people in the same period of time.

If this were all the cost? If the people wasted no more than seven
hundred millions of dollars on these beverages every year, the question
of their use would be only one of pecuniary loss or gain. But what
farther, in connection with this subject, are we told by statistics?
Why, that, in consequence of using these beverages, we have six hundred
thousand drunkards; and that of these, sixty thousand die every year.
That we have over three hundred murders and four hundred suicides. That
over two hundred thousand children are left homeless and friendless. And
that at least eighty per cent. of all the crime and pauperism of the
land arises from the consumption of this enormous quantity of
intoxicating drinks.

In this single view, the question of intemperance assumes a most
appalling aspect. The


POVERTY AND DESTITUTION

found in so large a portion of our laboring classes, and their
consequent restlessness and discontent, come almost entirely from the
waste of substance, idleness and physical incapacity for work, which
attend the free use of alcoholic beverages. Of the six or seven hundred
millions of dollars paid annually for these beverages, not less than
two-thirds are taken out of the earnings of our artisans and laborers,
and those who, like them, work for wages.


LOSS TO LABOR.