The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1916-08-04
THE PRICE. OF DRINKS
From THE LITERARY DIGEST

Not in money, but in life. Ever.
drink you take shortens your lif
twenty-five minutes, thinks Dr.. Ed
win f. Bowers, who writes on thi
subject in The American Magazine
New York, June.) Are drinks wortl
twenty-five minutes apiece? ne asks
This is the price to a steady buyer
No monthly statements are issued
but the bill is sure to come in. Dr.
Bowers bases his estimate of the price
of drinks in minutes on statistics
gathered and published by the Associ
alton Of Life-lnsurance Presidents
these statistics being founded upon {
report Of two million cases, tabulateC
from the records of American and Ca.
madam Iife-inSurance companies in the
past twenty-five years. Mr.. Arthur
Hunter. chairman of the central bu-
reau, Medico-Actuarial Mortality In
vestIgatiOn, claims that the span of
human life is reduced four to six
years as result Of the use of alco-
hol. Dr.. Bowers goes on:
In other words, consistent users of
alcoholic drinks die six years younger
than they should. Also, one-time con-
sistenr drinkers, who reformed be-
fore they took out life-insurance poll
cles, have an average expectation of
life four years less.
Poetic justice makes salOon-keep-
ers and liquor-dealers suffer maxi
mum loss Of life, for those connected
with the sale and manufacture Of IL
quor, especially hotel proprietors ana
saloon-keepers who attend their own
bars, either occasionally or regularly,
have their longevity reduced on an
average Of about six years because Of
their occupation.
THE men who use alcoholics daily,
but not to excess, Mr.. Hunter divides
into two groups:
"Ca) Those who take two glasses
of beer or one glass Of whisky a day
"(b) Those who take more than
that, but are not excessive drinkers.
"The experts investigation dis
closed that the mortality in the see
Ond group was 80 per cent. higher
than in the first. Also, the New
York Mutual Life-Insurance Compa
ny, from 1875 to 1899, found that
among insured abstainers the death-
rate was but rs per cent. of the eX-
pected rate; among commissioners it
was SO per cent.
"On the basis of their statistics,
insurance-men calculate that if Rus
STA, for instance, persists in Danish
ing all alcoholic beverages from witk-
IN Its borders, more than a million
lives will be saved to that awakened
country within the next ten years.
I'm compiling statistics along this
line one must consider the persons
who, prompted by the white maggots
of despair that crawl in the brains of
alcoholics, escape the oppression of
circumstances by killing themselves.
According to the United States NOR
tally reports % per cent. Of the sui
cldes in the United States are direct
ly traceable to intemperance. Be-
tween 1900 and 1908, it is estimated,
1886 alcohol addicts died by their
own hands.
1T is conceded, even by conserva-
tives, that between sixty thousand
and seventy thousand persons die an
nually in this country from the eff
fects of alcohol In other words, S.4
per cent. of the entire number of
deaths in the United States are due
to this dangerous protoplasmic poison
this degenerator of brain-and- It's
succeeds. To be exact, E. BonncIl
Phelps claims that 65,897 |
leaths per year are directly due to
he use of alcoholic liquors. This es-
innate signifies one adult death every
eight minutes, or, in other words,
me man in every seven and one-half |
Who die in the United States dies be-
ause of drink.
THE claim is made also that, of
he one thousand deaths among drink
rs, four hundred and forty. or near
Y One-half, are due to alcohol. Ap-
lying these figures to the continental
United States, more than 6SO,O0O
eathS a year (both directly and in
irectly) can be charged to the kill
lg power of the white poison. This
) exclusive of the mortality in our
ossessions, which would bring the
0tal up to 725,O00 per year. Which
leans that alcohol is bludgeoning
ur people out of existence at the rate
two thousand per day"
If we agree, further, DR.. Bowers :
oes on to say, that alcohol is the
lief factor in host of diseases, as
generally conceded to be the case,
might almost seem as tho we have ,
lderestimated, rather than overesti- :
ated, alcoholic mortality. To quote I
lrther:
OR. Alphonse BertilIion, chief of :
le Bureau of Municipal Statistics in !