This is not the place to discuss
whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may,
perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated
on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from
his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren
charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of
large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather
than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in
some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of
beer. We may, perhaps, feel some misgiving with regard to the
temperate habits of the people, if instead of well-conducted hostels,
duly inspected by the police, the landlords of which are liable to
prosecution for improper conduct, we see arising a host of ungoverned
clubs, wherein no control is exercised over the manners of the members
and adequate supervision impossible. We cannot refuse to listen to the
opinion of certain royal commissioners who, after much sifting of
evidence, came to the conclusion that as far as the suppression of
public-houses had gone, their diminution had not lessened the
convictions for drunkenness.
But all this is beside our subject. We have only to record another
feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its
ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate
survivors.
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