X
A REPORT
OF A
COMMITTEE OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY, N«-ur

                 APPOINTED
TO INQUIRE INTO THE NUMBER
          TAVERN LICENSES;


THE MANNER OF GRANTING THEM; THEIR EFFECTS UPON
   THE COMMUNITY; AND THE OTHER SOURCES OF
         VICE AND MISERY IN THIS CITY;

TO VISIT BRIDEWELL.^
d /Tv:-
            NEW-YORK;

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY COLLINS & PERKINS,
           Ao. 189 Pearl-street.
1810. 
/
!  U     f
■&1~
.^{~*~t
? 
                      THE
   MEMBERS OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY
                     TO THE

         CITIZENS OF NEIV-YORK.

      FELLOW-CITI ZENS,

 Associated for the purpose of relieving the in-
 digent, our attention has been naturally drawn to
 the causes which  produce  the extreme poverty
 and misery, which have so much increased among
 our labouring poor.  Of these it appeared to  us,
 that the most prominent, were the excessive mul-
 tiplication  of petty taverns, and the  injudicious
 system of confining in the same apartments of our
 prison persons suspected or  convicted of various
 degrees of guilt.   To obtain more perfect  infor-
 mation in relation to these subjects, we lately ap-
 pointed a  committee  to investigate them ; and
 their  report, containing facts which are not gene-
 rally  known, but which we think important to the
 community, we now lay before you, hoping that
 when your attention shall be awakened to  a con-
sideration of the evils which it details you will con-
 cur in endeavouring to effect a radical reform.
   In  order to devise a plan for this purpose, we
 have determined  to request  the charitable socie-
ties of the city severally to appoint committees to
                     - •— -^..OIIANCi^
        v-0M^-^-^ ■-■''-•'■:•
               A. r. w;;-l 
4
meet each other at the New-York Free School, on
Wednesday,  the tenth  day of January  next,  at
four o'clock, P. M.  Feeling, as they must, the
magnitude of the evils complained  of, and neces-
sarily conversant with such subjects, we hope that
a well digested system will be the result of their
joint labours; and in that case we confidently hope
for the united support of the community in giving
it effect.
   To destroy inveterate abuses, and to introduce
salutary reforms, is always attended with difficul-
ty.  The public must  not only be convinced  of
the necessity of a change, and the propriety of the
one recommended, but they must also be persuad-
ed to act with earnestness and vigour.  We there-
fore anxiously request your assistance in the work
which is proposed for the common  benefit, in the
accomplishment of which  every good citizen  of
whatever rank, party, or condition is seriously in-
terested.
     By order of the Humane Society,

