ALCOHOL; ITS HISTORY, AND ITS EFFECTS UPON SOCIETY.
By W. H. Riley
By W. H. Riley, M.D., Superintendent of Colorado Sanitarium, Boulder, Colo. SOCIETY has a burden to bear in the way of pauperism. How readily is seen the connection of this with intemperance! The man ruled by a demoniacal desire for drink hesitates at no sacrifice to gratify his unconquerable appetite. Sickness and disease come, or a parent dies, and society bears the burden of a family's support. The reports of State and private charities abound in testimony to the fact that the greatest cause of pauperism is caused by intemperance. Two questions were sent out by the chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Health to several hundred towns and cities of the State. The questions were:— - What proportion of the inmates of your almshouses are there in consequence of the deleterious use of intoxicating liquors?
- What proportion of the children are there in consequence of the drunkenness of parents?
Replies were received from nearly 300 towns and cities, showing clearly that liquor was the great factor in causing pauperism and destitution. The superintendent of a large almshouse and hospital, replied, "I would answer the above by saying, to the best of my knowledge, 90 per cent., to both questions." Others gave the same figures. One city reported that all the tramps who had been fed had been brought to the begging condition by drink. This fact may be ascertained by any one with a very little investigation. And pauperism begets pauperism. We have the following from the North American Review:— A pauper named Margaret lived in Ulster County [N. Y.], some eighty-five years ago. She and her two sisters have begotten generations of paupers and criminals to such an extent that the number now known, mainly from Margaret,—convicts, paupers, criminals, beggars, and vagrants, including the living and the dead,—is six hundred and twenty-three. This mother of criminals has cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars. And thus the evil increases, and upon the temperate and industrious citizen the burden falls. And there is another great evil from alcohol which directly affects society, namely, crime. The man dazed by drink too often fails to discern the threatening arm of the law, and commits an act he would either fear or not desire to do were he not under its influence. And then society must go to the expense of punishing him and guarding him from similar outbreaks. That the use of alcoholic drinks is the most prolific source of crime, we have as abounding evidence as we have in regard to its being the cause of pauperism. A terrible testimony to this fact came not many months ago from a young man in Omaha. Crazed by drink, he had shot and killed his best friend, tho for no apparent reason. He was tried, and condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law. A few hours before his execution he asked for pen and paper, and wrote a letter to the young men of the city, especially those who had been his associates. After recounting various experiences in his past life, by which he had been drawn under evil influences, he said:— But if anybody a year ago had told me that I would be in jail to-day with a death sentence upon me, I would have called him crazy. Yet here I am, with only a few more hours to live; and the cause of my being here is drink. If I had kept away from that vile stuff, I would be out in the world among11you to-day. Young men, for God's sake, keep away from drink. Keep out of bad company. Keep away from saloons and beer gardens. Seek the society of respectable and manly young men, or stay at home with your mother. We have similar testimony from the best of witnesses, and we find that in all ages alcoholic drinks have been recognized as the direct cause of a great deal of crime. Among the witnesses who command the respect of all, we quote from Sir Matthew Hale, chief justice of England, who declared in 1670:— The places of judicature I have long held in this kingdom, have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of twenty years; and by due observation I have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornications, rapes, and other enormities that have happened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issues and product of excessive drinking—of tavern or ale-house drinking. Testimonies from police magistrates throughout the country are abundant. The board of police judges of New York City once stated that they were satisfied that intoxication was "the one great leading cause which render the existence of our police courts necessary." A report of the Massachusetts State Board of Charities traced four-fifths of the crime of the State to intemperance, and Judge Noah Davis, of New York City, places the criminal business of the courts, caused by the liquor traffic, at ninety per cent.