IN RE: SINNATHAMBI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Revision filed against the conviction and sentence by the learned Sub -Magistrate of Pollachi in C.C. No. 9172 of 1958, which were confirmed by the learned District Magistrate of Coimbatore in C.A. No. 556 of 1958. The Revision Petitioner was sentenced under Section 4(1)(a) of the Madras Prohibition Act and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for two months and to pay a fine of Rs. 50, in that he was arrested with M.O. I tin, which contained six bottles of arrack at about 8 P.M. on 19th October, 1958, in the cross -cut road in Valparai limits. The correctness of this conviction was not canvassed before the lower appellate Court t but only the sentence was attacked as excessive. The learned District Magistrate refused to interfere with the sentence on the ground that the possession of a considerable quantity of arrack could only have been for sale to others. Therefore, he dismissed the appeal. Hence this Revision in which the severity of the sentence is pressed.

(2.) THE enforcement of prohibition poses before us two difficult problems, viz., the magnitude of the evils of drink and secondly how being a deep -rooted evil, it requires systematic, fearless and severe application. The following historical account gathered from the Encyclopaedia Britannica will form a fitting introduction in the following account of this ancient problem in the earlier stages of our history.

(3.) DISTILLATION of essences from various substances seems to have been known to the ancients and to have been carried on by the Arabians in the dark ages ; but potable spirits were not known until the 13th century. The distilled essence of wine or aqua vitae (brandy) is mentioned then as a new discovery of Arnoldus de Villa Nova, a Chemist and Physician, who regarded it, from the chemical or medical point of view, as a divine product. It probably came into use very gradually, but once the art of distillation had been mastered it was extended to other alcoholic substances in countries where vine was not grown. Malt, from which beer had been made from time immemorial, was naturally used for the purpose, and then gin or Geneva spirits and whisky or usquebagh (Irish for " water of life ") were added to grape brandy ; then came corn brandy in the north and cast of Europe, rum from sugarcanes in the Indies, potato spirit, and eventually, as the process was perfected, rectified ethyl alcohol from almost anything containing sugar or starch.