p. 103 | The Economic View

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 14, 1884

The Economic View.

THE economic view of the drink question is thus forcibly presented in a temperance lecture by F. C. Campbell: “Few ever stop to calculate the cost of dram-drinking. At ten cents per drink, one drink per day will cost $36.50 per year, two drinks per day will cost $73, three drinks $109.50, and four drinks $144, per year. A man came to me the other day to pay the interest on a note for $100 I hold against him. Said he: ‘I only receive $600 a year, and with a family to support I am not able to pay my debts.’ I asked him to take a pencil and make a slight calculation for me, and then asked him how often he drank at a bar. His average was three drinks per day, which, by his own calculation, amounted to $109.50, or enough to have paid both principal and interest of the note and have $1.50 left. He was astonished at this discovery, and is now determined never to drink at a bar again.”