OUR EXTRAORDINARY BEER TRADE.
THE brewers, who are now holding their national convention [just past], direct attention to the fact that they have a quarter of a billion of invested capital, and that since 1876 their annual sales have increased “from $8,500,000 to $36,000,000.” Striking as these figures are, they are less so than the statistical exhibit made by the Treasury Department. Official figures show that the consumption of malt liquors in 1876 was 308,336,000 gallons; of 1886, 717,745,000 gallons; of 1895, 1,043,292,000 gallons. Thus in three decades the annual consumption of beer has tripled. The present enormous output of a thousand million gallons annually gives a consumption officially stated at 14.95 gallons per head of population, against only 6.83 gallons per head in 1876. Thus the consumption per head has a little more than doubled in the same time that the total consumption has tripled.—New York World. There has been a falling off in distilled liquors and wines, but of the former it is but eleven-hundredths of a gallon per head, and of the latter about one-fourth of a gallon per head. The beer influence is mightily felt in politics, but more in morals.