came into operation the number was 1328. The decrease was most marked in the police divisions situated in the centre of the metropolis. In the Holborn division it was 48 per cent.; in the Covent Garden division, 52 per cent.; and in the St. James's division, 79 per cent. (Statement of the Commissioners of Police, vol. iv., p. 268, of Journal of London Statistical Society.)

The next act of parliament which relates to the regulation of alehouses is the "act to permit the general sale of beer and cider by retail in England." (1 Will. IV. c. 64.) The following are the most material provisions of this statute :1. That any householder, desirous of selling malt liquor, by retail, in any house, may obtain an Excise licence for that purpose, to be granted by the Commissioners of Excise in London, and by collectors and supervisors of Excise in the country, upon payment of two guineas; and for cider only, on payment of one guinea. 2. That a list of such licences shall be kept at the Excise Office, which is at all times to be open to the inspection of the magistrates. 3. That the applicant for a licence must enter into a bond with a surety for the payment of any penalties imposed for offences against the act. 4. That any person licensed under the act, who shall deal in wine or spirits, shall be liable to a penalty of 201. 5. That in cases of riot, persons so licensed shall close their houses upon the direction of a magistrate. 6. That such persons suffering drunkenness or disorderly conduct in their houses shall be subject to penalties which are to be increased on a repetition of the offences, and the magistrates before whom they are convicted may disqualify them from selling beer for two years. 7. That such houses are not to be open before four in the morning nor after ten in the evening, nor during divine service on Sundays and holidays.

The effect of the above statute is to withdraw the authority of granting licences to houses opened for the sale of ale, beer, and cider only, from the local magistrates, in whose hands it had been exclusively rested for nearly 300 years, and to supersede their direct and imme

diate superintendence and control of such houses. It creates a new class of alehouse keepers distinct from those who are licensed by the magistrates, and who only are called licensed victuallers. The consequence of the facility of obtaining licences upon a small pecuniary payment, and without the troublesome and expensive process directed by former statutes, was, as might be expected, a rapid and enormous multiplication of alehouses throughout the country.

But whatever might have been the state of these houses under the first Beer Act (1 Wm. IV. c. 64), there is no reason to believe that under existing acts they are now any worse than the licensed public-houses. By 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 85, the preamble of which recited that much evil had arisen from the management of houses in which beer and cider are sold by retail under 1 Wm. IV. c. 64, it was enacted that each beer-seller is to obtain his annual Excise licence only on condition of placing in the hands of the Excise a certificate of good character signed by six rated inhabitants of his parish, none of whom must be brewers or maltsters. Such a certificate is not to be required in towns containing a population of 5000 and upwards; but the house to be licensed is to be one rated at 107. a year. This act makes a difference between persons who sell a liquor to be drunk on the premises and those who sell it only to be drunk elsewhere.

By a Treasury order, beer sold at or under 1d. a quart may be retailed without a licence: the officers of Excise are empowered to enter such houses and to examine all beer therein.

The act 3 & 4 Vict. c. 61, amends both of the above acts. It provides that a licence can only be granted to the real occupier of the house in which the beer or cider is to be retailed; and it raises the rated value of such house to 15. in towns containing a population of 10,000 and upwards; in towns of betwixt 10,000 and 2500, to 117.; and in towns of smaller size the annual value is to be not less than 8l. Every person applying for a licence is to produce a certificate from the overseer of his being the real occupier of the house, and of the amount at which it is rated. A refusal

to grant this certificate renders the overseer liable to a penalty of 201.; and any person forging a certificate, or making use of a certificate knowing it to be false, is to forfeit 50%.

The hours for opening and closing beer-shops are now regulated by the above act. In London and Westminster, and within the boundaries of the metropolitan boroughs, they are not to be opened earlier than five in the morning, and the hour of closing is twelve o'clock, but eleven o'clock in any place within the Bills of Mortality, or any city, town, or place not containing above 2500 inhabitants; and in all smaller places, five o'clock is the hour for opening and ten o'clock for closing. On any Sunday, Good Friday, or Christmas-day, or any day appointed for a public fast or thanksgiving, the houses are not to be opened before one o'clock in the after

noon.

The houses of alehouse-keepers, otherwise called licensed victuallers, are not exempt from the window duty; but if the bar-room be used solely for the sale of their commodities, and not for the entertainment of guests, the window of that room is to be exempt from duty. (Communication from Chancellor of Exchequer to Liverpool Victuallers' Society, April, 1844.) The licensed victuallers are liable to have soldiers billeted upon them, and they consider the non-exemption from the window duty a grievance, as other traders, who have no such burdens, enjoy the benefits of this exemption. The keepers of beer-shops who sell ale to be consumed on the premises, are liable to have soldiers billeted on them.

