In 1730, You Could Buy Gin Cheaper Than Water

In 1730s London, gin was cheaper than clean water. A sign over one cellar door offered three prices: drunk for a penny, dead drunk for two pence, clean straw for nothing. That sign was not the work of a criminal. Parliament made gin cheap on purpose — and when Parliament tried to undo it, one man beat the entire British government with a wooden cat nailed to a wall. This is one ordinary day in London during the Gin Craze: the 1736 Act that demanded a £50 licence and got two, the informers paid £5 to turn in their neighbours, eight million gallons a year, and what actually ended it. One day. Any century. Not yours.