St. Landry democrat., 1889-07-20
What's the Difference ?

What's the Difference
| The consumption of spirits in the United
States shows such a steady and encourag,
| ing decrease as robs the prohibitlon1sts
argument of most of it's point. In ls4O
| the total consumption of distilled spirits
was 2.52 gallons to every head of popuia-
ton in 1888 the consumption per capita
fell to 1873 gallons-a decrease of more
than one-half. Light wines and beer
have taken the place of spirits, and their
general use has caused a corresponding
dminution in the amount of drunkenness.
Prohibition doesn't seem to have much
room anywhere.-N. 0. States.
Alcohol is poison, be it found in lager
beer, wine or whisky-fermented or dis
Gilled liquors. Scientific men all over the
world agree that alcohol is a poison.
Sir. Robt. Christian, professor of materla
medca in the University of Edinburg,
says: "Alcohol is powerful narcotic
poison"
DR.. Gordon says: at would be difficult
to find more destructive poison than
alcohol"
Prof. Youmans says: "Alcohol is uni
veIsally ranked among poisons by physi-
ologists, chemists, physicians, Psychologists
and therefore written upon the subject,
and who therefore understand it"
DR.. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans, one
of the South's best physicians, says:
During the last thirty four years alcohol
has caused at least twenty thousand cases
of sickness and over five thousand deaths
in the city of New Orleans. 1t is impossi-
bic to form anything like correct esti-
mate of the pecuniary loss to the city and
State by the destructive effects of alcohol
for of all poisons it occasions the greatest
physical, moral and industrial loss. 1t
can be clearly demonstrated by facts that
alcohol is the most destructive of all
poisons to the human race"
Does the States mean to say that alcohol
in beer is not as poison as alcohol in
whisky? Is it not alcohol in the one as
well as in the other? Would not such a
position be absurd? Yet this is the point"
of the prohibition argument, that alco-
hol is alcohol in any shape or form, and
that it is poison and injurious to those
who use it,
Col. J. L. Green, president of the Con-
necticut Mutual Life Insurance Company,
who has thoroughly investigated the sub
ject, says: ''In one of our large cities,
containing large popul-t ion of beer
drinkers, | had occasion to note the deaths
among large group of persons whose
habits in their own eyes and in the eyes of
their friends and physicians, were temper
ate; but they were habitual users of beer.
When the observation began, they were,
upon the average, something under mid
die age, and they were of course, selected
lives. Presently death began to strike it,
and the mortality was astounding in
extent, and still more remarkable in the
manifest identity of cause and mode. The
history was almost invariable; robust
apparent health, full muscles, fair out
side. increasing weight, ford face then
touch of cold, or sniff of malaria, and
instantly some acute disease was in vio-
lent action, and ten days or less ended it.
1t was as if the system had been kept fair
outside, while within it was eaten to a
shell, and at the first touch of disease
there was an utter collapse every fiber
was poisoned and weak. And this, in it's
main features, varying of course in
degrees, has been my observation of beer
drinking everywhere. 1t is peculiarly
deceptive at first, and thoroughly destruc-
tive at last"
Another authority says: Compared
with inebriates who use different forms of
alcohol, he (the beer -drinker) is more
"Why do men drink lager ?" asks a
Mississippi divine. ''Do they drink it for
the ninety five per cent of muddy water
it contains, or for it's five per cent of alco-
hol2 If the muddy water, then why pay
for it at the rate of five cents glass, when
it can be had anywhere without money
and without price However fools may
babble about the harmlessness of lager, it
is simple fact that men drink it solely
for the alcohol there is in it,"
l have given the views of the best physi-
clans in the country land what higher
authority can we appeal to y and they all
agree in saying that alcohol is poison. l
have given the views of some of the most
successful life insurance men in the United
States, men whose success depends on their
knowledge of the different causes of death,
and, therefore, men who have investigated
this question to it's full extent, and they
say that a beer drinker is even more incur
able and more generally diseased than any
other inebriate. Furthermore the records
of the Temperance Provident institution,
great English insurance company, show
that the death rate among moderate drink
ers is twenty nine per cent greatar than
among total abstainers.
Prohibitionists maintain that alcohol, no
matter what is mixed with it, is I'M urious
to those who use it.
Now, in the light of this testimony, let
me ask my friend of the States question
Do you really think hat the "prohibi-
tionists' argument is robbed of most of it's
point 81. W. EUerett, IN Baptist Chron-
6cze.