The number of licensed victuallers in England and Wales has increased from 50,947 in 1831 to 57,698 in 1843. The only year which shows a decrease on the preceding year was 1842, the number in 1841 having been 57,768. In 1840 there were 7610 houses occupied by licensed victuallers, the rental of which was under 8.; 10,769 houses under 10.; 20,185 under 201.; and 5335 at and above 501.

The number of beer-shops of both classes was 44,134 in 1836, and they have gradually declined to 36,298 in 1842, and 35,479 in 1843. In 1836 there were 39,104 retailers of beer to be consumed

on the premises; in 1842 only 31,821; and in 1843 the number was 31,227. In 1839, after a gradual increase in the preceding three years, the number of retailers who sold beer for consumption elsewhere than on the premises was 5941, and the number has since regularly decreased to 4477 in 1842, and 4252 in 1843.

The retailers in cider and perry under the acts for the sale of beer were 1913 in number in 1835, and only 438 in 1842.

Number of licensed victuallers and beer retailers in England and Wales who brewed their own beer, in 1843:Licensed victuallers, 26,806; retailers of beer to be consumed on the premises, 12,761; retailers of beer not to be consumed on the premises, 1245. Malt consumed by the above:-By licensed victuallers, 7,567,945 bushels; by retailers for consumption on the premises, 2,761,672; by retailers for consumption elsewhere, 397,188 bushels. In the Country Excise Collections one half the licensed victuallers brew; and in London there are only 10 who brew out of 4344.

The victuallers and keepers of beershops who do not brew are of course supplied by brewers, of whom there were 2318 in England and Wales in 1843, who used 15,962,323 bushels of malt; rather more than one-third of this quantity of malt (5,349,143 bushels) being consumed by 98 brewers in the London Excise Collection. Since 1785 brewers of beer for sale have been compelled to take out an Excise licence, the cost of which is in proportion to the quantity brewed. 1840, the number of brewers of strong beer not exceeding 20 barrels was 8232; above 20 and under 50 barrels, 8821; above 50 and under 100 barrels, 10,424 ; above 100 and under 1000 barrels, 16,634; exceeding 1000 barrels, 1607.

In

In October, 1830, the duty of 9s. per barrel on strong beer, and 1s. 11 d. on table and small beer, was abolished. In the previous year the consumption of England and Wales was 6,559,210 barrels of strong and 1,530,419 barrels of small beer, which allows for upwards of 21 gallons per head on the year's consumption. The produce of the duty was 3,217,8127. With the same rates of duty

the produce of this branch of revenue was only 79,4141. in Scotland: the beer duty in Ireland ceased in 1795. The repeal of taxes to an amount exceeding three millions a year on such an article as beer, while heavy taxes existed on raw materials, the abolition of which would have increased the demand for labour, has been condemned by many economists.

In 1843 the declared value of 141,313 barrels of ale and beer exported was 343,740l.

ALE-TASTER. [ALE-CONNER.]

ALIEN. An alien is one who is born out of the ligeance (allegiance) of the king. (Littleton, 198.) The word is derived from the Latin alienus; but the word used by the English or other law writers in Latin is alienegena. The condition of an alien, according to this definition, is not determined by place, but by allegiance [ALLEGIANCE], for a man may be born out of the realm of England, or without the dominions of the king, and yet he may not be an alien. It is essential to alienage that the birth of the individual occurred in a situation and under circumstances which gave to the king of this country no claim to his allegiance.

The following instances will serve to illustrate the description of an alien. The native subject of a foreign country continues to be an alien, though the country afterwards becomes a part of the British dominions. Thus, persons born in Scotland before the union of the crowns by the accession of James I., were aliens in England even after that event; but those who were born afterwards were adjudged to be natural-born subjects. This question was the subject of solemn discussion in the reign of that prince; and the reported judgment of the court has guided lawyers in all similar controversies. Persons born in those parts of France which formerly belonged to the crown of England, as Normandy, Guienne, and Gascony, were not considered as aliens so long as they continued so annexed; and, upon the same principle, persons born at this day in any of our colonial possessions are considered native subjects. A man, born and settled at Calais whilst it was in the possession of the English,

fled to Flanders with his wife, then pregnant; and there, after the capture of Calais by the French, had a son: the issue was held to be no alien. If the king's enemies invade the kingdom, and a child is born among them, the child is an alien.

