A Great Change by Illustrated Christian Weekly

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

A Great Change.

By Illustrated Christian Weekly

ONE of the strangest conversions of our day is that of Lars Olsen Smith, of Sweden. From being the “brandy king” of that country, manufacturing and selling for years three-fourths of all the brandy consumed there, and realizing an income of over $250,000 a year, he has become an uncompromising temperance reformer, and is endeavoring to elevate the social condition of his countrymen whom his brandy did so much to degrade.

His conscience—for he was evidently that rarest of all creatures, a liquor dealer with a conscience—disquieted him as he reflected that he was responsible for three-fourths of the sin, misery, disease and death which resulted from the brandy he sold. At first, having concluded that alcoholism was occasioned largely by the fusel-oil contained in alcohol, he erected seven rectifying factories for freeing brandy from impurities; but as the agents of the Gothenberg system, who had the monopoly of the liquor business in Sweden, would not sell his brandy, preferring the impure article, as it was cheaper, he went to work to break them down, and at the end of a year had driven the raw, impure spirit out of the market. As a substitute for the Gothenberg system, which he declared had developed into gigantic means of demoralization and jobbery, he drafted a licensing bill fixing the license at $1,500 a year, and making it illegal to charge more than a fixed price, and has thus greatly reduced the number of drinking places in Sweden. He has also used his large wealth in establishing popular savings banks, building societies, co-operative stores, and public kitchens for supplying cheap and wholesome food to the poor. What a fortunate thing it might be, though the idea is hardly conceivable, if some of our whisky lords or beer barons could attempt to repair the injury they have done to the community, by adopting his words: “I think it is better to use the money I have gained in demoralizing and poisoning the people, in undoing, as far as possible, the mischief that unwittingly I created.”—Illustrated Christian Weekly.