22 JULY 1854, Page 13

THE PUBLIC-HOUSE OF THE FUTURE.

IlleuxE too many Select Committees of Parliament, the Committee which was appointed to consider the system relating, to places of public refreshment, entertainment, and recreation, has put forward a series of recommendations, not very lengthy in themselves, which constitute a real practical measure. The subject is important even to our own readers ; for if they can have little direct personal interest in public-house accommodation, or in the opportunities of the ordinary holiday, they will remember that such matters af- fect the comfort of the most numerous class, whose reasonable wishes every honest politician will consult, event the more se- riously in proportion as those numerous classes are not repre- sented. The recommendations of the Committee amciunt to a total change of system, in some respects almost a total change of the national customs ; and yet if any measure can be passed into a law during the usual period of legislation, namely, next session," there does appear some likelihood that the plan sketched out by this Committee may be the law and custom of the country at no distant period. If so, it will be curious to contrast thatsystem with the present. In favour of the existing system no recommendation can be ad- vanced, except that it does exist. It imposes restrictions upon the respectable, opens the door to evasions by the abandoned. In al- most every department of the many into which it is divided, the present system shows some striking anomaly which it fatal to the very law regulating the subject. For example, under the act of George the Third which prohibits money from being taken for ad- mission at any place whatever on the Sunday, the lowest public. house may be opened for the sale of drunkenness, arid " music- saloons " admit the guests by "refreshment-tickets which cover a nominal free admission "; but the Crystal Palace could only be opened through evasion, which its managers consider beneath them. Thus, the higher you rise in the scale of such places, or in the social condition of the managers, the more strictly does the pro- hibition work. Although probably no place is more liable to be the scene of riot than a public-house, there are restrictions which impede the constant surveillance of the police. The whole good order at such places is supposed to depend upon the licence, which appears to have no real influence on it. The licence, it is said, is not granted solely for character, but according to something like election-favour brought to bear upon the Magistrates. The number of such houses is not in proportion to population, but is supposed to be dictated by builders, who plan neighbourhoods, and who thus give to par- ticular tenements a proportionate value. Nor are these the only anomalies. Places are open or closed on the Sunday without any reference to class. Some publicans close their houses spontaneous- ly; the Dublin Zoological Gardens are open on the Sunday, espe- cially for the working people at the charge of one penny; the Lon- don Zoological Gardens are closed against all strangers ; Hampton Court is open to anybody for nothing ; the British Museum is not Open at all. Gay crowds, therefore, may be seen about Hampton Court, enjoying the pictures, the grounds, and the surrounding country ; crowds more noisy than gay may be seen round low public-houses in other quarters; the latter class of places being debarred from every kind of recreation or redeeming association, the former being provided with no refreshments.

If the recommendation of the Committee were to become law, these scenes would be totally changed. The British Museum, the Crystal Palace, and the Zoological Gardens, if the owners thought fit, would be open, as well as Hampton Court; but the public- houses would be closed except for one hour in the middle of the day and three hours in the evening—from one till two, and from six till nine ; and even then they would only be open for the sale of refreshments, not for guests consuming those refreshments on the Premises. In other words, the crowds in the public-houses, espe- cially at the public-house door, would be abolished ; the larger and gayer crowds at places like Hampton Court or the Crystal Palace Would be extended indefinitely. The scene now witnessed at Sydenham would be exactly reversed: the noisy persons who drown their disappointment at not gaining admission to the Crystal Pa- lace by gaining admission to the public-house, would no longer haunt the bar-parlours, but would freely wander about the palace and grounds.

One or two difficulties suggest themselves in carrying out the measure thus sketched. Men who are no longer permitted to be "drunk on the premises," would probably lay in stock for two or three hours after nine o'clock, bent upon being drunk outside the house; and the police might have some trouble to disen, cumber the pavement of this obstruction. To remove that diffi- culty, however, would only be the work of time. Another seems more serious. Places of public entertainment which ordinarily comprise some traffic in intoxicating drinks, would fairly come within the category of rational recreation. The Crystal Palace is only one example of a class which is likely to be multiplied ; and it might become a matter of some nicety to adjust the prohibition of Sunday-opening with all the facilities that must exist for evad- ing any kind of prohibitory law. The third difficulty is still more serious. Sir Joseph Paxton's idea, that those who wander about the Crystal Palace would feel no desire for stimulants seems like the conclusion of an enthusiast. We doubt whether any person acquainted with English society in its various grades would deny how frequently it would occur to the Englishman, after a prome- nade of that kind, that the very thing to crown the satisfaction would be a draught of the national beverage. Hampton Court parties, which mingle travelling in the open air with sight-seeing, would be still more bent upon some "little refreshment"; and why should it be denied to them ? But where, if the public house is closed, are they to take it ? If reduced to the device of picnics in the open air, how are they to be guaranteed against interference as " trespassers" ? Will a new class of houses of entertainment spring up, simply to give house-room to those who bring their own refreshments with them ? We foresee in the system of the future a number of gay but hungry, thirsty, and weary rational recreationists, wandering disconsolate in the vain search of a home for the hour. For it would be to misconceive the fact of rational recreation if we can suppose that it stays the appetites or totally extinguishes any enjoyment of the table. The beauty of rational recreation is, that at a time when the mind is peculiarly open, it sends in hosts of ideas, which grow familiar, and lead the tastes into better directions : it does not operate didactically, nor supersede the pleasant meals of the holiday.