The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-24

..ss ..s. .
Here is total of nearly fifteen hundred mil
lions Of dollars worth of liquor drunk at the
counter in bar-rooms alone during a single year.
making monthly average of 1923, 624, 322, and,
estimating the present population of the coun-
try at S5, 00o, 00O an average of $42'39 per year
for every man, woman, and child in the United
States. According to recently published statis-
tics, the money actually spent for liquors in the
United Kingdom during the year 1868 amounted
to E102, ,8S6, ,2SO, or S497, 969, 595 which gives
monthly average of Sal ,497, ,466, and per capita
average of SITS We are inclined to doubt the
completeness of these statistics, since the con-
trast presented when they are compared with
those Of this country is almost too startling for
belief But it must be remembered that the
average wealth of the people of Great Britain
and Ireland is far below that of this country,
and that the lower classes are consequently
obliged TO drink a cheaper quality of liquors,
the actual quantity, in liquid measurement being
probably quite equal to that consumed in this
country, in proportion to the population.
An able English statstician, in commenting
on these latter figures, estimates that the annual
loss of wealth, in the shape of external riches
measurable in money to the United Kingdom by
the consumption of intoxicating drinks amounts
to .e22S $50, ,2SO, or 81, 107, ,SO9, ,595, which in
about three years would obiterate the public
debt OF the country. He arrives at this result
by estimating the yearly loss of wealth involved
in the manufacture and distribution of liquors at
953 00O0 000 and the expenses to which the State
is subjected by the crime and pauperism pro-
duced by its consumption at f73, 600, 900, which,
added TO the amount of the yearly sales, makes
up the total of G22S, ,SS6, $50. These calcula-
tions are certainly within the bounds of reason,
and the principle on which they are based can
be applied to the United States with equal force
The articles and manual labor entering into
the manufacture of liquors are certainly
worth fifty per cent of the retail price which
would give $3.50, 100000 worth of the various
kinds OF grains used for dstllation, grapes
potatoes, molasses, and hops, together with the
actual value to the country of the manual labor.
if diverted into other channels. The burdens to
which the community is subjected in the pun
ishment of criminals who are melted to a viola
tiOn of the laws by the inspiration of strong
drink the cost of maintaining drinking paupers
and beggars AT public and private expense and
the actual loss to the country involved in the
idleness of the criminal and pauper elements of
the population through habits of intoxicaton
swell the total annual loss of the country at the
expense of spirituous liquors to full S3,000,-
100000, or about $500, 900, 600 above the aggre-
gate of the national debt This is what whisky
does for the world, and yet the world goes on
drinking, and while human nature remains as it
is will 90 on drinking until the end of time, un-
less it should succeed in drinking itself to death
before the Archangel proclaims the day of judg-
ment.