The Ruin Caused by Drink
By H. Scott
Forty years ago I noted down ten drinkers—six young men and four boys. I saw the boys drink beer and buy cigars in what was then called a grocery or doggery. I expressed my disapprobation and the seller gave a coarse reply. He continued the business, and in fifteen years he died of delirium tremens, leaving not five dollars. I never lost sight of these ten, only as the clods of the valley hid their bodies from human vision. Of the six young men, one died of delirium tremens and one in a drunken fit; two died of diseases produced by their excesses before they reached the meridian of life; two of them left families not provided for, and two sons are drunkards. Of the two remaining, one is a miserable wreck, and the other a drinker in some better condition. Of the four boys, one who had a good mother, grew up a sober man; one was killed by a club in a drunken broil; one has served two terms in the penitentiary; and one has drunk himself into an inoffensive dolt whose family has to provide for him. The proportion of those of the ten who went down to disgrace and death during the forty years is unusual and largely over the average; but if any one will take any given number of habitual drinkers and carry them on through twenty years, he will be greatly surprised at the proportion of deaths and wrecks; and if he will take a dozen boys who frequent the saloons and drink beer, and watch them up to their manhood's years, he will be appalled at the issue. Yet many will say this is a free country, and we must not legislate on what men eat and drink. — H. Scott, in Commonwealth.