to, whose sanitary legislation, especially connected with the over-crowding of dwellings in 1866, and his Licensing Act (1872), render him peculiarly fitted to form an accurate estimate of the condition of the working classes, we are led to infer that his views on the subject under consideration are as follows:[299]—First, that the increased consumption of intoxicating drinks amongst the working classes is due to their greater power of expenditure, much in the same sense as the increasing consumption of tea, coffee, meat, &c., and that growing intemperance is not a necessary corollary of the increased consumption; and, secondly, that a higher standard of feeling is growing up amongst working men generally, who look upon drunkenness with greater disfavour than they did formerly.[300] If these be the views of Lord Aberdare, the author cordially endorses them, and he will endeavour, as concisely as possible, to prove their accuracy. But it must first be shown clearly that, either from their dubious nature or from their partial application, statistics are usually very misleading when they are used as a factor in estimating this part of the question. Let us consider, for example, the police statistics which are so often employed to gauge the amount of drunkenness in our large towns; and it may be remarked that the figures and information here quoted have been supplied to the author by the Chief Constables in the respective places, or they are printed in annual or special reports. In the statistics of the Metropolitan Police[301] we find the following remarkable circumstances:—