STARTLING FACTS AND FIGURES.
By Wm. Covert
I GIVE a few statistics taken from a paper published in the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the population of which is 25,000. The commercial interest for 1875 is quite fully given. I notice a few items. Money value of dry goods sold, $1,000,000; flour, $200,000; wines and liquors, $1,304,769; cigar boxes, $16,000; cigars manufactured, 1,894,200; barrels of beer manufactured, nearly 15,000—sold, over 15,000. Thus it will be readily seen that there was enough expended for wines and liquors to pay for the dry goods and flour, and the public expenses of the county. The amount expended in this city for buildings, all told, was $360,000. This was published to indicate the rapid growth of the place; yet one distillery firm paid $316,000 revenue tax to the government for the same year. This firm sold $700,000 worth of their vile liquors, using about 150,000 bushels of grain. The breweries used more than 20,000 bushels. It appears from these figures that there was grain enough used in the different liquor and beer manufacturing establishments to have furnished the people with bread, while charitable institutions and individuals were donating to the sufferers. The editor referred to the success of this large distillery with evident pride, remarking that such establishments are of inestimable value in building up the interest of a city and country, as they furnish labor to vast numbers who are seeking employment, and market for the products of the farm; and he might have added, employment for the lawyers, convicts for the prisons, business for the hangman, paupers for the poor-houses, lunatics for the asylums, millions of bereaved homes and broken hearts for angels to weep over, and vast multitudes for eternal destruction.