On the connexion between intemperance and crime

Abstract

I have for some time past felt desirous to bring before the society some statistics relative to Crime and Intemperance. On sitting down to this task, greater difficulties than I had anticipated presented themselves, arising in great measure from the multiplicity of documents which prove the intimate relation between these two evils, and from the absence of that clear proof of the facts stated, upon which the real value of statistical information depends. My attention has never been much turned to the collection of facts, or to the demonstrative proof of facts. Like, perhaps, most other readers, I have contented myself with taking for granted the statements of writers; often, I fear, made without patient investigation, or upon data not subjected to sufficiently precise enquiry. On turning my attention to the subject, the difficulties I have just referred to soon presented themselves. I have laboured to counteract them; to avoid exaggeration and amplification; and so to sift facts as to arrive at the exact truth, and I shall now endeavour to give you some correct idea of the connexion which exists between the crimes that deface the social fabric, and those drinking customs which so universally prevail; and so to perform this task, as to prove that I have not undertaken it with a view of sustaining any preconceived theory, at the expense of truth.