Grappling with the Monster; Or, the Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink. Arthur Timothy Shay
the free use of alcoholic beverages. Of the six or seven hundred millions of dollars paid annually for these beverages, not less than two-thirds are taken out of the earnings of our artisans and laborers, and those who, like them, work for wages.
But the loss does not, of course, stop here. The consequent waste of bodily vigor, and the idleness that is ever the sure accompaniment of drinking, rob this class of at least as much more. Total abstinence societies, building associations, and the use of banks for savings, instead of the dram-sellers' banks for losings, would do more for the well-being of our working classes than all the trades-unions or labor combinations, that ever have or ever will exist. The laboring man's protective union lies in his own good common sense, united with temperance, self-denial and economy. There are very many in our land who know this way; and their condition, as compared with those who know it not, or knowing, will not walk therein, is found to be in striking contrast.
Besides the wasting drain for drink, and the loss in national wealth, growing out of the idleness and diminished power for work, that invariably follows the use of alcohol in any of its forms, the people are heavily taxed for the repression and punishment of crimes, and the support of paupers and destitute children. A fact or two will give the reader some idea of what this enormous cost must be. In "The Twentieth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York," is this sentence: "There can be no doubt that, of all the proximate sources of crime, the use of intoxicating liquors is the most prolific and the most deadly. Of other causes it may be said that they slay their thousands; of this it may be acknowledged that it slays its tens of thousands. The committee asked for the opinion of the jail officers in nearly every county in the State as to the proportion of commitments due, either directly or indirectly, to strong drink."
The whole number of commitments is given in these words: "Not less than 60,000 to 70,000 [or the sixtieth portion of the inhabitants of the State of New York] human beings—men, women and children—either guilty, or arrested on suspicion of being guilty of crime, pass every year through these institutions." The answers made to the committee by the jail officers, varied from two-thirds as the lowest, to nine-tenths as the highest; and, on taking the average of their figures, it gave seven-eighths as the proportion of commitments for crime directly ascribed to the use of intoxicating drinks!
Taking this as the proportion of those who are made criminals through intemperance, let us get at some estimate of the cost to tax-payers. We find it stated in Tract No. 28, issued by the National Temperance Society, that "a committee was appointed by the Ulster County Temperance Society, in 1861, for the express purpose of ascertaining, from reliable sources, the percentage on every dollar tax paid to the county to support her paupers and criminal justice. The committee, after due examination, came to the conclusion that upwards of sixty cents on the dollar was for the above purpose. This amount was required, according to law, to be paid by every tax-payer as a penalty, or rather as a rum bill, for allowing the liquor traffic to be carried on in the above county. What is said of Ulster County, may, more or less, if a like examination were entered into, be said of every other county, not only in the State of New York, but in every county in the United States."
From the same tract we take this statement: "In a document published by the Legislature of the State of New York, for 1863, being the report of the Secretary of the State to the Legislature, we have the following statements: 'The whole number of paupers relieved during the same period, was 261,252. During the year 1862, 257,354.' These numbers would be in the ratio of one pauper annually to every fifteen inhabitants throughout the State. In an examination made into the history of those paupers by a competent committee, seven-eighths of them were reduced to this low and degraded condition, directly or indirectly, through intemperance."
Looking at our laboring classes, with the fact before us, that the cost of the liquor sold annually by retail dealers is equal to nearly $25 for every man, woman and child in our whole population, and we can readily see why so much destitution is to be found among them. Throwing out those who abstain altogether; the children, and a large proportion of women, and those who take a glass only now and then, and it will be seen that for the rest the average of cost must be more than treble. Among working men who drink the cheaper beverages, the ratio of cost to each cannot fall short of a hundred dollars a year. With many, drink consumes from a fourth to one-half of their entire earnings. Is it, then, any wonder that so much poverty and suffering are to be found among them?
The causes that produce crime and pauperism in our own country, work the same disastrous results in other lands where intoxicants are used. An English writer, speaking of the sad effects of intemperance in Great Britain, says: "One hundred million pounds, which is now annually wasted, is a sum as great as was spent in seven years upon all the railways of the kingdom—in the very heyday of railway projects; a sum so vast, that if saved annually, for seven years, would blot out the national debt!" Another writer says, "that in the year 1865, over £6,000,000, or a tenth part of the whole national revenue, was required to support her paupers." Dr. Lees, of London, in speaking of Ireland, says: "Ireland has been a poor nation from want of capital, and has wanted capital chiefly because the people have preferred swallowing it to saving it." The Rev. G. Holt, chaplain of the Birmingham Workhouse, says: "From my own experience, I am convinced of the accuracy of a statement made by the late governor, that of every one hundred persons admitted, ninety-nine were reduced to this state of humiliation and dependence, either directly or indirectly, through the prevalent and ruinous drinking usages."
Mr. Charles Buxton, M.P., in his pamphlet, "How to Stop Drunkenness," says: "It would not be too much to say that if all drinking of fermented liquors could be done away, crime of every kind would fall to a fourth of its present amount, and the whole tone of moral feeling in the lower order might be indefinitely raised. Not only does this vice produce all kinds of wanton mischief, but it has also a negative effect of great importance. It is the mightiest of all the forces that clog the progress of good. * * * The struggle of the school, the library and the church, all united against the beer-shop and the gin-palace, is but one development of the war between Heaven and hell. It is, in short, intoxication that fills our jails; it is intoxication that fills our lunatic asylums; it is intoxication that fills our work-houses with poor. Were it not for this one cause, pauperism would be nearly extinguished in England."
We could go on and fill pages with corroborative facts and figures, drawn from the most reliable sources. But these are amply sufficient to show the extent and magnitude of the curse which the liquor traffic has laid upon our people. Its blight is everywhere—on our industries, on our social life; on our politics, and even on our religion.
And, now, let us take the individual man himself, and see in what manner this treacherous enemy deals with him when he gets him into his power.
CHAPTER II
IT CURSES THE BODY
First as to the body. One would suppose, from the marred and scarred, and sometimes awfully disfigured forms and faces of men who have indulged in intoxicating drinks, which are to be seen everywhere and among all classes of society, that there would be no need of other testimony to show that alcohol is an enemy to the body. And yet, strange to say, men of good sense, clear judgment and quick perception in all moral questions and in the general affairs of life, are often so blind, or infatuated here, as to affirm that this substance, alcohol, which they use under the various forms of wine, brandy, whisky, gin, ale or beer, is not only harmless, when taken in moderation—each being his own judge as to what "moderation" means—but actually useful and nutritious!
Until within the last fifteen or twenty years, a large proportion of the medical profession not only favored this view, but made constant prescription of alcohol in one form or another, the sad results of which too often made their appearance in exacerbations of disease, or in the formation of intemperate habits among their patients. Since then, the chemist and the physiologist have subjected alcohol to the most rigid tests, carried on often for years, and with a faithfulness that could not be satisfied with guess work, or inference, or hasty conclusion.
As a result of these carefully-conducted and long-continued examinations