Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-05-02
EEaLaNp,s DRINK BILL.

are DuG where Is the country tnaI uoes
not present like anomalies in its civiliza-
ton? The drink bill of the United States
last year was several hundreds of millions,
and no country, either in or out of Europe,
fails to exhibit a similar waste of capital.
Statements of this kind cannot but pro.
duce reflections of discouraging charac-
ter There is never time when more or
less restitution and suffering does not pre-
vail, and yet there is never a time when
the masses are not squandering capital far
more than sufficient to do away with
poverty altogether. Modern philosophers
tell us that if only we can settle the land
question rightly there will be an end to
suffering and indulgence But what effect
would any adjustment of that or any
other social problem have upon the uni
versal tendency to waste the earnings of
labor in debasing sensual indulgence
Here is England spending regularly
$50, 600, 900 month in drink, while every
year scores of people die of starvation in
London. Here is Ireland, which last year
was said to be suffering from famine, yet
that same year was able to spend 500
600, 600 more than the entire amount of
her rentals, upon whisky and beer. What
meaning can be attached to the current
statements about the poverty of this or
that community or nation, when it is seen
that even the presence of famine does not
prevent the annual waste of enormous
sums upon non-necessary Injuries? How
can people be said to be poor when it
would be possible for them at any moment
to raise fund of one or five or ten mill.
ions, by simply devoting one or two or
three days beer or whisky or tobacco
money to the object? If all the people OF
the United States who use tobacco were
to devote the regular expenditure for one
day to any common purpose, it would have
to be very costly one if the fund SO raised
did not more than cover it.
The fact is that very few people ever re-
fleet upon the really enormous proportions
of the waste which is going on all the
time 1t cannot, for instance, be pre-
tended by the most Jealous defenders of
alcoholic drinks that the drink bill of Eng
land is not frightfully extravagant. 1t
really amounts to an expenditure of $75 a
year in drink for every family in the
country. Let us, for the sake of argu-
ment, assume that one-third of this con-
sumption is unavoidable or even useful
We shall then have distinct waste of
$500, 900. 600 every year. But in fact
England's drink bill last year was lower
than it has been. In 1876 it reached the
amazing extent of SSOO,O00,OOO. That
was time of business prosperity, and this
statement is full Of a very Ugly kind of
suggestiveness, for it shows that when
people are doing well one of the first uses
they make of their prosperity is. to drink
more heavily. The reduction of 5000, 0O0,-
600 in the national drink bill for 1880
merely indicates the prevalence of hard
times. The people have been poorer, and
SO they have drank less. But let bust
ness 90 boom" occur, and the excise sta
tistics will register it at once in an in
creased consumption of intoxicants.
It is further to be noted that England's
drink bill has doubled in twenty years,
and this is another damaging indication,
and it is the more damaging because the
case Of England is with slight exceptions
the case of the United States. The pro-
pensity to drink in fact does not diminish,
nor can it be perceived that what we ale
prone to boast of IS the advance Of civili-
zltion tends to lead the majority of men to
higher tastes, or to wean them in any
marked degree from their baser habits ard
incHnations The evils of drink have been
discussed so much that the subject is title,
but however trIte it may be it is none the
less grave. The prevalence of these evils
is only too familiar to US all. There are
few families which have not some wreck
to grieye over, some ruined career to
lament, in this connection. The curse
has been brought home to millions OF
frosidcs. It fills our iails and insane
asylums and cemeteries. It is the direct
cause of more misery and suffering than
any other influence continually at work
upon society. Yet appeals to temperance
are as a rule laughed at, and the world
goes on in the old way, stubbornly indif-
ferert to its own best interests.
England shows her drink bill, and we
do not. That is the main difference be-
tween the two countries. Yet it seems to
have been proved that considerable COM
munities can wean themselves from the
habit of using intoxicants, and if this can
be done in one case it can be done in all,
by the application of the influences which
have proved successful. The most de-
pressing fact about the present situation is
the universally of reckiessness which
these enormous national drink bills exhibit.
1t must be impossible for the masses ever
to raise themselves while they continue to
be the willing slaves of customs which
swallow up their earnings in this way It
would be a hopeful symptom if there was
any tendency TO reduce these expenditures
in a systematic way, and on an intelligent
basis. But as we have seen, the first effect
OF returning prosperity is to increase the
drink bill, and only poverty, not inclna-
ton, diminishes it. 4 nation that spends
5000, 100000 a. year for drink alone
may indeed be rich in the aggregate, but
it is impossible that when the majority
betray so general an infrmity of purpose,
and so strange an apathy regarding the fu.
lure, they can rise far above poverty, or
put themselves beyond the danger of des-
titution in adverse seasons.
THg LOS ANGELES MURDER CASE.
The trial of Lastantia Abarta for the
murder of Forster, at Los Angeles, has re-
suited in the acquittal of the defendant.
She is young and beautiful Spanish girl.
Forster seduced her under promise of mar