                M. CLARKSON* President.
December 27, 1809, 
TO THE
HUMANE  SOCIETY.
 The  committee appointed  to  inquire into the
 number of tavern licenses; the manner of grant-
 ing them ; their effects upon the community; and
 the other sources of vice and  misery in this city;   >
 and to  visit the Bridewell,
      Respectfully report,
   That to investigate fully all the sources of vice
 and misery existing in  this populous city, would
 require an  acquaintance with facts, more exten-
 sive than they possess, or  have been able to ac-
 quire.  They have therefore  directed their atten-
 tion principally to the  objects more particularly
 mentioned in the resolution  by which they are
 appointed.
   By a just and inflexible law of Providence, mi-
 sery is ordained to be the companion and the pu-
 nishment of vice ; and in proportion as a commu-
 nity is  corrupted, physical as well as moral  evil
 is introduced and propagated among them.  Hence
 it is a duty  which every society owes as  well to
 the individuals who compose it as to the Great Go-
vernor of all, to preserve the purity of the public
morals,  and  to abstain from permitting, and still 
6
more from authorizing, whatever may tend to de-
prave the manners, or destroy the principles of its
members.
   Supposing these observations  to be correct, the
committee think that no existing evil  requires a
more prompt and effectual remedy, than the ex-
cessive number of licenses  for retailing spirituous
liquors which are annually granted in this city.
   By the charter of the city the mayor is author-
ized to grant licenses to wThom and to as many as
he thinks proper.  He  receives for each the sum
of forty shillings, of which he retains nineteen for
himself, and pays the residue into the city Treasu-
ry.  By a law of the state all persons selling spi-
rituous liquors in smaller quantities than five gal-
lons must also receive a  license from the commis-
sioner of excise, who  determines the sum to be
paid therefor at his own  discretion, provided it be
not less than five  nor more than fifty dollars.—
From the money thus raised,  the commissioner is
permitted to  retain five  hundred  dollars per an-
num, and the residue  belongs to the corporation.
   Under these  regulations, upwards of seventeen
hundred tavern licenses were, during the last year,
granted by the mayor,  and above  eighteen hun-
dred licenses to retail spirituous liquors are yearly
issued by the  commissioner.
   This astonishing number cannot be required for
the accommodation of the citizens, or the  conve-
nience of strangers. 
/
  From  information  obtained  from the mayor's
office of Philadelphia, it  appears that the whole
number of persons licensed to  keep taverns, in-
cluding beer-houses, and to sell liquors by retail,
in that city, amount only to one hundred and nine-
ty, and that in the county of Philadelphia (com-
prehending the suburbs of the  city, several con-
siderable towns and villages,  and a large tract of
country) there are two hundred and forty.   No
doubt, however,  is entertained but that a great
number of persons in both cities  retail liquors with-
out any authority or license.
  The committee think  that the  bare statement
of these facts is sufficient to prove the existence of
an evil at once injurious  and disgraceful to this
city, and the more the subject is investigated, the
more enormous and destructive does that evil ap-
pear.  It causes, or aggravates the misery and po-
verty of most of  the  labouring poor; it fills the
list of unfortunate debtors maintained by this So-
ciety ; it crowds  the alms-house, the hospital, the
state, and the city prisons.
  Inns must be provided for travellers, and it may
be thought expedient  to  permit some places in
which those who  are unable to purchase much li-
quor at a time may procure  it  in  smaller quanti-
ties.   But the great  mass of those who take li-
censes, have neither the desire, nor the means to
entertain guests.   They  vend their liquors in lit-
tle shops situated generally in obscure streets, and 
8
 often in cellars.  Their only object is to acquire
 profit, and to this end  every artifice is employed
 by which the labourer may  be enticed to squan-
 der, in intoxication, those  earnings  by which his
 family should be supported.   Hence these  petty
 taverns exhibit perpetual scenes of riot and disor-
 der.  Hence law suits, and criminal prosecutions.
 Hence that day which  the religion and  laws of
 the country have set apart  for the public worship
 of God is openly profaned.  In houses of this
 description, liquor is constantly sold on that day,
 in defiance of the law.  And the poor, instead of
 spending the time allotted them for rest from their
 labour, and the service of their Maker* are encou-
 raged to devote it to intoxication and profanity.
  These enormities, so fatal to the health  and mo-
 rals, and frequently to the  life, of the individuals
 who commit them, and so contrary to law, both