The children of ambassadors, and other official residents in foreign states, have always been held natives of the country which they represent and in whose service they are. This rule prevailed even at a time when the law of alienage was stricter than it now is. It has been since so far extended by various enactments, that all children born abroad, whose fathers or grandfathers on the father's side were natural subjects, are deemed to be themselves natural-born subjects, unless their fathers were liable to the penalties of treason or felony, or were in the service of a prince at war with this country. (25 Ed. III. st. 2; 7 Anne, c. 5; 4 Geo. II. c. 21 ; 13 Geo. III. c. 21.)

now

The children of aliens born in England are, as a general rule, the same as natural-born subjects: they are entitled to the same rights and owe the same allegiance. But the children of a British mother by an alien are aliens if they are born out of the king's allegiance.

It follows from the general principles of our law that a man may be subject to a double and conflicting allegiance; for, though he may become a citizen of another state (the United States of America, for instance), or the subject of another king, he cannot divest himself of the duty which he owes to his own. So that, in the event of a war between the two states, he can take no active part on behalf of one, without incurring the penalty of treason in the other. This predicament inay occur without any fault of the party; for the children of aliens are (except under peculiar circumstances) natural subjects of the state in which they were born: yet they may still be regarded as natural-born subjects of the state to which their parents owed allegiance.

An alien cannot hold lands in England even for a term of years, except in certain circumstances. If he purchase lands, he takes them, but they are forfeited to the

zen.

The disabilities of aliens may be partially removed by the king's letterspatent constituting the party a free deniFrom the date of the grant he is entitled to hold land, and transmit it to his after-born children, and to enjoy many other privileges of a native subject. But the most effectual method of naturalizing an alien is by act of parliament, called a Naturalization Bill, by which he is admitted to every right of a naturalborn subject, except the capacity of sitting in parliament or the privy council, or of holding grants and offices of trust under the crown; an exclusion dictated by the jealous policy of the legislature on the accession of the House of Orange. [DENIZATION; NATURALIZATION.]

The rights of aliens, enumerated above, must be understood to apply only to alien friends. Alien enemies, or subjects of a foreign state at war with this country, are in a very different condition, and may be said to possess very few rights here.

As examples of the policy which has at different times been pursued in this country with reference to aliens, the following historical notices may be interesting:

Magna Charta stipulates, in the article already cited, for the free access of foreign merchants for the purposes of trade, and its provisions were enforced and extended under the reigns of succeeding princes.

In the eighteenth year of Edward I. the parliament rolls contain a petition from the citizens of London, "that foreign merchants should be expelled from the city, because they get rich, to the impoverishment of the citizens;" to which the king replies, that "they are beneficial and useful, and he has no intention to expel them."

In the reign of Edward III. several beneficial privileges were conferred on aliens for the encouragement of foreign trade.

Under Richard II. and his successor statutes were made imposing various restraints on aliens trading within the realm, and especially prohibiting internal traffic with one another. Similar restrictions were introduced in the reign of Richard III., chiefly with a view to exclude them from retail trade; and in that

of Henry VIII. violent insurrections against aliens were followed by repeated statutes, reciting the mischievous consequences attributed to the influx of foreigners, and laying greater impediments in the way of their settlement within the realm. Several acts of this description are still in force, though they have fallen into practical disuse; but the courts of law have always put on them a construction the most favourable to foreign commerce, agrecably to the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Hale, that "the law of England hath always been very gentle in the construction of the disability, and rather contracting than extending it severely." (Ventris's Reports, vol. i. p. 427.)

In the reign of James I. the king was strongly petitioned to adopt exclusive measures against the aliens, who had flocked into the kingdom from the Low Countries; but James, though he acquiesced to a certain extent in the object of the petitioners, seems by no means to have participated in their feelings of enmity to aliens; for he professes his intention "to keep a due temperament between the interests of the petitioners and the foreigners;" and he especially commends "their industrious and sedulous courses, whereof he wished his own people would take example."

In the reign of Charles II. aliens were invited to settle in this country, and to engage in certain trades, by an offer of the privileges of native subjects. (15 Charles II. c. 15.) This statute was repealed by 12 & 13 Wm. III. c. 2; but there is an unrepealed act of 6 Anne, which naturalizes all foreigners who shall serve for two years on board any ship of her majesty's navy or a British merchantship.

In the early part of the last century (1708) a bill was brought into parliament for the general naturalization of all foreign Protestants upon their taking certain oaths and receiving the sacrament in any Protestant church, and it passed notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the city of Londou, who represented that they would sustain loss by being obliged to remit certain dues which aliens were obliged to pay. After remaining in opera