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with beer are given in Mr. Charles Booth's "Life and Labour of the People," and the statistics of the
London milk supply are examined in a paper contained in the "Journal of the Statistical Society, 1892."
There remain, however, two difficulties with regard to making a complete statement concerning
beverages consumed by Londoners. In the first place the quantity of tea, coffee, etc. needs to be
converted into terms of amount of the liquid infusions in question actually consumed. This
must necessarily be, to some extent, a matter of conjecture. Secondly there remains the question
as to cold water. To attack this problem directly would involve very extended inquiry, so dissimilar
are the habits of individuals as regards use of cold water. I have endeavoured to arrive indirectly at
a solution, by fixing the average amount of liquid of all kinds consumed, deducting from this everything
except cold water, and finding what remains.
Judging by experience of institution dietaries and by figures given in treatises on physiology,
etc., some 3 pints may be regarded as the average amount of liquid of all kinds consumed per diem
by the unit of population. According to Parkes "an adult requires daily about 70-100 ounces
(3½-5 pints) of water for nutrition, but about 20 to 30 ounces of this are contained in the bread, meat,
etc., of his food. . . . women drink rather less than men, children drink of course absolutely less,
but more in proportion to their bulk than adults." Sidney Martin estimates the total amount of
water, including that taken in food, at 70-80 ounces daily. Observations made concerning selected
individuals, and calculations based upon physiological needs, do not take account of hard drinkers,
of whom there are many in London, and for the present purpose some allowance must be made for
them. Instead of the physiological 3 pints I prefer therefore to fix the average at 3¼ pints.*
The following amounts may then be taken as being approximately correct—
Beer 16 ounces.
Aerated waters 5 ounces.
Wine, spirits, etc., 2/3 ounce.
Milk 51/3 ounces.
Hot drinks (tea, coffee, cocoa, broths and soups) 23 ounces.
This leaves a balance of about f pint which may be assigned to cold water. Had the
physiological 3 pints been taken as the average of total liquids, only ½ pint would have been left to
be assigned to cold water. If the additional allowance made, in consideration of the hard drinking
done in London, had been more than ¼ pint, then the balance left to be assigned to cold water would
have exceeded ¾ pint.
The quantity of beer given above is, at first sight, surprisingly large,† the figure is even more
significant when regard is paid to the fact that many persons drink no beer at all, and that the
average is therefore necessarily maintained by the consumption of large amounts by a section of the
population. Londoners may be divided into three practically equal groups, men, women, and young
people (under about 17 years), and the following approximate statement may be made concerning
the average consumption per unit of the population belonging to each of these three groups—
Young persons. Women. Men.
Beer - About 12 oz. 1 pint 16 oz.
Wine, spirits, etc - ⅓ oz. 1⅔oz.
Aerated waters ¼ pint ¼ pint¼ pint
Milk 11 oz. 3 oz. 2 oz.
Hot drinks 1 pint 1 pint 8 oz. 1 pint
Cold water 1 pint 15 oz. 10 oz.
Total 2 pints 16 oz. 3 pints 4 oz. 3 pints 15 oz.
These amounts are of course only approximate, and the allotment of quantities of beer, wine
and spirits to men and women, respectively, is more or less a matter of guesswork. The large average
consumption of alcohol per unit of population is, it may safely be assumed, in great part attributable
to the excessive quantities taken by a section of the population; the man who habitually drinks 6-10
pints of beer or ¼-½ pint of spirits daily, naturally raises the average for men generally.
The most interesting result of the above analysis, from the point of view of this report, is the
fact that the quantity of aerated water is at least a third, and it may be it is as much as half, as large as
the total amount of cold water consumed. Cold water is for one reason or another steadily falling out
of favour; the Londoner of to-day drinks rather more alcohol (wine, spirits and beer), and five or six
times as much tea as did the Londoner of fifty years ago. Had the habits of persons who lived in the
years of great cholera prevalence, between 1830 and 1866, been those of the modern Londoner, the
* Inquiry made among common lodging-house inmates by Mr. Shapley, one of the Council's inspectors, indicates that on an
average about 4 pints of beer are consumed daily, in addition to some spirits and a considerable quantity of tea ; lodgers appear
to eat comparatively little solid food, but many of them spend all that is left, after paying for this and for their bed, upon beer.
Among 30 lodgers taken at random, 3 said they never drank beer, the remaining 27 specified the following amounts as having
been consumed by them on the preceding day (an ordinary week day in February); in one instance ½ pint; three said 2 pints;
ten 3 pints; five, 4 pints; two, 5 pints; one, 6 pints; one, 8 pints; two, 10 pints; and the two remaining had drunk far
more but could not remember how much. A fish-porter, questioned by Mr. Jury, the Council's chief inspector, fixed his previous
day's expenditure upon beer at "five and a penny." He had received 5s. 8d., had spent 6d. on his bed and 1d. on food, for
the rest he had passed a particular public-house 60 times, in going and coming on 30 separate journeys, and each time had
looked in, and further, had had a final half-pint at the end of the day.
†It may be noted that Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell computed that in the United Kingdom the expenditure per week
by each working class family upon alcoholic drink was at least 6 shillings.