§ Mr. John Woodpresented a Petition from the Retail Brewers and Inhabitants of Preston, praying that Beer-shops should be open during the same hours as Public-houses. The most mischievous consequences would result from allowing Public-houses to be kept open at later hours than Beer-shops. People who were compelled to depart from the one went to the other, and drank spirits instead of Beer. He would, therefore, exert every effort in his power to prevent this partiality being continued by the Bill about to be brought before them for the amendment of the former Act. He knew instances where gin had been sold with impunity at particular hours on Sunday, while the owner of a beer-shop was fined for selling beer about the same time. He knew that, according to the strict letter of the law, the Magistrates were compelled to inflict the fine, but that 347 only showed the law was absurd; though the House was about to commit the still greater absurdity of increasing the distinctions between gin and beer-shops, to the advantage of the former. Several of the clauses in the new Bill were a farago of nonsense and absurdity, and were remarkable as an instance of the haste and cobbling with which Bills were concocted. He fully concurred with the prayer of the petitioners.
§ Mr. Briscoesaid, it was absolutely necessary to have some restraint in rural districts; but wherever there was a gin-shop the beer-house ought to be allowed to keep open the longest, as the least evil of the two.
§ Mr. Huntsaid, he had been requested to support the prayer of the petition; and he most fully concurred with those who considered it a most erroneous principle, that gin should be allowed to be sold at hours when the beer-shops were closed. He should, therefore, resist the Bill by which such distinctions were to be en forced, by all the means in his power; and would assist his hon. colleague in opposing it, by moving an adjournment whenever it was brought forward.
§ Petition to be printed.