The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-11-02
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
STARTLING FACTS:

SNOAA~o
zens, that there is a too rapid increase
in the number of the criminal, the in
sane or idiotic, and the otherwise de-
fective classes in this country. The
fact is proved that their total number
Increases more rapidly in proportion
than the inhabitants Of the United
States; the ratio of the total of these
.hree classes of defective ones to the
total population shows a steady and
alarming increase, which can not, OF
course, be due to the natural increase
Of the population. And it is an adj
mitted fact on the part OF specialists
in mental diseases that this cause is
rum. 1t is to incompetence that this
condition of things is due.
1t is also admitted that three-fourths
of the crime in this country is the direct
or indirect result of indulgence in intox-
icating liquors, and that at least throe-
fourths of the total cost of the ponder
Gus police and criminal court ma
chinery, of the prisons and work
houses and penitentiaries. are directly
chargeable to the account of ram. IN
Nor does there seem to be any
reasonable doubt that the same pro-
portion of the total number of cases
of insanity in the country are due to
the same cause. The percentages
given by the various Investigators,
in different asylums, vary from fifty
per cent.-one half-to ninety per
cent! We therefore take seventy-fve
per cent. -three-fourths- q fair
average OF the percentages given by
these various authorities. 1t is not
meant that in all these cases the
insanity results directly from the
effects of rum-drinking on the part of
the parent himself, though the cases
where this is true are many, and
every superintendent of an insane
asylum can point out large mum Der
of cases of insanity from drink
among his patients. These percent
ages include persons driven insane
through the intemperance of others
such as those whose minds have been
unbalanced by grief, or loss of fort
une or Of social position-as in the
case of the wives of drunkards, and the
victims of a thousand other proximate
causes, which in turn have their
origin in the use of rum
The influence of heredity steadily
works to increase the number of in
sane and idiotic. 1t ought to be plain
to every thinking person that man
whose physical system is soaked and
permeated with rum, every organ of
his body being more or less unfavora-
bly, influenced by the poison of alcohol,
its destructive presence constant in
blood AMI brain and nerves, can not
transmit to his children sound, strong
constitutions. Idiocy and insanity fire.
quently appear in such children; or if
they have escaped, the malign infu-
ence of rum upon the parent is seen
in epilepsy or melancholia; or a long
train of obscure and intractable nerv-
Gus diseases are liable to be the in
herited result; or the child may be
cripple or may be born deaf and
dumb. Moreover, where the children
of drunkard are apparently healthy,
that mysterious law of heredity, by
which a hereditary curse skips over
one generation to reappear in the Sec
ond, often comes into play; and though
the children of a sot may escape. their
own children pay the awful penalty of
the grandfather slavery to the rum
habit.
The net result of all these influences
the direct and indirect results of rum
is seen in this too rapid increase in
the number of criminals, of the insane,
idiotic. epileptic, deaf and dumb, and
other defective and dependent classes,
who, being incapable of maintaining
themselves, become charge upon the
State; and, year by year, as their num-
bers steadily increase, the burden of
their maintenance becomes heavier
and heavier upon the taxpayers. Our
prisons are enlarged to find more room
for the increased number OF criminals;
our asylums and hospitals are added
W, uidu IOoul may 10 Ludu0 lOF Inc I'M
fortunates who need their shelter; our
poor-houses are crowded with the
homeless and helpless; and rum is the
fons ct ortgo maIi-the great cause of
the States being compelled to i'm
prison or shelter fully three-fourths of
the sum total of all these people.
AS the system BY which these classes
are supported divides the statistics ND
so completely that the average citizen
is, as a rule, in entire ignorance of the
enormous total of the burden thus
thrown upon the States, and borne by
the taxpayers, we will. leaving the
moral side OF the question entirely out Of |
the discussion, look upon the pecuniary
side, and find out approximately the
indirect cost of rum to the people-for
the expenditures under this head are
not a part of the enormous direct an
nual drink bill OF the Nation.
By the census OF 1880 there were
100000 insane, idiotic, deaf, blind,
pauper and criminal persons In the en-
tire country. Three-fourths OF this is
$4,000 These can not cost the peo-
pie less than $175 ayear each on an av-
oraOa This rriuac n total oo,4 -