This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 Excerpt: ...officers, has given the trade a kind of eclat which has done away with the old salutary feeling that drinking ivas a social disgrace. No man is now put out of caste for being drunk, and as the offence of the vioe has been swept away, ithas become most common aud popular. The last five years have been not " prosperous," ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 Excerpt: ...officers, has given the trade a kind of eclat which has done away with the old salutary feeling that drinking ivas a social disgrace. No man is now put out of caste for being drunk, and as the offence of the vioe has been swept away, ithas become most common aud popular. The last five years have been not " prosperous," but averagely good years for the people in general. It must not be forgotten that what may be prosperous times for the zemindars when grain is high in price is bad times for the consumers of food. But of late years cereals have sold at an average rate gi nerally, so that one cannot call it "prosperous" times for the one or the other. The only low-class people who have good pay are those who work on railways and who earn two or three times more money than common labourers, but railway employment to such people existed long before the introduction of the outstill. I cannot believe that the "increase of prosperity " has had any effect worth notice in increasing the use of drink, for the people who drink most are men who are as poor as ever, and who live by their daily labour, which has not increased to any perceptible degree, except in some special places, where new railway works have been started, and where they may get a higher pay for work done. Nothing will satisfactorily account for the great increase in the drinking habits of the people but the patent fact that the drink is now so exceedingly cheap and so accessible to all the people. The retail price of country spirits under the sudder system ranged from about 4 annas to Ke. 1 per bottle, according to the strength of the spirits. Under the outstill system the common price is 2 or 3 pice per bottle. There is purer daroo to be had at a higher price, but the dis...
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