Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-07-23
NO. 30.


Onoo a year The London Times makes
room for a detailed statement of EIgland's
drink bill. That statement has Just appeared.
It shows a reduction from 1854 for last year,
but not a reduction of a character to encour-
age the friends OF temperance. For many
years the statement has been made by Mr..
William Hoyle, +. s. s.. but this time an-
other member of the Statistical Society, Mr..
Dawson Burns ID. D.. signs his name to the
report. The Bctish expenditure upon drink
in 1885 was SG16, 3l3, 500 a decrease OF
about SIS, 900, 600 from the preceding year.
But Mr. Burns says "In regard to the
causes of diminution we must fear look to
the continued-and in some quarters increas-
ing-depression of trade, rather than to the
growth Of thrift aud temperance in the couu-
try. With the removal of this depression we
should most probably find the drink bill be-
come heavier, and its social sequences become
darker" This is a reasonable Inference from
the statistics Of preceding years. The state
of trade in England always reflects itself in
the drink bill. Mr.. Burns gives the footing7
from 1860 to 1883 inclusive, and they show
this very plainly. In that quarter Of a ecu
fury the drink bill has mounted from s i2j,-
600 600 to S0lG 600 00O Mr. Burns says
The years of commercial prosperity brought
with them vastly augmented expenditure
upon strong drink, and even when that pros.
perity began to decline, the special impetus
that had been given to drinking habits resist
ed for time and yielded but slowly to the
stress OF diminishing resources" That is to
say that people began by economiziug in 9th
or directions and only cut down the drink ex-
penditure when they were com PEELED to do so
even then continuing to consume largely. OF
course the increase between 1860 and 1888 ~
partly accounted for by growth of population,
but Mr.. Burns holds that alo wing for this tho
increase in the drink bill shows decline
rather than progress in Temperance. ut is
clear" he says, that the amount of the Ma
tional drink bill is still enormous, being equal
to the nations expenditure for bread butter
and cheese is not far short of the rents paid
for farms and houses in the United Kingdom
is three times the amount spent for tea, sugar,
coffee and cocoa aud is six times the amount
of our expenditure on linen and cotton goods"
Taking the families of the United Kingdom
at six millions, the gross expenditure for
drink in 1855 gives an average expenditure per
family of STOP 80; or reckoning five persons
to family, S2050 per head. OF course if
those who do. not drink at all are subtracted
the average il very much greater rising in
fact to $40 per family of I've persons.
This il an enormous expenditure upon
drink an enormous waste of capital, to put
the fact plainly, for the money spent upon
drink is as a rule not only thrown away, but
much worse than thrown away, being expend-
ed in the creation of a swarm of evils which
would not otherwise have existed. II may
well be asked what effect upon the general
well being of Great Britain would be produc-
ed by the expenditure of the six hundred mil.
lions of dollars upon productive industry, up
on the necessares of life, upon land and
houses, upon education, books, pictures, all
that ministers to and develops the higher life
of a nation. There can be no doubt at all
that large percentage of the poverty des-
titution, ignorance, misery which now per
pleXes society, would disappear if the con
slant leak of the drink bill could be stopped.
But though there is much movement in think
ing circles at this time though social prob
lens have never been studied more seriously
the development of luxury and gross material
enjOyments proceeds even more rapidly than
the evolution of patriotic solicitude and intel
ligence and the example set by the rich is
in no way such as to incite the poor to self re-
straint Engands drink bill is a document
which has for Americans a deep interest for
our own expenditure in the same direction ia
duplicate Of that of our cousins across the
ocean, and every consideration or argument
springng from and relating to the one case
has equal Significance for the other. How to
get rid of this annual record of gross indu-
gence and suicidal vice is the most pressing
question in both branches of the great Anglo
Saxon family .-Nelo York Tribune.