p. 5 | Men, and Things by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 17, 1873

Men, and Things.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THE LIQUOR TRADE.

It is well to keep the magnitude of this terrible evil before us. Every one who uses a drop of this worse than poison, should consider that he is doing so much to help on this work of misery and death.

“The sales of liquors in the United States during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1871, it has been calculated by Edward Young, the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, amounted to six hundred millions of dollars. This total is made up as follows: Sixty million gallons of whisky, at six dollars a gallon retail, $360,000,000. Two and a half million gallons of imported spirits at ten dollars a gallon, $25,000,000. Ten million seven hundred thousand gallons of imported wine at five dollars a gallon, $53,500,000. Sixty-five million barrels of ale, beer, and porter, at twenty dollars a barrel, $130,000,000. Native brandies, wines, and cordials, in unknown quantities, it is estimated, have been consumed, involving an expenditure of $31,500,000. These figures, although not so large as some that have been published, yet give a total that should astonish the consumers of ardent spirits. This sum of six hundred millions of dollars a year would, in less than four years, pay off the National debt, or if invested in works of internal improvement, would complete all the unfinished and projected works in the United States.”

D. M. Canright.