FRUITS OF THE DEMON DRINK

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 1, 1868

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 11.

FRUITS OF THE DEMON DRINK.

Of the thousand floating rumors, which may be truth or sensation, none is more painful than the assertion which every now and then forces itself into ugly prominence, that intemperance is a growing evil among the women of the higher classes of our land. There is none certainly which any good man would be slower to believe or more reluctant to credit. Yet again and again the unpleasant allegation is made, not flippantly, but supported with the aid of stubborn facts. From the report of the State Temperance Convention, held at Harrisburg two months since, we extract an entry or two from the official records of application for entry into the Inebriates’ Asylum of New York, which are simply fearful:

Clergymen, 20 Judges, 8 Merchants, 340 Physicians, 226 Gentlemen, 240 Rich men’s daughters, 1,300 Total, 2,134

It may very possibly be that this institution does not fairly represent the cases from all classes of society, or is especially devoted to the cure of females. But all that does not materially alter the terrible story of its records. It is frightful to think of thirteen hundred young women of New York given over to the demon of drink, no matter how the cases are collected. And again, for every daughter handed over in despair to the public shame of an asylum, how many are there dying unknown and unheard of—the skeletons in the closets of gilded homes?—Press.