TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 9, 11 January 1908, Page 2

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

AND MONEY

HOW DRINK WASTES LIVES

I (By Newell Dwight Hills.) The astronomers Flrt'umni-Km and Lowell haye1 a bood on the inhabitants of Mars. If our scientists are right I and if one of ibhe;;! .cjtizens of that ■ planet should eyef visit the earth, he • would suffer the shock ! of a" great sur- j i prise. He would understand our j schools and colleges—they promote culture; he would appreciate our law courts—they distribute justice; he '. would understand our shops and stores ! —they feed and clothe the people. What he would not understand would ,be the Monday morning records of i crime, incident to Sunday's drunken- • ness. , . [ In Mars, men do not beat their . wives, drunkards do not starve their i children, and the workmgman does r not stagger forward, borne down by . taxesI,incident to pauperism, disease • and crime. \ ; - Indeed, it is Ward to make oneself ; believe that thete are a hundred > saloons to one high school building, a r score of saloons to one church. I 1 CAUSES MOST OF THE CRIMES. ! best students ofNeconpniics tell 1 us tW; five-sixths of aR our pauper- " ism conies from drink; Vur-fitths ot ? all our crime springs from the same source; that *t)ut for the traffic we f could close up nk*e gaols out of ten 3in the country. X \ The influence of intemperance on S the health of the people is^yen more , astonishing. Every year it \osts our I country 75,000 lives. Nq\ if we think of a man as a locomotivv, costc ing ten thousand dollars, and bringing in six hundred, we understand the economic waste through the loss oUhe nation's workers. In terms, ti%e----l fore, of industrial losses, intemperance, through crime, pauperise, 1 gaols, police officials, law courts ] disease, and death involves a waste . for this country every year equal to . the waste of the Chicago fire and the r San Francisco earthquake combined. 1 Our merchants and bankers and b businessmen believe-that an. annual . earthquake and fire of such dimenF sions is jtoo large. It is this waste . now rolling over this country. The deterioration of the English physique through drink and the revelations incident to! the failure to obtain soldiers r for the South African war explain the 7 similar movement now sweeping over - Englandi 5 We shall understand the problem r better ifi we begin with the fact that } the Teutonic peoples represent thede--1 scendan4 of men who were immune • to drinty For 1000 years.^nature, 7 throughj her selective agencies, has 3 been destroying the unfit, and the 1 weak Mve gone to the wall. The } four diseases and forces that have 3 wrought Tout this tragedy are measles, ' smallpo^, consumption and alcoholic j \he'idians, the Caribs, the Patab gonians and Polynesians, and-the I Maoris lall have gone down. Their b death represents a tragedy more teri rible than all the wars. When these \" four plagues swept over Northern r- Europej centuries ago only the men 5 who w^re immune and proof against | them survived. These immune descendaijts increased, andj though a • small percentage of their children ' y still ar<| liable to death by these dis- ( ease, m»st of us survive them. i WHERE MEN NEVER DRINK, j 1 In Mohammedan countries drinking ' 5 is unknown. The worshipper of Allah T puts his soul in peril, of everlasting • hell by touching a drop of wine. But all the peoples who live in the soft, sunny climates enjoy their evenings t out of doors. Games, sports, free social life, the assembly of the people in 3 the garden Or the park, or in the . streets, furnish the gentle excitement 3 that man craves. But once you cross I the Alps, the climate works toward r different customs. . ■.< November's chill drives men indoors . in Germany. The winter for England . is damp, raw and cheerless, while the 3 snow falls during four months in our I own country. When, then, the poor r man returns to his room; when the boy finds.his hall bedtoom cold, the chill drives men' forth in search of warmth, companionship and excite---1 ment. These three cravings bring p about the rich man's club and the poor j 1 man's saloon. ,;. b For more than a generation our " physicians and scientists have been' t experimenting in the laboratory, ani ' we now know exactly what alcohol ' ' does for man. To-morrow morrfng • drop a raw egg into a glass of al^hol, ' and you will find that one v'ay to 7 cook an egg is to put it over «*e fire; 5 the other way, to put it i* alcohol.' I Alcohol has a fierce thirst *<>r water, s and drink it up, and #™ hardens j the egg. Alcohol act? ln a similar 1 way upon the brain. r When the engine^1 turns on the r power he then attaches the power to I the axle of his /fitomobile.. Now, there are certail/nerves that control the hearty'alcwiol paralyses these : nerves so th?* the heart runs wild and free, be/ 111? a hundred and fifty times, inst^d of seventy-eight. This gorges tl^^ra*n with blood until the I man igranconscious or without self- " o n /of the results of paralysing the ner «3s is that the blood-vessels become p^-manently distended, so that they j/se their contractile power. This *eaves the nose red, or the cheeks purple, or the brain gorged. Of course, in time of pneumonia, when the heart is weak, the physician needs a stimulant named nitro-glycerine. Doubtless there are four reasons why men drink beer, wine and whisky. First, most men drink to satisfy thirst. The Munich beer 'is 98 per ■ cent, water, and when_ the body has i been overworked and without water it j will become feverish, and beer and J light wine are used to quench the j thirts. Thus the people of Bavaria, with Munich as the capital, drink fiftysix gallons of beer for every man, woman and child; Great Britain consumes thirty-one gallons of beer and ', t ale and gin per capita, while the ;•; United States has risen from nine gallons per capita to thirteen, al- . i though drunkenness is less and less. j i There is another class that drinks ! i to gratify the taste. These men are I i for the most part rich, they toy with 3 their liquor, enjoy the flavour, sip it, < collect rare vintages and almost never ] become drunkards. They are artists 1 in drink, and the artistic" tempera- s ment must not run to excess. It i keeps the palate delicate. ] THOSE WHO CRAVE EXCITE- * MENT. J Others drink not because they like ] the taste and not because they are s thirsty, but because they crave excitement. In the forest, the woods- < man, dripping, cold, cheerless, sitting < around the camp fire, miles from !■ home, takes a glass of whisky to i warm him up. The poor foreigner s and the longshoreman drink that \ 1 they may have a little excitement and \

<ooetry in tneir lives.* The drink may, rqake them poor, but at the bottom it is\their poverty that first made them drink. ■ J I\ is the hopelessness of the factory clashes of England' that is [making themXa class ot drunkards. It is the grey 'a,shen dreariness of the Whitechapel region that has driven the women an<l the children to gin and ale. We mVst look the facts in the face and frankly confess them.