Arkansas weekly mansion., 1884-04-19
What Rum Costs Those Who Do Not
Use 1t.

! To count the cost of rum to the coun-
| try from dollar-and-cent standpoint is
to take the very lowest view of the SUBJ
| ject. The mother of ruined son
would gladly give ten times what the
ruin cost, in money, to have her son re-
stored to her, and esteem the dollar
| and-cent loss as nothing. The wife
cursed with, a drunken husband would
be willing to continue in rags and scrli-
starvation could she have her husband
restored as he was before he was drawn
into the fatal whirlpool and morally
| wrecked. Bot rum has a money side
as well as a moral one, and there are
those who would consider the money
side, though they cared but little for
the other.
Rum is the heaviest burden the peo-
pie have to bear. and those who do not
use it are compelled to bear il with
those who do. 1t can be demonstrated
that rum costs the United States more
per day than did the support of the ar
mics in the rebellion. 1t costs the coun-
! try directly more than the entire school
and religious systems put together. The
sum total of its cost foOts up more than
all other taxes combined 1t is the one
great expense that outweighs everything
else.
The city of Toledo has population
of 10000. 1t supports 800 dealers in
| alcoholic stimulants. We take Toledo
as an example, the proportion holding
good everywhere the traffic is free or
| licensed:
To support these 800 places, there
must be paid out annually for liquor
not less than 81, 800, 600. Go over the
figures. Each salOCn must average $40
per day; the could not well live on less.
They do business every day in the year,
at least in this runi-ridden city, which
| annum. 1t is perfectly safe to say that
1t will not fall below S2,5OO,oOo.
But the loss does not stop with the
mere lose of the money. Were the
money taken from the people and
| dropped into the harbOr it would be bad
enough, but that would be better than
| to use it us it is being used. A power
for good, when properly used, it be-
comes positive curse when it has to
be filtered through the gin-niills, and
| beer-shnps. 1t becomes then a positive,
aggressive evil. It is not only wasted,
but it becomes the destroyer of those
who waste it. 1t not only absOrbs tho
proceeds of labor but it destroys the
power Of labor. The workingman
| whose Saturday night in D beer shop
has extended over the Sunday and Sun
| dav night, is in no condition to do work
of any kind on Monday. If he works
! at all it is by fortifying himself with
more rum. under which he breaks down
before the week Is half through. No
druukard ever does full weeks work;
| indeed the time comes as certain as the
| rising of the sun, when work at all is
impossible. The drunkard is not lazy;
| l.. III
starvation accompanies the haIf-work
| ing stage, during which the family suf
| fers from insufficicncy of the Necessities
of life, and worse follows. In the final
stage they have nothing, and their care
| is another burden upon the alrea y
rum-robbcd communities that harbor
them.
Add to this already too long train OF
evils the cost of the police system and
the criminal courts, ninety per cent OF
which is chargeable to rum, and put on
top of that the cost of penitentiaries and
jails, and some idea may be had OF
what rum costs the people who do not
use it.
| clothes his family properly, or even ac-
cumulates enough to build a house. He
does not even pay rent promptly, and is
never properly housed. The necessi-
ties of life being impossible for the fam
lilies of such. of course the lux:iries are
as far away as the stars. In such fam
lilies there are never books, magazines
or newspapers, and what is worse, ed
ucation of the children is generally inn
possible for want of decent clothing.
bringing up thousands in the ignorance
that leads to crime. The drunkard of
this generation in4iicts q curse upon the
next.
We leave out all mention of the woes
unnumbcred the poor victims of rum
have to endure only call attention
to the loss sustained through it by those
who are not drunkards.
1t is the simplest possible financial
proposition. Rum absorbs the none y
that should go to the providing of the
necessities of life, thus robbing the
trader in those necessities. 1t destroys
The ability to labor. thus robbi0g the
community of whatever benefit that
labor would be to it. 1t compcls sober
men, who pay taxes. to support police,
jails, aims houses, penitentiaries, courts
and the other adjuncts of our very
bad civilization, all made necessary by
rum. Toledo BLADE.
.