DRINKING AMONGST WOMEN

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 427, 15 July 1913, Page 7

DRINKING AMONGST WOMEN

There has been a good deal of evidence published during the last few months with reference to drinking amongst English women. Frequent allusions are made to the matter by preachers and speakers, and there ' seems to be an impression abroad that the vice is as rampant as ever. The latest official figures (1910) point toward a distinct decrease, at any rate as regards deaths from alcoholism. Relative to men, the figures for drunkenness also show a greater proportionate decrease than amongst women. It may be that things have meanwhile gone worse amongst women, but whatever the current official figures. 3f they were available, might show, the allusions to drinking amongst women at the recent Brewster sessions were very unsatisfactory. At Manchester very strong remarks were made from the bench about women being permitted by licensees to sit and drink m the forenoon as well as m th.c afternoon, and unless, it was said, publicans put a stop to this vicious practice it was threatened to place the offenders on the redundant list. At Stockport sessions bitter official complaint was made of a similar practice, and also to the off licensees encouraging women to get drink for consumption m one another's houses m the absence of their husbands. The chairman said this drink was often obtained under the guise of soap or other household necessities. In a new book published by Canon Horsley on | * How Criminals are Made and Prevented/ he j points out that, while the number of women | convicted of drunkenness is barely one-fourth that of men, the number of women who have been convicted over 20 times stands to the number of men similarly convicted as 5,226 to 6,907. In Liverpool the numbers are 661 men, but 1,789 women ; and m a special area m West London, known as Notting Dale, a i special committee of the Kensington Borough m July last, reported the following statement of charges associated with drunkenness : —

Men. Women. 1901 206 262 ' 1906 353 425 1911 560, ,666 The author gives some striking and terrible figures as to the extent to which women m London frequent the public-house, but he believes that the effect of the Children* Act bas been beneficial m this respect.