New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-08-04
KING ALCOHOL.
What Our Drinking Costs Us.

| fermentcd liquors on which taxes we're paid
! in 1871, we import of wine 9,7SS,9 gallons
and 43I ,562 dozen bottles; of spirits =, 629,-
| 800 gallons and 1913, CO. dozen bottles and
of malt liquors 832, ADJ gallons, Four mil
| lions out of the nine of wine cost only ~
cents per gallon, and three millions of them
| 81 cents per gallon; the small remainder
varied in price, from wine at 81 cents, and
rum at n cents, to brandy at 81 "a per CAD
/ Ion. The home made articles averaged per
| haps 80 cents per gallon for spirits and 81
cents for beer, es these are the prices of our
exports Of the same articles. The cost of
| the foreign importation was So, 43S9SO Ii
| to this we add thirty-eight millions of ex-
else duty, and the first cost of the home
made article at the above prices, our total
outlay for one years stock Will exceed
! $l62, 600.
Four thousand five hundred and twenty
four distillers out of the 1892 registered were
employed in the production of the home
contingent of these drinks, and 1885, Or IL
Censed vendors made the whole into sherry
cObblers, brandy smashPs, mint juleps, GIN
sings and cocktails, and, of course, we PAID
for them with princely iberality, giving
five ten, twenty-five and fifty cents glass
for that which cost Only from tenth 10
twentieth part of these amounts, thus put
ting into the pockets of our Obliging friends
the dealers, the exceedingly handsome sum
of more than $500, 100000. The nation that
can afford thus to speLd 5OO,OOOO OO annu-
allV on drinks can not be short OF cash;
and it seems rather out of place for us
TO be CRYING about ill-ted families and
cOmfOrtless homes, as an excuse Tor more
wages and less work, while we are
thus supporting in ease and atfiutnce
from three to four hundred thousand able
bodied men behind counters TO minister TO
our pleasures in Publication. Those thus
licensed to sell liquors make one in two
l. e hn
they have, on an average, one or two as.
sistants, making nne in every one hundred
TO every one hundred and thirty of the cltl-
zens engaged in drink selling. Leaving out
the women and the youths not yet arrived
at the drinking age, and making some al
lOwance fOuRtetOtallers, those who support
these drinking establishments are less than
twelve millions in number, so that on an
average every eighty drinkers support
drinking establishment, and consume four
hundred and sixty gallons of spirits, eighty
gallons of wine and two thousand gallons OF
beer annually. This would be utterly IN
credible were it not for the two facts that
the census gives thirty eight millions as. the
population, and that the Internal Revenue
Department in their report for 1872 put
down SO, 65I ,484 as received and accounted
for from persons taking out licenses at
$25 a wear each, and if they had all taken
full years license it would have required
l46,059 in number to have made up this
sum, but as some of them paid less than a
full years license, there must have been
more than this number licensed. In the
same way the department accounts for the
receipt OF $746,69 from those who pay 500
a year for license; and as some of them
would pay for less than year, there must
have been more than 1896 of them. These
two numbers added together make at least
the number licensed as above given. The
oSu in yTJdUala yub In GIInNOPt a store will
require to pay its expenses, say on an aver
ace SIS for rent s. to $40 for wages to
servants, and $40 as profit to the prOprie
tor, in all $45. or nearly 500 each. Of
these stores there are nearly $4,000, and
their total expenses, therefore, amount to
81, 600 600, or about. the same as the esti-
mate arrived at above by a different
process. in which the profits to the licensed
dealers were put at $500 600, 900, and the
first cost of the liquors at $4,000, 600.
Nor is the actual money expenditure on
these drinks the whole of their cost to the
nation Far from it. These two or three
attendants make up an army Of 300, 600 to
400, 900 persons, who, if they were not thus
employed, might be at useful work, earning
on an average $500 or $1,000 year each.
Thus withheld from remunerative work,
the nation loses thereby from 5000, 100000
to 100000 900, which, added to the. other
outlay already given makes a total of
C0UU,UUU,OUU 10 Gl,UUU,UOU,UOU 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 effect of drinks increases
our judicial and prison expenses, there
would be another large item to add to
this enormous amount. These are not inn
aginative figures, as too many such esti-
mates are, but the sober realities of the in
ternal revenue reports, so far as the mum
Der of licenses is concerned; and if any one
should think two to three more than the
average number employed in each store, or
$500 too much for rent, wages, income and
other expenses of the stores, let him take
his own estimate of these items and he will
find that by no possible "scrimping" can
the cost of our drinks to the nation be re-
duced to less than 81, 100000 or So, 900 900
annually or from $50 to 500 for each fam
ilys
What do we achieve by this immense out
lay, exceeding by many times our exIendi-
lures on churches. colleges and schOOls}.
We do not care to go into details in rel ~ to
that question; each can supply his own an
swer. The results Of this outlay, however,
are nothing to be proud of. There is only
one other nation in ChristendOm where SO
large an expenditure is made of drink and
no other nation or people employs so large
a proportion of its numbers in liquor traffic
This is not as it should be, and those who
nave TAKEN Ill manu- 10 SCI IldbItES 10 EIRnLS
are attempting to do so by means entirely
at variance with the principles that guide
our general policy. Freedom and self-help
are priced by most of us, as constituting the
superiority and excellence of our system
but it was sought to put our drinking
habits to rights on a reverse plan, 10y shak-
ling our wills, desires and fancies with
pledges and laws. The motives which lead
to right action, however, are not to be found
in vows or acts of Congress, and the at.
tempt to extract them therefrUn is futile
This is proved almost to a demonstration
by the fact that for half century many
able, estimable and well meaning citizens
have been labOring diligently to abate
drinking by temperance pledges and pro-
hlbitiOn, and yet our consumption Of drink
per capita is not diminished but rather
increased. The efforts made, energy ex-
pended, and costs incurred III this fruitless
labor would have more than suifieed
if directed Alright, to reduce our drinks
to a minimum, and while all must commend
the intention, and honor the workers for
their labor of love, every one who is salts
fed that desired results can only be se-
cured in accordance with the natural laws
to which the subject is amenable must re-
greet tins instruction of so much valuable
and earnest endeavOr. 1t is right and
proper to let people see what it is good to
do, and to avoid doing, and to use every
proper incentive to stimulate them to Wig
orOus action IN the way in which thew
should 60; but to attempt to drive them
into well-doing by the lash of the law or
the questionable expedent OF. the fear of
broken pledges Is not cOmmendable pro
Ceeding.
Many narrowing facts have been given of
the late dreadful famine in Persia, but one