The Cost of Drink and Tobacco

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

The Cost of Drink and Tobacco

THE annual drink bill in this country is said to be $900,000,000, and its tobacco bill is $600,000,000; while its contributions for home and foreign missions are only $5,500,000. In other words, for every dollar spent for missions, $181.81 is spent for liquor, and $109.09 for tobacco. Or, putting the two together, rum and tobacco get $290.90 for every dollar which we put into the effort to evangelize the world. Is it any wonder that the progress of the truth is so slow? The worst of it all is that, in the case of the expenditures for tobacco, a large per cent. of it is paid by Christian men!—Sel.