The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-06-19
CONVINCING FACTS.


Over One-Half the Cases of Insanity and
Three-Fourths of Those of Crime and
Pauperism in the Country Caused by
Intemperance.
General Stewart L. Woodford has re-
Gently stated that in seven years eX-
perience as criminal prosecutor in the
Federal courts at New York, he "sel-
dom" found case of crime, accom-
panied by violence, which was not con-
ceived, or committed, or aggravated
through the use of rum. His expert
ence is that of all similar officials, not
only in our own land but in every 9th
er. Mr.. AXel Gustafson, the author of
"The Foundation of Death" was re-
Gently in Sweden, and was given a
private audience with the King
and Queen. During the interview the
King said that almost all the crime and
abject misery in his realm were caused
by drink So strong are the convic-
tions of the King on this subject that
the Swedish Government has declared
its inattcntion to give the order of
Good Templars a state subsidy to en-
able them to prosecute the fight against
alcohol all over the Kingdom, as an
economic measure, that the cost of
crime and pauperism may be reduced.
We have just received some valuable
statistics of the growth of paupersm
in the French capital, which are doub-
ly interesting because they furnish an
answer to an argument much used in
these latter DAYS that the use of light
wines as a beverage diminishes intem-
perance and its resultant evils, pauper-
ism and crime. Now the use of wines
is universal among all classes of peo-
pie in Paris. Water is seldom drank;
glass of light wine is taken instead
Wine has, in fact, become the beverage
of the people. They drink hardly any
tea, and not much coffee Wine is
cheaper, and even the poorest work
man drinks it. If wine-drinking were
cure for intemperance and the pow
erty and crime which follow it. GER
tainly Paris should show it; yet the of
fetal statistics, lately published show
that the pauperism has doubled in the
past twenty-five years.
In 1861. when the suburbs were in
corporated with Paris proper, the num-
Der of families requiring relief was &c.
713, comprising 90,277 persons. The
majority of them had been punished
either as vagabonds, for thieving, or
other crimes. Sixteen years later, in
1877, when the republic had taken the
place of the empire, the number of
pauper families had increased to 3d.
500. The growth of pauperism was
even more marked during the follow
ing three years, the statistics showing
that in 1880 no fewer than 46,815
families, comprising 125, 735 members,
were depending upon relief. At the
beginning of the present year 100000
persons were known to be in want of
assistance. From 1861 to 1880, conse-
quently, the number of paupers had
been doubled.
A report by DR.. Mathews, of Rhode
Island, given in the Journal of Hered-
tty, medical periodical, in referring
to alcoholism and insanity, cites these
facts: In one Swedish insane asylum
it was found that fifty per cent. of the
patients had been addicted to the use
of rum. But the author gives clear
instance of the fact that insanity fol-
lows as q resultant of the rum habit
in the statement that after the removal
of the heavy tax on alcoholic drinks in
Norway, the percentage of increase
during eleven years was: In mania,
forty-one per cent. melancholia, sixty
nine per cent; dementia, twenty-five
cent, and idiocy, $50 per cent. Of the
Fast, sixty per cent. were the children
Of drunken fathers and mothers, thus
showing that the sins of the fathers
are visited upon the children. To this
may be added the statement of the
superintendent of the insane hospital
at Vienna, one of the largest in the
world, that from fifty to sixty per cent.
| of the cases of insanity was due to
rum. So great percentage in coun-
try where it is claimed alcoholic drinks
do no harm is well worth noticing.
American alienists have not turned
their attention particularly to the rum
| habit as a cause of insanity. We, how
ever, quote from the last annual report
of the Northwestern Ohio Asylum for
the Insane, located in this city what
the superintendent, Dr. j. A. Wright,
| has to say or the topic. DIR. Wright
has a growing reputation as an origin
al investigator into matters pertaining
to his specialty-insanity and allied
forms of mental arrangement. He
says, referring to table given in the
report, showing the immediate cause
of insanity in each patient under his
care:
Table x shows that the most important
| factor in the production of insanity is intern
perapce In the use of alcoholic stimulants.
| The recorded cases In which this cause il
| ndduced represent by no means the quota to
| which IL is justly entitled, but merely the
| comparatively few occasions in which IT hap
pens to be the direct cause of mental de.
| thronement. III the instances in which the
| abuse of spirltuous liquors. by producing
| domestic infelicity business reverses, bodily
| disease and other proXimate causes of In
| sanity-to which might be superadded the in
| herited woes belonging to the list of nervous
/ neuralgia, chorea, epilepsy, imbecility and
| idiocy-were properly classified in Geological
/ tables very large majority of all cases
/ would be attributed to this source"
Public attention has frequently been
called to the enormous increase in late
years of the number of insane, and va
rious reasons have been assigned, but
we believe the true reason to be, the
use of rum. And the alarming ratio of
increase must 60 on, laying each year