Health and Temperance by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 45.

Health and Temperance.

By Editor

STARTLING LIFE INSURANCE FIGURES.

THE statement that "60,000 deaths are caused by the liquor traffic every year in this country" has come to be one of the "stereotyped" declarations of the temperance reform. Few people stop to ask whether it is true or not, or whether it is beyond or this side of the truth. We desire in this article to present a few facts bearing upon this question for the consideration of the numerous readers of the Union Signal. If we strain the truth in any respect, we shall be glad to be corrected. We have no desire to charge this traffic with one single sin of which it is not guilty. Nor do we propose to apologize for the traffic by putting the figures one digit lower than the facts will warrant.

In 1840 the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution of London, England, was established. Mr. Robert Warner desired insurance on his life. Being a total abstainer, the established life insurance companies of his time would not insure him, because, as they believed, no man who did not use liquors was a safe risk. Not being able to get insurance because he was a total abstainer, he called together a few of his friends, who were also total abstainers, and organized the above-named institution for the sole purpose of insuring total abstainers.

During the first seven years of the existence of the institution only abstainers were admitted, but at the end of that time the doors were thrown open for non-abstainers also. This step was doubtless taken for two reasons: first, total abstainers were so scarce that the institution could not build up rapidly so long as it confined itself to that one class of risks; second, the admission of non-abstainers would enable the company to experiment on the relative value of the lives of abstainers and non-abstainers. The two classes were therefore kept entirely distinct from each other, each bearing its own share of losses, and paying all the expenses of its own class.

From 1847 to 1882 there were expected, according to the established tables of mortality, 2,644 deaths in the temperance section, and 4,408 deaths in the general, or non-abstinent section. The non-abstinent section has always been nearly double the other. There occurred in the temperance section 1,861 deaths, or twenty-nine and one-half per cent. less than was expected, while in the non-abstinent section there occurred 4,339 deaths, or only one and one-half per cent. less than was expected, showing a difference of twenty-eight per cent. in favor of the temperance section. As the figures from which these conclusions are reached cover a period of thirty-five years we cannot see how their reliability can be successfully questioned. There is a difference of twenty-eight per cent. in the average death rate of abstainers and non-abstainers.

We note the fact also that this comparison is not between abstainers and drunkards, but between abstainers and tipplers only. No insurance company would admit a drunkard to membership. If, then, there is a difference of twenty-eight per cent. in the length of the lives of total abstainers and tipplers, there must be even a greater difference in the length of the lives of total abstainers and the drinking population of the country as a whole. Statistics show that while a total abstainer at the age of twenty will live, on the average, about forty-four years, a drinking man at the same age will live only about fifteen years on the average.

Substantially the same lesson is taught us by figures taken from the annual reports of the A. O. U. W. of Illinois. During a period of eight years ending with 1888, the average annual death rate in this order in the State has been eight per thousand, while the average annual death rate in seven of the strongest liquor centers of the State in the same order has been ten and five-eighths per thousand. It may be true that some other agencies helped to increase the death rate in the seven cities, but it is also true that liquor drinking has greatly increased the death rate in these seven cities.

There are some facts connected with the reports of this order in Illinois which are of special significance. For instance: Teutonic Lodge, No. 86, located in Chicago, is a German lodge. All the business of the body is transacted in German. A few years since an enthusiastic member of this lodge, writing to the organ of the order in this State, said: "Our lodge meets over a saloon. We hurry through with our lodge work, adjourn and go down to the saloon and have good times." The average membership of this lodge during the eight years, was a trifle less than 118. The average annual death loss was two and one-fourth, or about nineteen to the thousand. A careful study of these figures will show the actual cash value of the "good times" which these German beer drinkers had in that saloon after the business of the lodge was closed.

We now propose a practical application of these facts to the question in hand. If the moderate use of liquors shortens life an average of twenty-eight per cent., how many deaths are caused by liquor every year? During the past few months we have asked a great many intelligent people this question, "What per cent. of the male population in your judgment are total abstainers?" The answers have ranged from five to thirty. One old gentleman insisted that not more than five persons in every hundred were total abstainers. Others have thought that twenty to thirty per cent. were total abstainers.

We believe that so far as high-license Illinois is concerned, at least not more than twenty-five per cent. of the male population are total abstainers. We doubt if that per cent. of the male population of the whole country absolutely refuse to touch, taste, or handle liquors. If we are right in this estimate, then seventy-five per cent. of the entire male population comes under the influence of the drink demon, at least to the extent of what is known as moderation.

The wives and children of drinking men suffer as much in every way as the drinking men themselves. We have never yet found a man willing to dispute this proposition. If, then, seventy-five per cent. of the male population use liquors, and if the wives and children of these men suffer as much as the men themselves, then seventy-five per cent. of the entire population come under the influence of the drink demon.

There are in round numbers in this country 60,000,000 people. The annual death rate will not be far from 1 to every 50 of the entire population, men, women, and children included, or 1,200,000 deaths per year, in the whole country. Now if 1,200,000 people die every year, it must follow that over three-fourths of that number of deaths will come from the three-fourths of the population which come under the influence of drink; but for the sake of the argument let us suppose that just three-fourths, or 900,000, of these deaths come from the drinking portions of the population.

Thus if the figures furnished us by the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution are reliable, twenty-eight per cent. of these 900,000 deaths, or 252,000 deaths, might be saved in this country every year by universal total abstinence. In other words, drink annually causes 252,000 deaths in this country.

We can quote eminent authority to prove that we are under, rather than over, the truth. Dr. Wm. Hargreaves, of Philadelphia, than whom the cause of total abstinence has no abler or more highly accredited advocate, says:—

"Taking into account the sickness and death of adults, and the thousands who die in infancy and childhood by neglect, imperfect nourishment, deprivations, etc., which result from the use of drink, fully one-half of all the sickness and premature death in the civilized world is directly or indirectly produced by the use of alcoholic liquors."

Rev. Dawson Burns, of England, in speaking of the figures furnished by the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution, of London, says:—

"If in a comparison with selected lives of adults, the temperance section shows a superiority of 28 per cent., it is reasonable to infer that, taking the whole population and remembering how large a proportion of adult and infant life is sacrificed to intemperance, and its effects, an equal saving of life would result from the universal adoption of total abstinence."

That is to say, 28 per cent. of all the deaths that occur might be saved by universal total abstinence. Twenty-eight per cent. of the whole number of deaths that occur every year in this country, would put the figures up to 336,000.

Whether drink causes 336,000 or 252,000, or even the old number, 60,000, deaths every year, the figures are frightful. No man can contemplate them without a shudder.—Union Signal.