SOCIAL BACTERIA AND ECONOMIC MICROBES. 319 



Again, the consumption of beer at sixteen gallons per head is com- 

 puted at retail prices in half-pint service. The half-pint drink is 

 seldom of full measure, aud the sum of this computation would yield 

 only a fraction over three cents per glass. I think no beer is sold at 

 retail at less than five cents per glass.* 



How the government estimate is computed I know not, but from 

 these figures one may accept the government rather than the Grocers 

 estimate. I think it is safe to adopt an average of not less than $17 

 per head for spirits, wines and beer, which, assessed upon 80,000,000 

 people, would come to $1,360,000,000. 



It may be remarked that the consumption of spirits has been very 

 uniform at 1.33 gallons per head for a long period, slightly diminish- 

 ing rather than increasing for several years. It is at about the same 

 average as that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

 On the other hand, our consumption of beer has rapidly increased, 

 reaching a fraction over sixteen gallons per head of light beer, against 

 an average in England of thirty-five gallons per head of strong beer. 

 The price of beer is lower in Great Britain, but the average expenditure 

 for drink is established at twenty dollars per head. The consumption 

 of liquors in France and Germany is also much greater than in the 

 United States. 



Item No. 2, Tobacco, Cigars, Cigarettes, Chewing Tobacco and 

 Snuff. — The consumption of tobacco has also been computed year by 

 year by the editor of the Tobacco World, by whom a very close analysis 

 has been made, which time will not permit me to quote in full. This 

 estimate clearly proves that the average expenditure comes to $6.15 

 per head, say $6, or on a population of eighty million, $480,000,- 

 000. | 



* The quantity of beer consumed in 1901 was 1,254,653,009 gallons at 

 16.20 gallons per head, which the editor of the American Grocer computes at 

 fifty cents per gallon at retail, $630,922,886. One gallon yields sixteen half 

 pints. At fifty cents a gallon that comes to a fraction over three cents for a 

 full half pint, which is too low an estimate. This quantity at 16.20 gallons 

 per head would yield only half a pint a day to 29,160,000 people out of over 

 76,000,000, and as those who drink beer habitually far exceed half a pint a 

 day, it follows that probably not half of the adults drink beer. 



f This computation of six dollars per head of population would give each 

 person less than two cents' worth of tobacco a day. But a considerable part 

 of the population goes without tobacco in their early years. It would seem 

 but a small allowance if we estimated that the users of tobacco averaged four 

 cents' worth per day, and at that rate the estimate of the Tobacco World would 

 supply only a little over a half of the population. Do half the population use 

 four cents' worth of tobacco per day? If they do, by so much as some use 

 more others must go without. I shall leave it to each smoker to compute the 

 price of his own consumption of tobacco or cigars by his own average. I am 

 afraid I deprive a great many other men of this solace by my own excess — 

 over four cents a dav. 



