TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 89

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

THE POSITION IN MAINE. By Senator C. F. Cotterill, G.C.T., of the National G.L. of the United States.

Maine is always and constantly "harped upon" in discussing this liquor questdon. I want to condense into a few paragraphs some solid facts concerning Maine. These Maine people usually know what they are talking about. I want to give just a few facte from the words of the Mon. Chas. E. Littlefield, a former member of Congress for Maine. Hero they are, principally gathered from United States official reports : When Main© is compared with Massachusetts we aire comparing a Prohibition State with a State that has had, in years past and now enjoys, the best of municipal local option of any State in the United Statee. [A State which is itself also about half under local no-license.] We are comparing one good State with another better State. Maine in 1850 had a per capita wealth of 210 dollars; in 1910, after 50 years of prohibition, she had reached a per capita of 980 dollars, or an increase of nearly five times. During the same period Massachusetts enjoyed only half the rate of increase of wealth. Between 1880 and 19C0 it is notable that Maine increased by 124 dollars per year the average amount paid her wage-earners, a.s- against the gain of Massachusetts, which was only 87 dollars. The average per cent, of people owning free and unencumbered homes is a gcod key to the prosperous condition of a community. In the Northern Atlantic division of the States, including the New England States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the record is 22 per cent.; Maine has 49 per cent. Of farm families in Maine, 69 per cent, own their farms unencumbered; in Massachusetts only 53 per cent, so hold them. In I£o3 Maine had 885 inmates of insane asylums, or 125 per 100,000 of population; Massachusetts had b'679', or 288 per 100,000; over twice as many in proportion as Maine. Taking the almshouses, Maine had, on December 31, 1903, 1152 paupers, or 163 for each 100,000 of the population. Massachusetts had, on the same date, 5924 paupers, or 197 for 100,003. In Maine the death-rate from alcoholism in 1900 was 2.2 per 100,000 of population per year. In Massachusetts, at tie same time, the death-rate from this cause was 6.8 per 100,000, or three times the death record of Maine. Maine had, for every 100,000 of population, only 77 prisoners, or 512 in all. Massachusetts had 5227 prisoners, being 233 for every 100,OC0 of population, or proportionately three times as many as Maine. ALCOHOL AND LONGEVITY. " Those who don't drink don't die so fast." This, said Mr Wiiliam Bingham, managing director of the Sceptre Life Association, at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Inebriety in London recently, was, in a nutshell, the teaching of the evidence afforded by the various life assurance societies during recent years. The subject of his remarks was " Alcohol and Life Assurance," and he quoted the mortality etatistics of a number of the leading companies to show that the death rate was much lower in the temperance than in the general section. The way in which life offices treated proposals from publicans was very suggestive. Ten offices declined altogether to deal with euch proposals, and the terms which other offices had found it requisite to impose for protective purposes offered strong evidence of the deleterious and dangerous character of the article he dispensed. It also indicated that, injurious as it might be and was to the community, it was no lees destructive to the vendor. Accident assurance societies also widely recognised ths value of abstinence principles, and in many cases allowed a reduction of 10 per cent., and the secretary of one of the earliest offices to give a premium reduction for abstinence had told him that they did not find the advantage to be so much in the greater immunity from accidents enjoyed by tcetotillers as in their more rapid lecovery when stricken down by accident. — Alliance News.