 
Illustration. The Gin-Mill. "All its history is written in tears and blood."—Robert J. Burdette. 1. What admonition against intemperance did Christ give that is especially applicable at the present time? “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” Luke 21:34. 2. What did He say would be the condition of the world just before His second coming? “As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.... They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.” Matt. 24:37, 38. 3. How has the consumption of liquor increased in gallons in the United States since 1840:—
The total consumption of alcoholic liquors in the United States for forty-two years (1870-1911) was 43,611,000,564 gallons. The drink bill of the United States for 1911 was estimated at $1,833,653,425, or nearly twice the national debt. The number of liquor dealers in the United States in 1910 was 255,765, or over a quarter of a million. The capital invested in the manufacture of liquor in the United States in 1850 was less than $10,000,000. In 1910, sixty years later, it had increased to over $770,000,000, or more than 7,700 per cent. The total internal revenue received by the United States for liquor for forty-nine years, or from 1863 to 1911, was $5,245,916,047.01. The use of whisky, beer, cigars, and cigarettes in the United States increased enormously in 1912. During the three months of July, August, and September of this year alone, 33,150,000 gallons of whisky were used, an increase of 450,000 gallons over the corresponding period of the previous year; 19,800,000 barrels of beer were drunk, an increase of 320,000 barrels over the same months of 1911; 1,950,000,000 cigars were smoked, a record consumption; and more than 3,800,000,000 cigarettes were consumed, an increase of 1,000,000,000 over the same period of the previous year. 4. What can be said of intemperance in Great Britain? Speaking of intemperance in Great Britain, the English Watchword says:— “Thanks to our brewers and publicans, and the cooperation of the magistrates who license them, and the consent of the Christian church which permits the liquor traffic to continue, we have:— “1,000,000 paupers on the rates through drink, 100,000 criminals in jail through drink, 50,000 lunatics in asylums through drink, 60,000 deaths annually through drink, and a standing army of— 60,000 confirmed drunkards.” 5. To what extent is beer manufactured in the world today? The enormous extent of the beer industry in the world at the present time is indicated by the following table prepared in 1903 by Gambrinus, of Vienna:—
The amount of beer produced by these 36,502 breweries is estimated at considerably over 150,000,000 barrels annually. [pg 750]Gallons of Liquor Consumed Annually by the World Today
Grand total, 10,807,310,170 gallons.—American Prohibition Year Book, 1912. Comparative Annual Cost of Liquor and Other Things in the United States
Notes.—“Grape-Juice has killed more people than grape-shot.”—Spurgeon. “O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains!”—Shakespeare. “The liquor traffic is the most degrading and ruinous of all human pursuits.”—William McKinley. “All its history is written in tears and blood.”—Robert J. Burdette. “In every community three things always work together,—the grog-shop, the jail, and the gallows,—an infernal trinity.”—Henry Ward Beecher. “Give me a sober population, not wasting their earnings in strong drink, and I will know where to get my revenue.”—William E. Gladstone. “I have looked into a thousand homes of the working people of Europe; I do not know how many in this country. In every case, as far as my observation goes, drunkenness was at the bottom of the misery.”—Carroll D. Wright, former Commissioner of Labor, U. S. A. “The liquor traffic is a hydra-headed monster, which, with ceaseless and tireless energy, wastes the substance of the poor, manufactures burdensome taxes for the public, monopolizes the time of courts, fills the jails and penitentiaries and asylums, terrorizes helpless women and children, and mocks the law.”—Gen. Nelson A. Miles. “I have no sympathy with the statement, so often made, that the manufacture and sale of liquor have contributed to the industrial development of the nation. On the contrary, I believe that liquor has contributed more to the moral, intellectual, and material deterioration of the people, and has brought more misery to defenseless women and children, than has any other agency in the history of mankind.”—John Mitchell, vice-president American Federation of Labor. “The saloon is the mortal enemy of peace and order, the despoiler of man and the terror of women, the cloud that shadows the face of children, the demon that has dug more graves and sent more souls unshriven to judgment than all the plagues that have wasted life since the plagues of Egypt, or all the wars since Joshua stood before Jericho.”—Henry W. Grady. What A Barrel Of Whisky Contains A barrel of headaches, of heartaches, of woes; A barrel of curses, a barrel of blows; A barrel of sorrow for a loving, weary wife; A barrel of care, a barrel of strife; A barrel of unavailing regret; A barrel of cares, a barrel of debt; A barrel of hunger, of poison, of pain; A barrel of hopes all blasted and vain; A barrel of poverty, ruin, and blight; A barrel of tears that run in the night; A barrel of crime, a barrel of groans; A barrel of orphans' most pitiful moans; A barrel of serpents that hiss as they pass, That glow from the liquor in the bead of the glass; A barrel of falsehoods; a barrel of cries That fall from the maniac's lips as he dies! |
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