“The Utility of Drunkenness.”
THE Popular Science Review for October, has, under the above heading, an ironical plea in favor of that vice. It says that the “survival of the fittest” is the true method for the development of the race, and that the sooner the coarser, more brutal, or merely animal specimens of humanity are gotten rid of, the faster will the race develop. Drunkenness, it says, furnishes a sure means of destroying this class, while at the same time they will be enjoying themselves in their fashion. The case of the Indians is cited, who have been swept away by such indulgence, to make room for a higher race; and the statement is made that “if those who love alcoholic drinks for the sake of the excitement they induce, are only supplied with cheap and abundant happiness, our criminal and pauper population will be reduced to a minimum.” But all this will be understood to be highly ironical. Even if those who are affected by the drink curse were of the lowest and most brutal class, Christianity would demand that an effort be made for their preservation. But when we consider the thousands of innocent ones who are killed by alcohol, although they never touch it; that the terrible curse is ever reaching out for new victims, and that new recruits are daily being added to the vast army of our criminal and pauper population; and that alcohol takes these recruits, from the highest as well as the lowest classes, and degrades them itself before killing them; all who have the slightest love for their fellow-men, must cry out for the suppression of the infamous liquor traffic. There are some who glory in their shame; but let those who would escape from bondage, have a chance for their lives.