| Title | The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists |
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| Page | 1202 |
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| Chapter | -- |
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| Text |
here were a very large proportion of them who did not spend even a shilling a week for drink: and there were numerous others who, while not being formally total abstainers, yet often went for weeks together without either entering a public house or tasting intoxicating drink in any form. Then there were others who, instead of drinking tea or coffee or cocoa with their dinners or suppers, drank beer. This did not cost more than the teetotal drinks, but all the same there are some persons who say that those who swell the `Nation's Drink Bill' by drinking beer with their dinners or suppers are a kind of criminal, and that they ought to be compelled to drink something else: that is, if they are working people. As for the idle classes, they of course are to be allowed to continue to make merry, `drinking whisky, wine and sherry', to say nothing of having their beer in by the barrel and the dozen - or forty dozen - bottles. But of course that's a different matter, because these people make so much money out of the labour of the working classes that they can afford to indulge in this way without depriving their children |
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