The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-29
CAUSE or COINCIDENCE.

CAUSE OR COINCIDENCE.
Now and again some investigator of
the deductive school interviews some
one who has attained a ripe old age to
see If his personal habits have been
such as, according to the theory Of the
interviewer, initiate for or against
longevity. Occasionally they are
shocked, as was the one who inter-
viewed Garrick at eighty and learned
that the actor had always limited him
sell 10 a bottle of port, and as for
smoking. he had all his life made it a
point to quit smoking when he went to
bed. Sometimes they find what they
take for substantiation of their theories
and are happy. Something of this de-
sire to find facts to sustain conjecture
prevailed in the Massachusetts, legis-
lature when it directed it's bureau of
statistics to investigate the aims
houses, prisons and insane asylums and
ascertain what effect intemperance and
narcotics had in producing occupants
for the one and patients for the other.
Among the $3.50 paupers it was found
that 2,1OS, or IS per cent, had been in
temperate. percentage that is raised
to about rs by the fact that of the
S66 abstainers 429 were minors. Five
nunored and five of the number
has been excessive users of in
toxicants, while the remainder pleaded
guilty of only moderate tipping.
While these data are interesting thew
establish nothing except that some nan
pers are drinkers and few are drunk
ards. If all drinkers and drunkards
became paupers then it might be as
sumed that the causal relations ex-
lsted. This is not saying that those
oerects OF character that result in pau
pensm are not aided by drink, but onIv
that the two are coincidental The
20 per cent of total abstainers dissolves
the causal connection between drink
ana pauper1sm. Among the criminals
one might expect the relation to annear
more clearly. OF the 26,672 conyicts in
the year, 17575 were for drunkenness
and 575 for other offenses in addition
to that of drunkenness. 1t is stretch
ing definitions hard to embra "a
drunkenness among crimes, however
much Of a social offense it is. The con-
tlnuation Of the practice in our own
state, where for some years it has been
made crime by statute taken in CON
nection with the rarity of convictions
under that law, shows that public SEN
timent refuses to attach to it the stis-
ma OF criminal act. Passing this
large number Of offenders we find in
the report that in $3.50 cases the Grim
inal was in liquor when he committed
the act, while in 1852 cases the criminal
act was conceived while the convict
was under the influence of Houor.
These figures make out a stronger case
for those who associate intoxicants
with all the evils of the world as the
main cause than do those relating to
pauperism, but the fact remains that a.
very large number of our fellows be-
come intoxicated without committing
crimes, leaving intact the sounder the
Dry that the criminal instinct, sup
pressed during sober moments, becomes
active when liquor has robbed the will
Of it's control.
If the purpose of the legislature was
to gather these facts for their effect on
the youth of the state, as object lessons
showing the dangers and possible con-
sequences Of indulgence in intoxicants,
the end is a good one and the result
should be beneficial, for after all it is
on the individual that all efforts must
be expended to reduce the admitted
evils Of excessive use of liquor if any
good results are to be attained. If the
purpose is to gather ammunition for
another prohibitive crusade, the failure
of compulsory efforts heretofore makes
the investigation valueless.