Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Mr Lawson, author of the Permissive Bill, will have to be put down as a public nuisance, condemned to drink Thames water, or Mr. Gladstone’s claret, or some dreadful thing. Not to mention the use to which his tyrannical proposal will be put at the hustings, being forced down the throats of candidates who know quite well it will never be passed, he fills the columns of The Times with the dreariest rubbish. In a long speech at Leeds he descanted on all the evils of drunkenness, admitted that he meant to abolish the 140,000 sellers of liquor, and never once touched the real question, which is the right of the individual to do as he likes, whether judicious or not, provided the act is not forbidden by the moral law. Mr Lawson has exactly the same right to prevent Smith from drinking a glass of ale as he has to prevent him from eating pastry-cooks’ buns or any other deleterious edible. The bun is sure to make him bilious, and we are bound to say The Lancet could prove to a demonstration that half the murders in England are committed by bilious people. Mr Lawson asked Leeds whether the old spirit was dead in the old county, whether “their hearts would fail in the encounter,” whether they were ready to “do and dare,” and altogether showed that it was quite possible for a man to be very intoxicated on water and weak tea.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

Full report in the Leeds Mercury. I haven’t read his Permissive Bill – which indeed failed. Was he just calling for the closure of the public houses for the working classes, not the private clubs favoured by MPs?

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Original

Mr. Lawson, author of the Permissive Bill, will have to be put down as a public nuisance, condemned to drink Thames water, or Mr. Gladstone’s claret, or some dreadful thing. Not to mention the use to which his tyrannical proposal will be put at the hustings, being forced down the throats of candidates who know quite well it will never be passed, he fills the columns of the Times with the dreariest rubbish. In a long speech at Leeds he descanted on all the evils of drunkenness, admitted that he meant to abolish the 140,000 sellers of liquor, and never once touched the real question, which is the right of the individual to do as he likes, whether judicious or not, provided the act is not forbidden by the moral law. Mr. Lawson has exactly the same right to prevent Smith from drinking a glass of ale as he has to prevent him from eating pastry-cooks’ buns or any other deleterious edible. The bun is sure to make him bilious, and we are bound to say the Lancet could prove to a demonstration that half the murders in England are committed by bilious people. Mr. Lawson asked Leeds whether the old spirit was dead in the old county, whether “their hearts would fail in the encounter,” whether they were ready to “do and dare,” and altogether showed that it was quite possible for a man to be very intoxicated on water and weak tea.

246 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• 1865 United Kingdom general election (1) ·
• Alcohol (drug) (59) ·
• Alcohol intoxication (27) ·
• Alcoholism (12) ·
• Beer (34) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Libertarianism (1) ·
• Licensed Victuallers Association (2) ·
• Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 2nd Baronet, of Brayton (2) ·
• Temperance movement (10) ·
• The Lancet (2) ·
• The Spectator (4) ·
• The Times (5) ·
• William Ewart Gladstone (4) ·

All tags.

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