The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-03-14
DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF STRONG
DRINK UPON SOCIETY
Article Second,


In the United States there are Git has
been carefully estimated) 100000 dram
shops. Surprising each of these to employ
one clerk or assistant only and we have
an army of 100000 able-bodied persons
withdrawn from the productive indus
tries of the country and becoming tempters
to idleness, dissipation and crime. Think
of it One-half a million of strong, health
full members of society in position of
non-usefulness, to say nothing of the untold
miseries and crime of which they are the d.
rect causes. Again, there are 800, 900 paupers
costing annually for their support 800, 000,
900. Again, there are 300 900 rioters, thieves,
burglars and murderers, preying upon society,
whose cost is far beyond any actual compu-
tation. Again, there are ], 000 900 of drunk
ards or those habitually incorporate. Re-
ducing the number to $50, 600 and putting
their wages at 80. 90 per day, and allowing
that they lose one-half of their time through
drink and we have an additional expense of
$3.50, 600, 900. In the direct loss of life of
course, we cannot be accurate for 1t cannot be
reckoned. Canon Farrar, of Westminster,
and chaplain to the queen, in his late work
(Which should be in the hands of every per-
SOM says ''Only one person in 10000 of
all who travel by rail in England dies by ac-
cident and only about 700 per annum are lost
by shipwreck, and yet by strong drink more
are lost in one year than by both railroad ac-
cidents and shipwrecks in fifty years" And
yet one serious railroad accident like that at
Revere, in Massachusetts, and the whole
country is startled; or one vessel being
wrecked like that of the late City of Column
bus, near Gay Head, and the whole civilized
world is horror stricken but 60, 900 drunk
ards can go staggering to their graves Gin this
country alone) every year. to say nothing OF
the hundreds of thousands of women
and children and others murdered by
strong drink, and society seems scarcely to
realize it. The awful work of death goes on,
and yet scarcely a ripple is produced upon
the slumbering surface of the great sea, of
sn-calloused humanity But we must not
weary you by these statistics. Let us sum
up the destruction to society and the maxi
mum cost by strong drink, and pass from this
uninteresting and heart-rending recital
We now, as the result of all our investiga-
tons, which are vouched for by eminent sta
tisticians, by judges, sheriffs, overseers of
the poor, ministers, and all whose business
on profession has led them to investigate
this subject, sum up the total loss:
l. The yearly retail cost of liquors S616 S14, 400
2. Labor wages; value of time of dealers
and their clerks. 100000
8. Waste of grain, fruit nc, with cost
of manufacturing alcohol. ......... 100000
f. Losses of productive industry by
drunkards and tipplers. 225 100000
5. Support of 100000 drunken paupers
and children 100 200, 900
6. Expenses for Incorporate sick. nurs-
ing, physicians bills and funeral
charges of 10000 drunkards, annu-
ally Unknown millions
I. Costs of 300 900 Incorporate criminals Unknown
S. Costs of 80, 900 manacs and idiots. Unknown
9. Value Of all domestic suffering,
pains, shame and agony caused by
liquor. Observation-Disclosures Beyond estimate
10. Value of 100, 900 American youth cor
ruped, brutalized, made fends by
drink every year. -. Known only in eternity
The material waste and all-consuming mis-
chief to the entire country of the liquor traffic
and dram drinking-when expressed in sim
gle aggregate-are absolutely appalling. And
all this is without compromising benefits to
any permanent interest The whole United
States revenues including the heavy burdens
for war debt are about four hundred millions
a year while costs and resulting desolations
from intoxicating liquors are immensely more
than taosIce hundred millions Of dollars annu-
ally I"
Need we go on with this horribly astonish-
ing estimate? 1900, 600, 600 of dollars. Who
can compute the vast sum? Our war cost us
Gas already stated 80, 500, 900, 600 and almost
impoverished the country. You can add to this
the public free gifts such as christian and san
itary commissions, &C., and swell the amount
to So, 600, 600, 600 and yet IN three years rum,
if stricken off, would sponge the national slate
clean. By that war we lost 900, 600 of SOL
diers, Just the number of inebriates made
every year in the United States. The great
fire of Chicago October Sth, I'D destroyed
property to the amount of 5000, 200, 900, just
one-sixth of the cost of strong drink every
year. At the close of the war the writer stood
upon Pennsylvania avenue in Washington and
witnessed the grand review of the victorious
armies of the union. They were over ten
hours in passing, the procession was over
twenty miles long and twenty men deep, num-
bering 200,0 600. Yet what was that to the
staggering, rum blotched army of 1000, 600
that swings its destructive power over the
country every year and every month and
every day? Or what is it to the 10000
drunkards that march with boot, and yell,
and curse each year down to the drunkard's
grave, and down to the drunkards hell?
But we dare not go on. The fearful sta
tistics appall US and make US sick at heart.
Our next article will be The destructive pow
er of strong drink as seen in the impairment
and hiadrance Of christianity" Critic
d. r. Locke, has finished series of arti-
cles illustrative of the workings in the Maine
liquor laws: Prohibition has killed the rum
l.