The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1902-06-25
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF iNTEMPERAEcE.
Twenty-Five Per Cent. OF the Inmates Ola
French Hospital, Observed During Fiji
teen Years, Inherited vitiated Consii.
tutions From Alcoholic Parents.


teen Years, Inherited vitiated Consii.
tutions From Alcoholic Parents.
A French physician has announced a
startling discovery. As the result of IF.
teen years study in hospitals and prisons
he publishes his conclusion that twenty
ive per cent. Of the hospital patients in.
cohohc parents. and that sixsy-6ve
per cent. Of the criminals re-
ceived the germ OF their criminal in.
stinct before birth. He also says that no
habitual drunkard can have sound children,
and that out Of several thousand drunk.
ards children examined not one exception
was found. This is an awful indictment
and makes the drunkard double criminal.
Note the sweeping statement: No habit
ual drunkard can have sound children. And
in the examination Of several thousand
drunkards' children not one exception was
found. The drinking father who is rearing
o family Of children and imagines that he
is doing harm to himself only should take
to heart very seriously this tremendous
and awful fact based on universal observa.
ton and experience and on the latest dis.
eovery Of science. The deadly poison which
gradually but none the less surely per.
meates the entire system of the drunkard
10, by inheritance, transmitted to his sons
and daughters who in turn hand down
to the next generation and to the next
the diseased brain and body Of their
drunken father. Who shall say what will
have brought children into the world he
is guilty OF triple crime: He has robbed
the world of a good example and OF his
own ife's usefulness, and second, he has
deprived his family Of that care and pro-
lection and Eelpfulness which even nature
teaches him as his duty, and third. he
goes into eternity leaving as his legacy to
humanity children of diseased brain and
moral nature, and possible drunkard.
with all the evils that accompany such a
life, for every child of which he is the
father: It is an awful thought and carries
with it the responsibility which if fully
thought OF bequeathng to the world young
men and women with the germ of Grim.
inal instinct born into them. How shall
they rid themselves of this soul.damning
inheritance which has come to them with
out choice? And on whom rests the awful
responsibility and on whom shall fall the
righteous and crushing judgment for trans.
mitting to an innocent offspring the posi-
biiity and the probability of disease and
drunkenness and debauchery and crime?
And these are the sons to whom clean IA.
tiers in marriage. and yet liquor men Won
der why their business is so strenuously
opposed.
We are told sometimes that in the good
old days when strong drink flowed freely,
when 1t was kept in the farmers and in
the mechanics cellar, when in the harvest
field it was drunk az freely rs water, that
in these olden times there was less drunk.
enness than there is to-day with all the
restrictions which legislation has thrown
around the traffic. But let such remember
that this present generation is but reaping
the harvest OF that awful and that reckless
sowing? Shall there be another generation
like It? Does the drunkard realize the
hell Of agony be is preparing for his inno-
cent, helpless children by indulging his
appetite for strong drink? The late Joseph
Cook, the great Boston lecturer, in one of
brain. said, The house founded by Daniel
Webster has become extinct He himself
was q moderate drinker. His son was q
drunkard, and with his grandson the love
Of drink was an insanity, and he fell before
he had passed his thirtieth year. ] know
q superb preacher, who always kept wine
on his table, and justified its use. His son
went to an insane asylum. The diseased
blood corpuscles were transmitted from
father to son.. These words OF warning
from the great Boston preacher and lee
turer should strike the souls of moderate
drinking fathers like a thunder clap and
awaken their deadened conscience. 1t is
the moderate drinker that furnishes the
recruits for the army of drunkards. II
every drunkard in the United States were
to die to-day. in less than ten years there
would be as many drunkards as there are
now. Where do they come from? Not
from the total abstainer. Where then?
From the ranks Of the moderate drinker.
OF one million moderate drinkers to-day,
more than 100000 will be in drunkard's
graves in less than twenty years, and some
will 90 by way OF the prison and the scaf.
fold. In the face of these incontrovertible
facts, and in the light OF universal observa-
tion and the sad and sorrowful experience
of all who have INDUCED the appetite for
strong drink. what shall we say of the
father who continues his course of madness
and folly and heedlessly places the wine
and the beer bottle on the dining-room
table to tempt his children? 1t is nothing
short Of Ecgalomania.-Brethren Evangel.
It.
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