The Liquor Business in the United States.
By J. H. W.
A CORRESPONDENT of the New York Evening Post furnishes the following statement. He says that he has obtained the figures from official documents, and that he has presented them in the following compact form so that even the casual reader may see how large, both absolutely and relatively, the traffic in intoxicating liquors is in this country:— Statistics showing the amount of money spent in the United States for intoxicating liquors during the year 1870, as taken from official records:— Imported and domestic distilled and spirituous liquors .......... $1,344,000,000
Brewed and fermented liquors .......... 128,000,000
Imported wines ........................ 15,000,000
Domestic wines ........................ 5,000,000
Total .................................. $1,487,000,000 The amount spent for liquor in each State is also given, and it appears that New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois have the unenviable precedence; the investment in the three last named being more than double that in any other, and in New York more than quadruple. The same writer makes a startling comparison deduced from the following figures. In the same year, The cost of flour and meat was ...... $530,000,000
The cost of cotton goods .............. 115,000,000
The cost of boots and shoes ........... 90,000,000
The cost of clothing .................. 70,000,000
The cost of woolen goods .............. 60,000,000
The cost of newspapers and job printing 40,000,000
Total ................................ $905,000,000 So that for the above staple articles scarcely two-thirds as much was spent as for intoxicating liquor. We are not, therefore, surprised to learn that there were 140,000 liquor saloons in the United States, each having (estimated) 40 daily customers, making 5,600,000 drinkers; and that there were 400,000 more persons engaged in the liquor business in the United States than in preaching the gospel and school-teaching; and from the effects of intoxicating drinks 100,000 are annually sent to prisons, 150,000 to drunkards’ graves, and 200,000 children are reduced to want. And yet liquor dealers insist that government has no right to interfere to prohibit such a nefarious and ruinous traffic. The proper office of government is the protection of its citizens. There are many thousands of helpless women and children, made helpless and suffering by the liquor business, who need to be protected, not to speak of the right of the citizens to cut off this enormous addition to taxation and the expenses of the government.