The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1891-08-26
THE GREAT DESTROYER" {"


of Commons that drink had inflicted on the
world greater evils than war, pestilence and
famine combined, was he indulging in a mere
rhetorical exaggerationP When the Supreme
Court vi the United States solemnly declared
IN its official decision i'm the case Of Califor-
MIA VS.. Christensen $500 that a greater
amount of crime and misery is shown by the
statistics ef every State 60 be attributable
to drink than TO any other source" was it,
for the moment, indulging in a thoughtless
Temperance peopleg Well perhaps
Gladstone may have been out Of his head
and the Supreme Court may have been hyp-
notified. Let us make a little excursion into
mathematics to see. In 1888 the British
Medical journal published the result of an
inquiry made by the British Medical ASso-
citation (the principal association of the kind
in England, or, perhaps in the world) The
inquiry was conducted during a period OF
nineteen months May 9, 1885, TO December
IL, 1886, and related to the effects of drink
on mortality. Each of the doctors contrib
uting to the inquiry Q7S in all, in different
sections of Great Britain) took his death GER
tificate book aud from the counterfoils Of
three years gave, in the case of each death o.
a male over twenty-five years of age the inn
mediate cause of death, the age at DEATH
and the drink-habits of the man who died.
From the data supplied by this inquiry has
been carefully reckoned (see prohibition,
the Principle, the Policy, the Party"
by Wheeler Appendix, Note c. the
number q2OOOQ OF intemperate per
land and Wales, from all causes, and,
what is more important, the number of these
who are killed by drink. This latter num-
ber is a little over 10000. 1t does not in
clude those infants and others dying rs n
result of crime or negligence on the part OF
drinkers, or as a result of inherited defects;
but simply those who kill themselves with
alcohol. The number is about the same for
the United States, estimating on the basis of
the ratio of absolute alcohol consumed in the
two countries. Thirty thousand killed each
year in the United States, $4,000 more in
England. Let us go further In the report
of the Swiss Federal Council, in 1885, after
special aud exhaustive investigation, it ap-
pears that tine amount of alcohol consumed
in the countries of Canada, Norway and
Sweden, United States Great Britain and Ire
land, Austro-H Hungary, France, Russia, Ger
man Zollverein, Belgium, Switzerland, the
Netherlands and Denmark, is 616, 124, 9S5 gal
Ions or about six times as much as In England
and the United States alone. The same
amount of absolute alcohol can be safely
reckoned as causing an equal amount of
mortality, ON an average in all these coun-
| tries. Six times go, 900 equals 800, 000-the
number of deaths each year caused in these
countries by drink. Three hundred and six
" Thousand a yearl In an average genera
| tion of thirty-three years the number is
| lifetime of a man of seventy years, the ag-
gregate death roll will reach the amazing
| figure of over twenty-five millions C25, 200
| 900. Remember, in looking at these stu
| pendous figures that they represent not the
number of drinkers who have died, but the
number who were killed by drink. Remem-
ber the estimate is based on reliable data
| furnished by one of the best scientific asso-
Citations on the face of the earth. Re
member that in these figures is not
i IL. I..N -, ,laN,. e.
| number of those dying as the re-
suit of inherited defects due to drink, or the
result of crime and negligence on the part of
| drunken men and women. Remember that
| the estimate above is lower by one-half than
the usual estimates given of all persons slain
by drink. And remember that the above
countries do not comprise by any means, all
| those in which the devastation of drink Is
spread. Among those not included are Aus
tralia, South America, Spain, Italy, Portu-
| gal, and Oriental countries. How olo are
| your The young man of twenty can truth
| fully say that in his lifetime drink has slain,
in the countries named, over seven millions.
| The man of thirty can say that it has slain
| over eleven millions. The man of forty can
say over fourteen and one-haf millions;
the, the nIG1ia, man of -, fifty; over, ..h sigh-
over twenty-one and one-half millions; the
man of seventy, over twenty-five millions
These are figures for which reliable data are
in hand. IT we could obtain reliable data
for an estimate of the millions not included
in the above reckoning, we should stand, if
possible, still more agast before the known
ravages of this gigantic destroyer. But
even then the story would not be half told.
For every man who goes to his grave through
drink, how many are there whose lives are
shadowed by the disgrace and sorrow? mo
man liveth 20 himself and no man dieth to
himself" These are the millions who are
slain; how many are the millions who
hournl And to think that, from first to last,
this amazing curse is created by man and
can be removed by man-all of it,every yes.
tige of 1.-THE Voice.
| TEMPERANCE NEWS AND NOTES.