The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-05-17

! the people OF the United States are pay
ing for it, in money, and a comparison
of the expenditure for drink with that
for other purposes is instructive.
The expenditures for various purposes
per annum in the United States are as
follows:
Drink. ............, seoo.ooo. 900
Missions, Home and Foreign. 5.500,OGO
bread. 5O5,0G0,O10
| Meat ..............,... ... ?O30W(A 0
Iron and steel. Observation-Disclosures. 2eU0O0,OOO
| Woollen goods. Observation-Disclosures. 2y7 OOOOOO
| Sawed lumber. Observation-Disclosures. :33 600 GOO
cotton goods. ....................... 2l00,0,0OO
! Boots and shoes. lQGO0lUn
! sugar and mOlasSes. ............... 155OO0,OGO
Educational purposes. ............. S5,U00,0O0
Of the entire list of expenditures for
living the liquor account amounts to
nearly twice as much as any other item.
1t amounts to nearly twice rs much as
bread, three times as much as meat,
and ten times as much as education. 1t
is more than the combined cost of bread
and meat, and as much as the combined
items of bread and iron, steel, wooden
and cotton goods.
These figures are something so enor-
nous as to invite 4 doubt as to their
correctness. But if any difference.
they are far below what they should be.
One hundred millions more could prop
erly be put on the top of them and they
would still fall below reality.
The internal revenue on distilled
spirits i'll 1888 was SIS, 364, 775; the rate
IS 80 cents q gallon; and the quantity
OF liquor taxed is, therefore, 2,631. 972
gallons. Some of this, Il very small
percentage, was used for scientific and
mechanical purposes, but the most of it
was drank in the murder factories.
Sold by the glass it would cost the con-
sumner about Sc a gallon. The whole
amount, at this rate, woutl aggregate
$495, 79l 1882. The same year the tax
on fermentGd liquors amounted to SIG
900, 6l5, which at &1.O0 per barrel. rep
resents an equal number of barrels con
tanning, at 81 gallons per barrel, 523,-
9l9,Q6j gallons. At five cents glass,
and y glasses to the gallon, this costs
the consumer S314, 351, 439 The i'm
ported liquors, estimated on similar
basis, cost the consumer at least $780,
OOO,00 which brings the total cost up
to more than 100000, 900.
In this estimate no account is taken
of native wines, nor of liquor, "crooked
whisky" and other which escapes tax
alton; nor the dishonest Watering of
liquors, all of which the ragged con
sumner pays for as whisky. But let this
90 to offset that used in the arts and
sciences.
These estimates are all too low. There
are in gallon of whisky, as they aver
age, 100 drinks instead of 60, and 20
glasses of beer to the gallon instead of
II, and the prices average long way
above 10 cents. The price of alcoholic
drinks is never below 10 cents, and it
runs up all the way to 40. At the bars
in ell the so-called respectable saloons
the price for common varieties of
whisky is 10 cents, and extra qualities
20 to %.
The fact that it is all drawn out of
the same barrel makes no difference. 1t
is the label on the bottle that fixes the
price.
1t is perfectly safe to add another
500, OO0, 600 to the estimate, and to put
the actual expenditure Of the people of
the United States for alcoholic stimu-
lants at one hoUSaHd millions 0 t dollars!
In this there is no account taken of
the direct cost resulting from the use of
liquors.
Add to it the loss to the country in
the impaired capacity for labor of rum
and beer drinkers.
Add to it the cost of ninety per cent.
of the courts and police.
Add to it the cost of ever-recurrinr
riots, like that in Cincinnati. which
would be impossible without rum.
Add to it the cost of very large per
cent of the expenditures for insane
asylums, poor-hOuses, penitentiaries,
houses of correction and refOrmatories
of all kinds.
Add to it the cost of the trials or muir
derers and of executions, ninety per
cent of which is to be carried to this
already enormous account
Add to it the cost to the country of
the rotten political rings, all lof which
are based upon rum and topped out
by it.
Add to it the cost of maintaining the
hordes of gamblers, thieves, outcasts
and in fact the entire criminal class !
who are first brought to vice and Grim
inality by rum, and who afterward de- |
pend upon it as their chief stay.
These additions make an array of |
figures entirely beyond human under !
standing, and this is only part of the
money account. Vast as is this there |
are other effects that are far beyond it. |
Add to this money loss the blighting, |
yearly, of the lives of thousands upon |
thousands of the best men and women
of the country.
Add to it the cold hearth stones, the
shoeless women, the rags, squalor and |
misery that are inseparable from rum
and beer.
Add to it the desolate homes, the
heart-brolen women, the children
reared in ignorance and vice TO swell
the account of pauperism in this gen
GRAFTON, and criminality in the next
Add to it everything that is miserable
IN life, everything that is destructive of
all that is good in man, and some idea
may be formed of the relation rum bears
10 the country. The loss in wealth. |
enormous as it is is the least fem in the
account. Toledo BIade.