The Portland daily press., 1872-04-29
TERMS $500 PER ANNuM, IN ADVANCE.

TWO hundred and fifty-four grog-shops
"''ie anu great, dirty and genteel vulgar and
Varhlshes, which are known To have existed
| more or less openly or more or lass sacretIv
saying nothing of the many that were not
known, and see what the result mpst ho If
each of these shops take an average of five dol
lars day, the amount will be SSS, 100 for every
month of thirty days, and $457, 200 year. If
we say four dollars day for each shop, the
amount win be $50, ,4SO month, and 1856, 760 a
year. But when we consider the many genteel
places where liquors were sold at genteel pri-
ces, and in large quantities, the estimate Of five
dollars day is not too large; the actual
amount think, was much larger
We have then a saving to the city in cash, by
the honest enforcement of the law, of more
than S457 200 a year:-the city will be growing
absolutely richer, year by year, by that amount,
than it would if the grog shops were allowed to
run. That sum would build frst-class cot
ton mill Of large size, with best machinery, and
stock it with cotton for year, giving profita-
Die employment to three hundred and fifty
hands, adding five hundred to our population
Itwould furnish sufficient capital in the boot
and shoe business, for an additional population
of three thousand persons.
II Is settled question, that for every dollar
spent for strong drink, at least another dollar
is lost and wasted, by lost time, misdrected in
dustry, and damage and destruction of property
in many ways Does anyone doubt this? Let
him ask any employer of labor, and he will
learn that great many men always lose the
Mondays another proportion of them lose Mon
day and Tuesday; still another proportion will
lose always three days in the week, and some
times an entire week or mOre--'Off on a spree
A little while ago, said to plasterer, ''Mr R.
L wish you would come to my house, Iwant a job
done" II don't know what can do about il, Pm
bothered to death with my men," "What is
the trouble? They're off so much on beer;
L IN going now to see two of my men, smart
young fellows and excellent workmen who
have'n mt done stroke of work for six weeks.
They're brothers, unmarried and living with
their mother. Six weeks ago, paid them off
in full-a considerable sum-and they've done
nothing since but booze beer. I've been to
their house twice, early in the mornings before
they wereup, and begged them to come to work
for was greatly driven with workout it
was no use. asked their mother to persuade
them, but she said she'd done her best, but
twas no use; they would do nothing more until
their money was gone, and by that time, she
thought they d be sick and unfit to work. for
month or TWO. And how much do they earn
when they work?' sThree dollars and half
day with as much as they can do all the time;
help
Now let us look at this affair. Three dollars
ana half a cay make twenty-one dollars q
week and eight hundred and forty dollars for
forty weeks, allowing twelve weeks for lost
time; for the two brothers. Sixteen hundred
and eighty dollars year lost by 'the beer"
But this sum is lost also to the city, State and
nation by reason of ''the beer in this one case
Ihey give that amount in valuable labor, and
receive that sum in return; but for ''the beer,
all OF this, except what would be required for
their comfortable support, would be added,
year by year, to the increasing wealth of the
city, Now these two young men--and the city
through them-lost seven dollars day, while
off on beer, and how much beer did they con-
sumo? Perhaps dollars WORTH so here we
have seven dollars lost and wasted to the city,
for one dollar spent for strong drink. There
are thousands OF such cases. and great many
much worse all through the country, arising
from dollar or two spent in beer.
L know master mechanic no1C who is
plagued to death, to use his own phrase, by
one OF his hands, an excellent workman. He
cannot let him have any money-or could not
before Sheriff Perry shook his forefinger at the
rumsellers-because it would all go to the grog
shops, and he 1.-THE mastery would be harassed
by provision dealers and grocers, seeking pay
for necessaries supplied to the family on trust.
The cash goes to the rum shops, while the man
sponges his living out of the tradesmen and his
rent out of the landlord. Why said the mas
ter to me, have paid him ON Saturday night
fifteen dollars and ON the next Monday he had
not money enough to buy his dinner, and he
could give no account whatever of it; the liquor
dealers had sponged it out of him "somehotc."
The master is now bothering himself with the
great trouble of paying off the mans arrear-
ages-little by little; little here and little
there, every week, SO as to prevent trustee writs
and costs of petty suits, trying to set the man
on his legs again, the liquor sellers having
knocked him off his pins"
All! these dreadful rumshops, when we get
them thoroughly down, do,on DOWN, won t the
poor drunkards and their wives and children
thank God for their great deliverance.
ID.