 divine and human, cannot but be  disgraceful, and
 will ultimately prove ruinous to the people among
 whom they are tolerated.
  Supposing  that the city contains fourteen thou-
 sand families, which is a probable calculation, it
 will appear that one seventh  of the inhabitants are
maintained by selling poison  to the rest.   Can it
he wise,  can it be consistent with duty,  thus to
distribute incentives to vice through every street
in the city ?
  The habit  of drinking ardent spirits enervates
the mind,  sours the  disposition,  inflames the 
9
passions, renders the heart callous to the feelings
of humanity, and leads to the neglect and viola-
tion of the social duties.   It  lays the foundation
of many diseases, and  makes many others termi-
nate fatally which would otherwise yield to the
application of remedies.   By many whose opin-
ions deserve weight, it has been thought as de-
structive to the human species as the sword :  and
in this country, certainly, it furnishes death with
more victims than all the other causes of prema-
ture mortality.
   Many of these considerations acquire addition-
al force when the form of government and  poli-
tical institutions of our country are taken into view.
The annals of history attest, that almost every free
state of antiquity lost its liberty in consequence of
the corruption of the lower classes of its citizens:
and scarce an instance can be found of a popular
government which has survived  the morals  and
manners of its people.
   Surely then every one who is interested in the
preservation of the peace, the welfare,  and the
liberty of his country, every one who reflects on
the spirit, the laws, and the sanctions of the holy
religion which he professes,  must  be impressed
with the  necessity and duty of endeavouring to
arrest the progress of so destructive a vice, and to
lessen the practice of  unnecessarily granting li-
censes for the express  purpose of furnishing  his 
10
fellow-citizens with a poison so fatal and  so bane-
ful in its effects.
  There can be no hope of accomplishing this
most important  and desirable object,  while the
present system is continued of licensing petty tav-
erns  and  grog-shops, the nurseries of intempe-
rance, disorder and profligacy.   With the wisdom
of the Corporation of this city, and of the Legis-
lature, this business must ultimately rest.   It can-
not be supposed that they will regard with indif-
ference  a subject which involves  so deeply the
health,  the morals,  and  the  happiness  of their
fellow-citizens.
  The committee therefore forbear to detail any
system for correcting the evil they complain of,
further than to suggest the propriety of applying
to the Legislature for an  act, so to enhance the
expense  of obtaining licenses, to retail spirituous
liquors in the city of  New-York,  as to  diminish
the number of applicants for them.
  The committee also think it would be  useful
to license beer-houses,  and to permit small liquors
and cider  only  to be sold in them.  Houses of
this description are licensed in the neighbouring
states, but there is no regulation concerning them
in this.
   In obedience to the latter part of their instruc-
tions, the committee  have visited the Bridewell
or  City Prison.   It contained  165 persons, of
whom 93 were men,  and 72 women. 
11
  In one apartment were confined the male pri-
soners, accused of burglary  and other atrocious
crimes, and  who had not yet been tried, together
with some convicts.  Their situation was tolera-
bly comfortable,  and attention seemed to have
been paid to keep them clean.
  Another  apartment  contained all the  female
prisoners, vagrants,  prostitutes, women sentenced
to imprisonment for 30 and 60 days, female pau-
pers who had misbehaved in the Alms-house, and
those committed on suspicion only.   Black and
white, sick  and well,  of all ages from infants at
the breast to seventy years old,  were  here indis-
criminately  mingled together.   Several of these
women were destitute of a garment of any kind,
and had nothing but a dirty  blanket wrapped
round them.  Most of the others were very rag-
ged, and all  extremely dirty.   Few had sufficient
covering for the  night, and  they  lay promiscu-
ously on the floor.   Their countenances were in
general wan and sickly, and the air of the room
was intolerably bad.  Two of the  white  women
and one of  the  blacks were insane, and seemed
to be occasionally treated as objects of diversion
by the others.
   The provisions allowed them, are a portion of
meat with potatoes, but without bread, every oth-
er day ;  the residue of the time they  have mush
and molasses twice a day.  This is brought in by
the keeper, and set on the floor in a  tub, round 
12
which the prisoners place themselves;  spoons and
tin cups are furnished to some  of them, but the
greater number  are  without any.   One worn.in
is appointed by the keeper to preserve  order,  and
is styled the captain, and she exercises the whip
