Transcribed from the 1855 William Tweedie edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THE NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW VINDICATED. * * * * * * * * * * BY J. EWING RITCHIE. * * * * * * * * * * LONDON: WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND. 1855. * * * * * THE PUBLIC-HOUSE TRADE AS IT IS: OR AN EPITOME OF THE EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS OF 1853–4. BY J. EWING RITCHIE. * * * * * THE NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW VINDICATED. AN Act came into operation in August, denominated “The New Beer Bill,” requiring public-houses to be closed on Sundays, with the exception of the hours 1 to 3 p.m., and 6 to 10 p.m. No sooner was it passed than it was found there was a great decrease in the number of cases of persons charged with drunkenness at the various police stations of the metropolis. Monday, instead of being a heavy day, was the reverse—the magistrates had little or nothing to do. But this great public good was not brought about without inconveniencing some parties. The publicans felt their craft was in danger,—that they were, as Benjamin Disraeli informed them the other day at Plymouth, “in a critical situation;” and that if they acquiesced in the law, the result would be most unsatisfactory, pecuniarily, to themselves. Accordingly, they have banded themselves into one compact Defence Association—they have taken sweet counsel together—they have organised an opposition all over the land. Whether they have acted wisely is another matter: with the evidence just published in two enormous Blue Books, I think silence would become them better. And so thought the knowing ones in the trade when they accepted the new Bill instead of one that would have been harsher still. The opponents of the Bill—publicans by-the-bye—thus speak of it: Mr. Luce of Hampton Court, “thinks it a despotic and tyrannical Bill.” According to a Mr. Symes, “it is directed against all recreation on Sundays—all relaxation after the toils of the week.” Mr. Palmer said, “The Bill ought to be called the Liberty of the Subject and Licensed Victuallers’ Liberty Curtailment Bill.” I take these extracts from the report of a great meeting in Drury Lane in September. Mr. Lyne, also a publican, writes in the _Daily News_, that “since the curfew bell there