The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1872-11-26
WHAT OUR DRINKS COST US.

| Iermented liquors ON winch taxes were palo
in 1871, we imported of wine 0, 7SS, 983 gallons
and 431, 562 dozen bottles of spirits 2,629, 3st
| gallons, and 1913, 667 dozen bottles, and of mali
liquors S32, 481 gallons. Four millions out Of
the nine of wine cost only 30 cents per gallon,
and three millions of them SO cents per gallon
the small remainder varied in price, from wine
at GA cents, and rum at N CENTS to brandy al
| $1.64 per gallon. The homemade articles
averaged perhaps 60 cents per gallon for spir.
its, and 80 cents for beer, as these are the
prices of our exports Of the same articles. The
cost of the foreign importation was $12, 1885,.
$780, If to this we add 3S millions of excise
duty, and the first ccst of the homemade ar.
ticles, at the above prices, our total outlay fol
one years stock of drinks will exceed 1862 mil.
lions of dollars.
-Four thousand five hundred and twenty-foul
| (4,524) distillers out of the S192 registered
were employed i'll the production of the home
contingent of these drinks, and 153, 522 licensed
vendors made the whole into sherry cobblers,
brandy smashes, mint juleps, gin sings and
cocktails; and, of course, we paid for then,
with princely liberality, giving 5, 10, 25 and
so cents glass for that which cost only from
tenth to a twentieth part of these amounts,
thus putting into the pockets of our obliging
friends, the dealers, the exceedingly handsome
sum of more than $500, 200. The nation
that can afford thus to spend half a billion an
nually on drinks cannot be short of cash, and
it seems rather out of place for us to be crying
out about ill-fed families and comfortless
homes, as an excuse for more wages and less
work, while we are thus supporting, in ease
and atfluence, 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 250 of the population, and they have, on an
average, one or two assistants making one in
every 100 to one in every 1870 of the citizens
engaged in drink selling
Leaving out the women and youths not yet
arrived at the drinking age, and making some
allowance for teetotallers, those who support
these drinking establishments are less than
ten millions in number, so that ON an average
every eighty drinkers support drinking es-
adjustment, and consume four hundred and
sixty gallons of spirits, eighty gallons of wine,
and two thousand gallons of beer annually
This would be utterly incredible 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 1871 put down SO 651, 4S4 as received and
accounted 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 full years
license there must have been more than this
number licensed. In the same way the de-
partment accounts for the receipt of $740, COG,
from those who pay 800 a year for license !;
ami as some of them would pay for less than
year, there must have been more than 2, 4GG
of them. These two numbers added together
make at least the number licensed as above
given. The eighty individuals who support a
drink store will require to pay it's expenses,
say on an average SIS for rent, $5 to $40 for
wages to servants, and $40 as profit to the
proprietor in all $45, or nearly $50 each. OF
these stores there are nearly one hundred and
fifty-three Thousand, and their total expenses
Will bilcItloIc diuouIJ W llulluIcu
seventy-sevcn millions of dollars, or about the
same as the estimate arrived at above by a
different process, in which the profits to the
licensed dealers were put at five hundred mil
lions, and the first cost of the liquors at one
hundred and sixty-two millions
The State of New York has 80, 846 licensed
sellers, or for every 1870 of the population,
while in go to in 80 of its people are en-
gagged in these liquor stores.
The city of New York has 7,191 licensed
sellers of drink, or for every 140 of the popu-
lation, while / to 80 to 10 of its people are en-
gagged in drink selling. Massachusetts, in 1871
had 1922 of its people licensed to sell and in
every 30 engaged in selling drink. Pennsyl-
vania had IA, 431 licensed, or to every 240
Ohio had IL, 377 or / in every 210. Illinois
had 1850 licensed, or 1 in 260. Maine had
1,053, or in 600. Other States range between
1 in 200 and in 600; so that on an average
every 80 families in the land supports drink
ing store, with its two to three drink attend
ants.
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 100000 to 100000 per-
sons who, if they were not thus employed,
might be at useful work, earning on an aver
age $500 to 81 900 a year each. Thus with
held from remunerative work, the nation loses
thereby from 5000, $1,000 to $400, 600, 600,
which, added to the other outlays already
given, makes total of eight hundred to a
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 effects of
drink increases our Judicial and prison expen-
SEES, there would be another large item to add
to this enormous amount These are not
imaginative figures, as too many such esti-
mates are, but the sober realities of the Inter-
nal Revenue reports, so 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 ex-
penses of the stores, let him take his own es-
innate of these items, and he will find that by