[Anon.], Aspects of the Working Classes. No. V. Drinking Customs (1851)

The English working man has unlimited faith in the virtues of foaming ale. Taking the whole kingdom it is found that there are upwards of four hundred distinct rules or usages conformity to which require certain, and sometimes very uncertain, quantities of liquor to be swilled by the parties concerned. The Birmingham people are very fond of sick clubs and benefit societies. Nearly every / such society has its drinking customs, and conformity to them does not cost less than 17,000l. The pernicious influences of our national drinking usages do not radiate only in the factory. They penetrate to the home. They defile the inner life of the domestic circle, and render that circle an arena in which strife, want, disease, and crime wage war against the doomed ones.