| Description Of Item | Press cutting of page 3 from the Scotsman, published on 14 January 1873. Announces a future meeting (at which Mr Donald Dalrymple, MP for Bath, should attend) regarding the legislation on the control and management of ‘habitual drunkards’. It reports on recommendations made by a committee composed of medical professionals from Edinburgh: Dr [Alexander] Peddie, Dr [David] Skae, and Arthur Mitchell. These recommendations include the establishment of institutions (‘sanataria or reformatories’) to hold and reform ‘habitual drunkards’, interned either voluntarily or by commitment. Courts would then sentence an alcoholic to a fine and to detention in such an ‘inebriate institution’. Recommendations include: payment and fees, depending on if the patient or his family and relations can pay or not; who should be responsible for these institutions; how the profits from patients’ work should be spent; the keeping of a drunkard register so that repeat offences could be known and that sellers of liquors could be made aware of drunkards’ names; that a committee should be appointed to regularly inspect reformatories; and that purity of the alcohol sold should be watched.
From the collection of Thomas Laycock. |