Moral and Social Effects of Intemperance.
INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY.
Intemperance, more than any other cause, fills our lunatic and idiotic asylums. According to the statistics of insanity in France, thirty-four per cent of the cases of lunacy among males were due to intemperance. One-half of the inmates of the Dublin insane asylum owe their disease to the use of liquor. Dr. S. G. Howe found that the parents of one hundred and forty-five out of three hundred idiots were habitual drunkards. THE USE OF ALCOHOL SHORTENS LIFE.
It is very easy to prove that the influence of alcohol, as of every other poison, is to shorten life. Dr. Willard Parker, of New York, shows from statistics that for every ten temperate persons who die between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, fifty-one intemperate persons die. Thus it appears that the mortality of liquor-users is five hundred per cent greater than that of temperate persons. These statements were based on the tables used by life insurance companies. According to the calculations of life insurance experts, the expectancy for life of a temperate person at the age of twenty years is forty-four years. The expectancy of an intemperate person, at the same age, is only fifteen years. Between 60,000 and 100,000 persons die annually in this country alone from the effects of liquor. The same number die in England from the same cause. Then in these two Christian countries a human being dies every two and one-half minutes from alcoholic poisoning. The graves of the victims, allowing twelve square feet to each, would in fifty years nearly cover a township. Arranged end to end their coffins would make a continuous line from Cape Horn to the North Pole. Arranged in one long funeral procession, with a hearse and a single vehicle for mourners for each, this vast army of dead drunkards would occupy two years and a half in passing a given point, and would wind two and one-half times around the globe. ALCOHOL PREDISPOSES THE SYSTEM TO DISEASE.
Dr. Anderson, of Glasgow, says, “I have found the use of alcoholic drinks to be the most powerful predisposing cause of malignant cholera with which I am acquainted. In Warsaw, ninety per cent of all who died of cholera during the epidemic of 1832 were habitual drinkers.” “Four-fifths of those who were swept away by the dreadful visitation of the cholera in 1832 were addicted to intoxicating drinks.” The whole population of St. Petersburg and Moscow ceased drinking liquor, being convinced that it was almost certain death to continue its use. M. Huber said, “Persons given to drinking were swept away like flies.” Alcohol predisposes to other diseases as well as cholera. A very slight injury to an intemperate man is likely to result fatally. Surgeons in city hospitals find that they cannot expect the same degree of success in operations upon drinkers that they expect in the cases of temperate persons, a very slight operation, which would have occasioned no inconvenience in a total abstainer, often ending fatally. HEREDITARY EFFECTS OF DRUNKENNESS.
The drinker himself is not the only sufferer from this vice. Indeed, it seems in many cases that he is not the greatest sufferer. He may even live out his threescore years and ten, in apparent defiance of the laws of nature, and the warnings of friends; but look at his children. Are they as strong and robust as he? Oh, no; instead, we often see them frail, nervous, imbecile, idiotic, poor specimens of the race. The iniquities of the father are visited upon the children. AMOUNT OF LIQUOR ANNUALLY MANUFACTURED.
The amount of liquor annually manufactured and consumed in the United States reaches the enormous total of more than 260,000,000 gallons. About 12,000,000 gallons more are imported from foreign countries. This statement covers only the amount reported to the revenue officers. Immense quantities are made and not reported, and considerable quantities are smuggled into the country. This immense quantity of liquid poison would make a lake ten feet deep, twenty rods wide, and a quarter of a mile long. According to a scientific authority, the wine product of France in one year would fill a ditch three and one-half feet deep, of the same width, and 4,000 miles long. LIQUOR COSTS MORE THAN BREAD.
The cost of liquor to consumers, in the United States, for a single year, has been officially estimated at $1,483,491,865. The lowest estimate for the year 1872 is $735,000,000. Fourteen hundred million dollars would buy seven barrels of flour for every man, woman, and child in the country; 28,000,000 teams would be required to draw the flour. This great caravan would wind five times around the earth if arranged in single file. Fourteen hundred million dollars, in one dollar bills, would completely cover two townships. If the bills were joined at the ends, they would make a ribbon nearly long enough to reach to the moon. All this, and millions more, is annually wasted. The value of all the food products of the United States for a single year is $600,000,000, or less than half the cost of alcohol. The cost of all the clothing is less than $400,000,000, or less than one-third the cost of alcohol. Is it not clear, then, that the use of alcoholic liquors is one of the greatest curses of civilization? It is the bane of morality, and the greatest cause of pauperism.