on her fellow-prisoners at discretion.
   The committee could not help noticing an ob-
ject of peculiar wretchedness,  named  Eliza But-
ler, once said to  be a decent woman, and wife to
the master of a  vessel, she  was formerly in  the
Alms-house,  but was two years ago transported to
Bridewell.   Having  been dreadfully  burnt,  her
appearance is too shocking to  describe.  She is
subject to fits, and occasionally insane, and when
in that condition often beats her room mates.—
She lately almost killed a child.
  The situation of the men's apartments was so sim-
ilar to  that  of the one already described,  that the
committee forbear to  detail their observations at
length.  In one of the rooms, containing both
blacks  and  whites,  the captain was a negro,  and
said that he  was often obliged  to strip  and  whip
his companions.   In  a corner  of one room was a
man, by orders of the captain,  in heavy chains.
Several boys, from  twelve to fifteen years of age,
were confined among these men.   On the ground
floor of the  prison was a miserable wretch, of the
name of Paul, a native of New-Jersey :  he is blind
and insane,  has no bed,  but lies upon the floor
and uses a block for his pillow.  The keeper stated 
13
that  when furnished with a shirt the rats soon
eat it off.  He is sometimes very unruly, and the
persons confined with  him,  being often drunk,
frequently beat and abuse him.  Battles,  it was
said,  frequently ensued,  in  which  his  great
strength was a subject of remark.
   Why or when this man was confined in this
horrible place, the committee are ignorant.   The
keeper informed them that he found him there
upon his  appointment to office, which was  ten
years ago.
   In all  the apartments persons  committed on
suspicion, though not yet indicted, are confined
promiscuously with those who  have already been
convicted ; and  most of the prisoners, of  both
descriptions,  are employed in picking oakum.
   It is needless for the committee  to make many
remarks on the foregoing statement of the condi-
tion of  this prison ;  and they are convinced that
no remedy  can  be  introduced with any effect,
while the present system is pursued.  We lose
sight of the misery these poor objects of our com-
miseration undergo,  when we  reflect on the con-
sequences of confining a number of young inex-
perienced persons, and sometimes innocent, with
hardened old offenders.  Here every sort of cor-
ruption  is generated that it is in the  power of
wickedness and  poverty to  produce.  The old
corrupt the young;  the  lewd  inflame the more
modest;  and the audacious  harden the timid, 
14
Every one fortifies his  mind as far as he  is capa-
ble against his own remaining sensibility, endeav-
ouring to practise on others the arts that are prac-
tised on  himself.  In  this condition,  corrupted
and corrupting,  imprisonment,  instead of amend-
ing the culprit,  serves,  by the contagion of bad
example, and the exasperation of bad passions,
to render him an hundred fold more vicious and
untr actable.
   Shall these irregularities, which  are the cause
of so  much  misery,  disease,  and all  kinds of
crimes and wickedness, be suffered to exist among
an enlightened people, celebrated  for their hu-
manity,  and  making  a profession of  the mild
virtues of the Christian religion ?
   By an act of the Legislature of this State,  pas-
sed  March  30th, 1802, the  Corporation were
authorized to erect a prison for solitary confine-
ment.    The  act directs that persons  convicted
at the Court of  Quarter-Sessions of petit larceny,
shall be  confined in the said prison at the  discre-
tion of the  Court, not exceeding ninety days.
   If the Corporation  could be prevailed on  to
erect this prison, and if the law could be amend-
ed so as  to  allow Justices of the Peace, who are
authorized to  act under the laws respecting va-
grants  and  for the suppression  of vice and immo-
rality, to send petty offenders to this prison to be
confined in a solitary cell on a low diet for a short
term or  not exceeding thirty  days, the Commit- 
16
tee are decidedly of opinion that it would be of
great public utility, and  (as far as small crimes
can be prevented in a populous city) that it would
more effectually prevent their commission  than
any  other system  of punishment that has been
devised.  It would  be more honourable to the city
and  state, and more economical;  and  what is
of far superior consequence, it would much con-
duce to the reformation of the offender :  left to
reflect in solitude and silence, his thoughts will
be naturally directed to his present condition, and
past  conduct, and  it is possible he may  become
sensible of his wickedness and folly, and by feel-
ing the bitter pangs of remorse, be induced when
discharged to amend his life.

                THOMAS EDDY,
                PETER AUGUSTUS JAY,
                JOHN H. HOBART, *
               J. MORTON.
\Zth month (December) 26th, 1809. 
 

c^\