There's no question that gin was problematic. The English were not used to drinking distilled spirits, so they drank gin the way they drank beer: by the pint. When a grain surplus at the turn of the century gave distillers the opportunity to use better-quality grain, gin production began to soar, and the poor who were then crowding into London (largely as a result of the grain surplus which made it difficult to survive as a farm laborer) found gin selling to be a lucrative occupation, and gin drinking a pleasant pastime. By the mid-1740s, the average, per capita consumption of gin in London was 2.2 gallons a year. And since rich people weren't drinking any gin at all, the amount of gin consumed by the gin drinking poor was actually much higher.
Warner examines the legislative attempts to eliminate the gin problem. The case studies of the various laws and associated campaigns are fascinating in their resemblance to contemporary anti-drug crusades. Reformers emphasized the problems gin caused to the families, by leading women to abandon or neglect their children, and by causing an upsurge in the birth rates of gin-addicted babies. In the final chapter of the book, Warner makes the comparison to the anti-crack campaigns in the 1980s explicit -- in both cases, reformers saw the drug as the cause of a whole host of social problems among the poor, rather than seeing the problems of poverty as the cause of drug use.
Pissed at work
Reply With Quote
Social Networking Bookmarks