The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-06-27
TAXATION THAT KILLS.

TAXATION THAT KILLS.
We have before US the report of Mr..
Ruffner Superintendent of the Virginia
Board of Public Instruction, for 1878, and
we find in it, arrayed in startling figures,
statement of taxation for liquors, drank
within the State, which fully accounts for
the poverty, not only of Virginia, but of
all the Southern States; while it also gives
the reason for the straitened circumstances
of millions in the North. There are 1856
retail liquor shops in the State. If these
shops sell the average amount of liquor
sold by the liquor shops of the United
States, and there is no reason to suppose
they do not, the annual amount consumed
is $40, 622, SSS. There are additions to be
made to this from wholesale dealers and
patent medicines which are bought and
consumed for their alcohol, that raise the
aggregate to $12, 1000 600. There is no
doubt that the sum total exceeds these ter
rife figures, which leave out entirely the
This sum exceeds the total value of all the
farm productions, increase in live stock,
and value of improvements, of the year
1870, according to the U. s. Census, in the
seven best counties of the State, and by
just the same amount, the value of the
productions of forty-five smaller counties
during the same year. The wheat crop of
Virginia, for 1870, was, in round numbers,
100000 bushels. This at $3.50 per
bushel, which is more than was received,
makes exactly $4,000, OOO In brief, vir-
ginia drank up its entire wheat crop to the
last gill
Mr.. Rnffner presents other illustrative
estimates, but nothing can add to the force
of those which we have cited. He then
goes on to show that the total taxation for
State purposes, including legislation, sala-
ries, courts institutions for dumb, blind
and insane, public schools and interest on
the public debt only reaches the sum of
SO, 500, 900 while to add to this sum all the
local taxation, would not equal the burden
which the people voluntarily lay upon
themselves. But this is not all. The
injury done to public order, and to private
health and enterprise, is to be taken into &C
count. Mr.. Ruffner believes that the time
wasted, the injury done to business, and
the cost of crime, pauperisni, insanity and
litigation resulting from intemperance,
would be more costly than the liquor itself.
@I,o II, r..
nished by the distinguished English actu-
airy, Nelson, in the interests of Life Insur-
ance, shows how much valuable life is
thrown away in the State. Between fifteen
and twenty years of age, the number of
deaths of temperate and Incorporate per-
sons, is as 10 to IS; between twenty one
and thirty, 10 to 81; between thirty and
forty, 10 to 40. At twenty years of age a
temperate persons chance for life is 442
years-intemperate, 100; at thirty, the
mperate mans chance is for 3G.5 years,
imteperate, 1873; at forty years, the pro-
portionate chances are 2S.S to 1l.G years.
Thus money, health, morality, industry,
good order, and life itself, in enormous
there any return of good for all this expen-
diture? None. The loss is entire, and
irremcdiable. If the whole had gone over
Niagara Falls, something would be picked
up on the shore below, but nothing is left
from this waste. A bushel of grain trans
formed into alcohol, and swallowed as a
beverage, is bushel of grain annihlated.
If all that is spent for liquor were put into
a huge furnace, and burned, we should
have the ashes; but, as it is, we have no
ashes except such as, with shame and tears,
we are obliged to bury.
We have not displayed these figures for
the special purpose of reading a lesson to
Virginia, for that State is no worse than
the rest of the States of the Union; but
one of her faithful officers has brought out
the statistics, and the country ought to
feel very much obliged to him for them.
| They give us the facts that occount for all
our public distress. Our taxation for the
| legitimate purpose of government and the
payment of the public debt is mere baga-
! tele by the side of the taxation to which
the people voluntarily subject themselves,
for that whiclRharms them. We consume,
| as IL l'tllOl, ToUu,UOU,OUu year III Spliltu-
! Gus liquors, a sum which only needs very
few multiplicat:ons to pay the whole pub
lie debt of the country. If this tax could
be entirely abated, the impetus that would
be given, not only to our prosperity, but
| to our civilization, would soon place us in
| advance Of every nation under heaven.
| Liquor is at the bottom of all our poverty.
| If the tax for it were lifted, there would
| not need to be man, woman or child
without bread. If it could be lifted from
the Southern States alone, it would not
take five years to make them not only
prosperous, but rich. There cannot be
more pitiful or contemplate sight, than a
man quarrelling over, and bemoaning his
taxes, while tickling his palate, and burn
ing up his stomach and his substance with
| glass after glass of whisky. Men dread the
cholera, the yellow fever ard the small pox,
and take expensive precautions against
them, while the ravages of all of them
in year do not produce the mischief that
intemperance does in month. 1t is worse
than plague, worse than fire, or innun-
dation, or war. Nothing but sickness,
DEATH. immortality, crime, pauperism, and
frightful waste of resources come Of it.
Nothing noble is born of it. Meantime
our public men are timid about it, our
churches are half Indifferent over it, our
ministers talk about the scriptural use of
wine our scientific men dispute about the
nutritive properties of alcohol, our politi-
clans utter wise things about personal
rights and sumptuary laws, and the people
are going to the devil.
DR.. j. G.. Holland, in Scribner's for jay.