Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 27, 1886

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 20

Health and Temperance.

Who Pays the 'Bills'?

Who pays the bills? Who feeds the drunkard's hungry children? Who provides for the drunkard's broken-hearted wife? Who supports the beggarly tramps who, having wasted their money in drink, wander about the country? Who repairs the losses caused by the failure of intemperate merchants and reckless and half-intoxicated business men? Who makes good the damages caused by the blunders of drunken workmen, and the hindrances of business caused by sprees of intemperate employés? Who pays for the railroad wrecks caused by drunken conductors and engineers? Who builds the asylums where crazy drunkards are kept? Who supports the idiotic children of drunken men? Who pays the attorneys and juries and judges who try drunken criminals? Who pays the expenses of trials and commitments and executions occasioned by the crimes of drunken men? Who pays for the property destroyed and burned by drunken men? Who builds and supports almshouses, which but for drink might remain unoccupied? Who endures the sufferings and losses and brutality, which are due to the recklessness and insanity of drunken husbands and fathers? Who pays for the inquests held on drunkards found dead by the wayside? Who pays for a pauper's coffin and for digging a drunkard's grave in the potter's field, when the last glass had been drunk?

Who pays the bills? The drunkard cannot, for he has wasted his substance in his cup. Will the rumseller pay them? The fact is, you and I, and the sober and industrious toiling portion of the community, must meet all these bills. The drunken rowdy, wounded in the street fight, is cared for in the city hospital at our expense; the drunken beggar is fed from our table; his hungry children come to our doors for bread; and we cannot refuse assistance to his suffering wife; and when at last, having “wasted his substance in riotous living,” he comes to the almhouse, the asylum, the hospital, or the prison, honest, sober, temperate men pay the bills for supporting him there. There is no escaping it. We may protest, we may grumble at taxes, and find fault with beggars, but ultimately and inevitably we must foot the bills.—New England Evangelist.