Not drunk?

Just another random newspaper trport that mentions Lager. Odd how many people accused of crimes had been drinking Lager.

Just see what this particular criminal had knocked back:

"RATING ACCUSED.
Angus Black, a 22-years-old Devonport naval rating, pleading Not guilty" to burglariously breaking and entering a house at 15, Notte-street, Plymouth, on December 12, told the Recorder that after drinking thirty tots of whisky, fifteen small bottles of beer, and two lagers in a public-house, he "sort of staggered through the door of the house in Notte-street, thinking it was a canteen.

Mr. G. R. King Anningson, prosecuting on instructions from Mr. H. J. W. Ruse, said Black was found, shoeless, curled up behind the counter of the shop on the ground floor of the premises. A glass panel in the door had been smashed and there was a hole large enough for a man to go through.

Frank Screech, who lived on the premises, and PC. Burbridge both said Black was not drunk and did not appear to have been drinking. Found "Guilty." Black was bound over for three years in the sum of £10, a naval officer reporting that he would automatically be dealt with by the naval authorities. Mr. P. F. Atkin, instructed by Mr. P. A. Came, defended."
Western Morning News - Monday 06 January 1947, page 6.

Mr. Screech - great name that, very Dickensian - didn't reckon Black had been drinking? After he'd drunk 30 whiskies, 15 small bottles of beer and two Lagers? That's a scary amount of alcohol. Even I'd be stumbling after that lot. I'm surprised that a pub would sell him that much booze.

"dealt with by the naval authorities" - did they still have flogging in the navy back then?