The Evil of Beer-Drinking.
By H. D. Clarke
THE following extract calling attention to the insidious power of the beer-drinking habit is timely: "There are many well meaning and professedly Christian men who see no danger in the feeders and rather advocate the use of a beverage which is found to be the greatest of all appetizers for rum and gin. We speak of beer. The reason many indirectly advocate its use is obvious, as we have learned in many ways since our last two articles on hop-growing. One editor whose subscription list is increased somewhat by the space devoted to the hop market, has taken us to task, and in one breath says he would like to make the paper a temperance organ, but it would not receive the proper support, and in the next proceeds to speak eloquently of "pure beer," etc. Another friend urges that "as hops in no way injure the quality of beer," therefore, the business, as carried on, is perfectly legitimate. Another says that if men drank beer the traffic in rum would decrease." This, perhaps too lengthy article, is not penned for the purpose of censure nor debate, but to correct, if possible, an erroneous view taken in regard to the use of beer. Our friends may be sincere but the facts will not bear them out in their oft-repeated statements. The rum-seller does not go out into the streets inviting young men to take of his soul destroying beverage. Very few beginners could be induced to burn their throats with the stronger drinks. They must be educated to it by degrees. The vast traffic in alcohol has been chiefly built up by the brewers. Tens of thousands who never think of sipping brandy will drink beer, for it is thought to be mild and comparatively harmless. Every rum-seller knows these men are deceived. They know alcohol is in beer and they put it in there purposely. They want young men to believe that beer is harmless, but they are particular to make it otherwise. With just enough of alcohol in it to create an appetite for something stronger, they know when a man begins its use he is their victim. They have gone about this wicked business systematically and physiologically, and with beer gardens and beer saloons at every corner and even stretching out into the woods for the benefit of nearly every Sunday-school picnic, their work is complete. With beer in every billiard hall, skating-rink, and dance-room, with beer in nearly every city grocery and in ten thousand country stores, offered as a premium to their customers, the rum-sellers know that for every sixty thousand they kill annually there will be many more that number of new recruits. Statistics will show that the increased use of beer has a corresponding increase in the use of rum. Beer-venders begin the work of desolation and rum-sellers complete it. We said rum-sellers do not go out soliciting customers, but beer-sellers do, and are very successful. Having captured their bird they hand him over to the rum-seller with a hellish smile that is full of meaning. Fathers, mothers, beware of the man who offers your boy beer or tells him it is harmless. He is either ignorant or a well-paid emissary of the rum demon.—H. D. Clarke, in Sabbath Recorder.