The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-08-28

lea, that he saw more drunken people,
women as well as men, in five minutes
walk in London, than he saw during his
entire visit to the United States. 1t re-
ally does not appear that the high char
acter of the dealers makes any material
difference in the effect of their ungod-
ly business.
This effect is deadly, demoralizing,
damning, and it would not be changed
the liquors were vended by an angel
out Of heaven. The contents of the
Washington punch-bowls, prepared and
| dispensed by the hands of the leading
ladies of the land, lead just as rapidly
to dissipation and ruin as do the con-
tents of punch-bowls in the lowest
dives of that city-indeed, they are
even more deadly, as being more seduc-
tive i'll their spell. These free drinking
resorts in Washington are certainly
among the most discouraging signs of
the times. When fair and cultivated
women will condescend to dispense
such drinks to friends and acquaint-
ances, and when women as we'll as men
indulge in them, and young as well as
old, what can be hoped from any
amount of temperance agitation in this
country? Any fashionable resident of
Washington might truthfully address
stranger in Hamlet's words: "We'll
teach you to drink deep ere you de-
part" And to every part of our broad
land does the blight and contagion of
that Washington influence extend. A
generation ago much hope was express
ed of benefit to the temperance cause
in this country by the introduction here
of the beer ard light wines of Europe.
France was then quoted as wine
drinking country, in which drunken
ness was very rare, and Germany as a
beer-drinking one, where comparatively
| little drunkenness was seen. But all
| this seems to have been changed, if we
may judge from the reports of travellers
to-day. Cheap French brandies have
attacked the French as well as the
Swiss peasants, and the adulterated
beer Of the present time, even in Ger
many, is producing the most depl0rable
effects. In our own country the bad ef-
fects of the beer habit can no longer be
denied. If we consider only it's physical
effects they are bad enough, if we may
believe the evidence of cool-headed
business men, whose interests lead them
to observe their effects. Let US hear
what Col. Green, president Of the Con
necticat Mutual Life Insurance Com
pany, says Of the effect of the habit
upon vitality.
This experienced observer says: I'm
one of our large cities, containing great
popu' i0a of beer drinkers, | had occa-
sion Co note the deaths among a large
group of persons whose habits in their
own eyes, as in the eyes of their friends
and physicians, were temperate. But
| they were habitual users of beer. When |
/ began they were, on the average, some
thing under middle age; aud they were
/ of course, selected lines. For two or
three years nothing remarkable was to
be noted. But presently death began to
strike the group; and until it had
| dwiudled to fraction the mortality
was astounding in extent and still more
remarkable in the manifest identity of
course and mode. There was no mis-
| taking; the history was almost invari-
able-robust, apparent health, full mus
cles, fair outside, increasing weight,
| then a touch of cold, or sniff Of mala-
ria, and instantly some acute disease,
with almost invariably typhoid symp-
| toms, was in violent action, and ten
! days or less ended life. 1t was as if the
| system was within eaten to a shell, and
/ at the touch of disease there was utter
collapse, every fiber being poisoned and
weak This, in its main features, has
| been my observation of beer drinking
| everywhere peculiarly deceptive at first,
I thoroughly destructive at last" The OBJ
servations of other life insurance com
panies are of a similar character, and
based largely upon statistics, which are
said not to lie. Now is there any hope
in the present popular movement to
teach these pernicious effects of alco-
! hol to the children in cur public schools?
The opinion seems to prevail that there
is some hope here, and were it not for
the fact that we every day see men
contracting the drink habit, who know
perfectly well its deadly nature, and
have all their lives not only been taught,
but themselves observed its fatal Guar
acter, we might have more hope Of the
success of the movement to enlighten
the youth. 1t is not that people do not
know its evils-eyery runkard who
reels through the streets is an object
lesson, and a striking one to teach those
evils-but it is that the fascination of
the beverage is such as that men viii
have it, even though it is like the for
hidden fruit, aud God has said of it.
In the day ye eat thereof ye shall
surely die" Still, it cannot but be vel
that the children shall learn its effects