The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-03-28

those who are investigating can be
solved by these statements and compa.
isons.
We take 1883 as an example, and we
find that during that year the people of
the United States spent their money as
follows:
Carpets OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. S31, 100000
Worsted goods Observation-Disclosures. 3b0C0000
Wooden goods .......,................ lG0,00OO00
Cotton goo 2lO,UO0000
Boots aud shoes. Observation-Disclosures. 1876 900 coo
All text Observation-Disclosures. 43T0)OG0
Article of OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES 2,0O0O
Tea, coffee, observation-disclosures. 145 00O000
But. or AMI cheese. ................. 1856, 00000J
Sug3 PA O0O0OG
Bread or wheat flower. ............. 3O2,OOOOOO
All tOodS..................... 1858, 100000
Wages paid in mechanical and man
ulacturing industries. ............ 94T,OOOOOO
Intoxicating drinks. ........... SS944 900, 900
I Do you comprehend these figurcsP Do
you comprehend the horrible fact that
rum costs the country every year al
most as much as all the foods COM
bined, that its sum total is almost as
great as that paid in wages, that it alb
serbs more Of the productive industry
of the people than some dozens of the
necessaries of life combined?
And when you have figured up this
enormous cost you are not more than
half through with it, When the capt.
talist has put his money into a house,
and the drunken tenant does not pay,
the loss Of rent is a subtraction from
the just earnings of capital. When the
victim of the brewer becomes incapable
of labor in whole or in part, his en-
forced ideness is that much robbed
from the wealth of tn cou 1try The
cost Of the crime and paupe.ism of the
country, the expensive police system,
the enormous expense of courts, peni-
tentiaries, iails, houses of correction
and other reformatorieS, ninety per cent.
of this is to be charged directly to rum.
Add to these figures the indirect cost,
and the sum total is almost beyond the
power of the mind to grasp.
Do you doubt the correctness of these
figures? Their correctness is easily as
certainable.
The city of Toledo has about 1000
population. There are in the city 800
rum mills and beer shops, of all grades
that are recognized. This does not in
clude the numberless places where liq-
uors are sold to families, by the bottle
or case, but the sO-called saloons, houses
of prostitution and gambling dens, all
of which live directly by intOxicants,
nor does it include the respectable"
wholesalers who supply these places for
profit
1t is impossible for any one of them
to live upon less than daily sales of $40;
indeed, their average is q long way
beyond that. Some of them do bust
ness of hundreds of dollars per day,
and they are open every day in the
year, Averaging them, for convenience,
at $40 day, and each one does a bus
mess of $500 per annum. Multiply
that by 800, and you have sum total
Of -, 920, 900 per annum.
Actually it is long way above that.
1t is entirely safe to say that Toledo
pays every year the enormous sum of
.33,500,0OO for liquors alone.
Toledo, be it borne in mind, is not
especially rum and beer-ridden city.
1t is not so bad in this respect in pro-
portion to population Us Chicago or
Philadelphia, the latter supporting
forty miles OF dOggeries, allowing each
one to have a frontage of twenty-five
feet. And you will notice that this
average keeps up in places of all sizes.
The county town of 5000 population
averages, as rule, only tritle below
the larger cities. But the figures given
rs to the total of the trade in ntoXicants
in the whole country are official and not
to be disputed.
How is this terrible incubus on the
industry of the country to be stopped?
Have we the right to invoke the power
of the law to stop itp Decidedly we
have. We have the right to meet force
with force. The brewers and distillers
are organized to increase the consump-
ton of their po;sons. They are not CON
tent with natural demand, but they
are at work day and night to force de
mand. They are organized to debauch
men and boys, to the end of increasing
their sales. They do not wait for sa-
looms to he established, but they 60 out
to select the places and furnish the
means to establish them. They are
making an aggressive fight upon good
morals, they are waging an unremitting
and never ending war upon sobriety,
and are succeeding beyond even their
expectations. They are multiplying sa-
looms until cities are blotched with
them and the country districts as well.
Beer is no longer a passive nuisance
1t has become an aggressive evil
Toledo Bidde.