Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-08-15
&eadiua.
DRINKS.
DRINKS.
HOW MANY OF THEM WE CONSUME, &C.

DRINKS.
HOW MANY OF THEM WE CONSUME, &C.
The New York Evening Post has been ex.
amining the statistics of drinks, and submits
them in form that would make a taking
tract for the temperance people. Of course
there is another side of the drinking question,
but this one is suggestive.
In addition to the 62,314,627 gallons of
homemade spirits, and 7,159,94O barrels of
fermented liquors on which taxes were paid
in 1871, we imported of wine 9,788,983 gal
Ions, and 431, ,562 dozen bottles; of spirits
2,629, 1926 gallons, and 123,667 dozen bottles,
and of malt liquors S32,491 gallons. Four
millions out Of the nine Of wine cost only 29
cents per gallon, and 100000 of them 80
cents per gallon the small remainder varied
in price, from wine at 81 cents and rum at II
cents to brandy at $1.64 per gallon. The
homemade articles averaged perhaps go cents
per gallon for spirits, and 80 cents for beer,
as these are the prices Of our exports of the
same articles. The cost of the foreign impor.
tation was $12,43S,9S0. If to this we add
$38, 100000 of excise duty and the first cost
of the homemade articles, at the above prices,
our total outlay for one years stock of drinks
will exceed $162,000,OO0. Four Thousand
five hundred and twenty-four
DIsTILLERs
out of the 1892 registered we're employed in
the production of the home contingent of these
drinks, and 1882 licensed venders made
the whole into sherry cobblers, brandy smash
es, mint juleps, ging slings, and cocktails !;
and, of course We paid for them 5, 10, % and
so osnte a glaaa, for that which coat only from
q tenth to twentieth part of these amounts,
thus putting into the pockets of the dealers
the sum of more than $500,000,000. Those
thus liscensed to sell liquors make one in 250
of the population, and they have, on an aver
age, one or two assistants, making one in eve
ry 100 to one in every 1870 of the citizens en-
gagged in drink selling. Leaving out the
women and youths not yet arrived at the
drinking age, and making some allowance for
those who support these drinking
establishments are less than twelve millions
in number, so thaton an average every
EIGHTY DRINKERS SUPPORT A DRINKING Es-
TABLIsHMENT
and consume 460 gallons Of spirits, 80 gallons
of wine, and 1000 gallons of beer annually.
This would be utterly incredible were it not
for the two facts that the census gives 38,000,-
900 as the population, and that the Internal
Revenue Department in their report for 1871,
puts down $4,651, ,484 as received and &C.
counted for from persons taking out licenses
at $25 year each, and if they had all taken
a full years license it would have required
146, ,059 in number to have made up this sum !;
but as some of them paid less than a years
license there must have been more than this
number licensed. In the same way the De-
partment accounts for the receipt of 6,696
from those who pay $100 year for license; !;
and as some of them would pay less than q
year, there must have been more than 1856
of them. These two numbers added together
make at least the number licensed as above
given. The eighty individuals who support
drinking store will require to pay its expenses,
say on an average, SIS for rent, $5 to $40 for
wages paid to servants, and $40 as profit to
proprietor ; in all s45, or nearly $50 each.
OF THESE STORES THERE ARE NEARLY ONE
HUNDRED AND F1FTY-THREE THOUSAND,
and their total expenses will therefore amount
to six hundred and seven millions OF dollars,
or about the same as the estimate arrived at
above by different process, in which the
profits to the licensed dealers were put at five
hundred millions, and the first cost of the IL
quors at one hundred and sixty-two millions.
The State of New York has 22,846 licensed
sellers, or one for every 1870 of the population,
while one in sixty to one in ninety of its peo-
pie are engaged in these liquors stores.
The city of New York has 7,181 licensed
sellers of drink, or 1 for every 140 of the pop
ulation, while / in 30 to 1 in 70 of its people
are engaged in drink selling. Massachusetts,
in 1871 had 1922 Of its people licensed to sell,
and in every 85 engaged in selling drink.
Pennsylvania had II, ,431 licensed, or to eve
ry 240. Ohio had 1876, or one in every
210. Illinois had 1859 licensed, or in 260.
Maine had 1903, or 1 in 600. Other States
range between 1 in 200 and l in 600; so that
on an average every so families in the land
support drinking store, with its two or
three drink attendants.
These two or three attendants make up an
army of 100000 to 100000 persons, who, if
they were not thus employed, might be earn
ing on an average $500 to 81, 900 a year each.
Thus withheld from remunerative work, the
nation loses thereby from $2O0,000,000 to
OO,000,000, which, added to the other out
lays already given, make total of
EIGHT HUNDRED TO THOUSAND MILLIONS
OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY
as the cost to the nation of the drinks in which
our people indulge. Nor is this all; if we
could calculate the amount by which the ef'
fects of drink increases our judicial and prison
expenses, there would be another large item
to add to this enormous amount. These are
not imaginative figures, as too many such es-
Inmates are, but the sober realities of the In
ternal Revenue reports 80 far as the number
of licenses is concerned and if any one should
think two to three more than the average
number employed in each store, or $4,000 too
much for rent, wages, income, and other OK.
penses of the stores, let him take his own es-
innate of these items, and he will find that by
no possible "scriping" can the cost of our
drinks to the nation be reduced to less than
seven or eight hundred millions of dollars an
nually, or from eighty to one hundred dollars
for each family.
WHAT 1T IS TO BE A WIDOW.
"I think it must be jolly thing to be a
young widow !"
I heard this remark the other day in
group of laughing girls. l think remember
saying such thing myself in my girlish times.
Do you know, girls, what it is to be widow ?
l. A. 90 aanf