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 The figures, it will be seen, show a steady decline from 1872–1876 (when the consumption of alcohol was quite abnormal) to 1892–1896. After that year, however, the figures again rose. The increase was especially marked in 1899, when a tide of exceptional prosperity was again accompanied by great drunkenness. It is also disquieting to discover that the average number of prosecutions for drunkenness in the three years 1897–1899 was 51% higher than the average for 1857–1861, and 35% higher than the average for 1862–1866. That the increase was partly due to more efficient police administration is probable, but that this is not a complete explanation of the figures is made evident by an analysis of the general statistics of crime during the same period, from which it may be seen that, while crime generally (excluding drunkenness) decreased 28% in England and Wales since 1857–1861, drunkenness increased 51%. Speaking generally, it may be said that in the United Kingdom drunkenness appears chiefly prevalent in the seaport and mining districts. If a line be drawn from the mouth of the Severn to the Wash, it will be found that the “black” counties, without exception, lie to the north-west of this line. The worst counties in England and Wales in the matter of drunkenness are Northumberland, Durham and Glamorganshire, while Pembrokeshire and Lancashire follow close behind. The most sober counties, on the other hand, are Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. Averages based upon the returns of entire counties do not, however, afford a complete guide to the distribution of drunkenness, inasmuch as offences are not equally distributed over the whole area of a county. A heavy ratio of drunkenness in a small district may often give a county an unfavourable position in the general averages, notwithstanding favourable conditions in the rest of its area.

Analysis of the prosecutions for drunkenness shows that about 24% of the total number of offences are committed by women. In the larger towns the proportion, as a rule, is higher. In London, 38% of the drunkenness is attributable to women; in Manchester, 36%; in Belfast and Glasgow, 32%. In Liverpool, on the other hand, the proportion is only 24%. The much-controverted question as to whether intemperance is increasing among women can hardly, however, be decided by an appeal to the criminal statistics. So far as these statistics throw any light at all upon the question, they suggest important local differences. A more direct clue is afforded by the registrar-general’s annual returns of deaths directly attributed to intemperance. The figures are given below. In order to eliminate accidental variations, the comparison is based upon the average mortality during consecutive periods:—

For the ten years ending 1904, out of 26,426 deaths from alcoholism, 59.34% were males and 40.66% females.

The figures are certainly striking. They show, it will be noticed, that out of every 100 deaths from alcoholic excess in England and Wales women contributed nine more at the end of the century then they did in 1880. If, instead of taking the total number of deaths, we take the ratio per million persons living, the increase is seen even more clearly:—

It appears that, while the ratio of mortality from alcoholic excess increased 87% among males during the last two decades of the century, among females it increased by no less than 180%.

 DRURY, SIR WILLIAM (1527–1579), English statesman and soldier, was a son of Sir Robert Drury of Hedgerley in Buckinghamshire, and grandson of another Sir Robert Drury (d. 1536), who was speaker of the House of Commons in 1495. He was born at Hawstead in Suffolk on the 2nd of October 1527, and was educated at Gonville Hall, Cambridge. Fighting in France, Drury was taken prisoner in 1544; then after his release he helped Lord Russell, afterwards earl of Bedford, to quell a rising in Devonshire in 1549, but he did not come to the front until the reign of Elizabeth. In 1559 he was sent to Edinburgh to report on the condition of Scottish politics, and five years later he became marshal and deputy-governor of Berwick. Again in Scotland in January 1570, it is interesting to note that the regent James Stewart, earl of Murray, was proceeding to keep an appointment with Drury in Linlithgow when he was mortally wounded, and it was probably intended to murder the English envoy also. After this event Drury led two raids into Scotland; at least thrice he went to that country on more peaceable errands, during which, however, his life was continually in danger from assassins; and he commanded the force which compelled Edinburgh Castle to surrender in May 1573. In 1576 he was sent to Ireland as president of Munster, where his stern rule was very successful, and in 1578 he became lord justice to the Irish council, taking the chief control of affairs after the departure of Sir Henry Sidney. The rising of the earl of Desmond had just broken out when Sir William died in October 1579.

 DRUSES, or (Arab. Druz), a people of mid-Syria (for the derivation of the name see History section below), distributed nowadays into three isolated groups, of which the most numerous inhabits Jebel Hauran (Jebel Druz), E. of Jordan (about 55,000); the second, the cazas of Shuf and Metn in Lebanon (about 50,000); the third, the cazas of Hasbeya, Rasheya, W. al Ajem, Homs, Hamadiyeh and Selimiyeh in Anti-Lebanon and Hermon (about 45,000). The first group, which has been greatly increased by migrants from the second, since the establishment of the privileged Lebanon province (1861) under Christian auspices, lives apart from other peoples in semi-independence. The second is now confined to the southern Lebanon, and even there is greatly outnumbered by Maronites, who, in the whole “Mountain,” stand to Druses as 9 to 2. The third is counterbalanced everywhere by a large population of Moslem and Orthodox Syrians. The Hauran, therefore, has become the stronghold of the Druses, offering nowadays the best field for studying their peculiar customs and religion; and the group there still increases at the expense of the other groups, despite efforts on the part of the Ottoman government to check Druse migration by both conciliatory and repressive measures. The actual distinction of the Druses, as a racial unity, despite their dispersion, depends so exclusively on the peculiarity of their common religion, that it will be well at once to give an account of Druse creed and practice as they are understood to stand at the present day. How this religion may have grown up and come to be theirs will be considered later.

Religion.—Druse religion is a secret faith, and the following account is given with all reserves. There are many indications that a more primitive cult, containing elements of Nature worship, preceded it, and still survives in the popular practices of the more remote Druse districts, e.g. in the eastern Hauran. The Muwahhidin (Unitarians), as the Druses call themselves, believe that there is one and only one God, indefinable, incomprehensible, ineffable, passionless. He has made himself known to men by successive incarnations, of which the last was Hakim, the sixth Fatimite caliph. How many these incarnations have been is stated variously; but seventy, one for each period of the world, seems the best-attested number. Jesus appears to