LITERARY NOTICES. 



277 



able pains in studying up the facts. The 

 greater part of the book consists of dis- 

 patches sent to the "Pall Mall Gazette," 

 and published in that and several other pa- 

 pers ; but sorae of the chapters are now 

 published for the first time. 



The Effects of Beer upon those who 

 MAKE AND DRINK IT ; Real and Imagi- 

 nary Effects of Intemperance ; The Sys- 

 tem of High Licenses ; Liquor Laws of 

 the United States ; Colonial Liquor 

 Laws ; Thouprhts on International Tem- 

 perance Meeting at Antwerp, 1885; So- 

 lution of the Temperance Problem pro- 

 posed by the Government of Switzer- 

 land ; and Alleged Adulterations of Malt 

 Liquors. By G. Thomann. Twenty- 

 SE%-ENTH Brewers' Contention, held at 

 Baltimore, 1887. New York: United 

 States Brewers' Association, 1 884-'87. 



New York State Board of Health Re- 

 pouts ON Examinations of Beers. New 

 York : The State, 1886. 



The pamphlets named at the head of 

 this article are issued by the Brewers' As- 

 sociation, with the declared purpose of pro- 

 moting temperance by substituting the use 

 of beer for spirituous liquors. The Asso- 

 ciation has a literary bureau, which is en- 

 gaged in disseminating the doctrine, held 

 by many other people besides brewers, that 

 the best way to promote temperance is to 

 extend the use of the weaker liquors and 

 restrict that of the stronger ones. Accord- 

 ingly, it advocates high taxes on distilled 

 liquors, and the removal of the taxes now 

 imposed upon ale and beer. The various 

 pamphlets before us are mostly prepared 

 by Mr. Thomann, the manager of the bureau, 

 or under his supervision, and treat of vari- 

 ous aspects of the subject under discussion. 

 Some of them are designed to combat cer- 

 tain assertions and arguments of the pro- 

 hibitionists ; others are devoted to examin- 

 ing the effects of excise and other laws that 

 have been enacted by different govei'nments 

 in relation to liquors. Those on the liquor 

 laws of this country, contain a large 

 amount of information tending to show 

 that restrictions on the sale of malt liquors 

 lead to a larger consumption of the prod- 

 ucts of the still. 



Perhaps the work most important to 

 the brewers' argument is that upon the 

 effects of beer upon those who use it freely. 

 It opens with a quotation from a total-absti- 



nence writer, to the effect that beer inevi- 

 tably produces various diseases, disorders 

 of the liver and the kidneys being specially 

 insisted on. Allusion is also made to the 

 fact that one or two life-insurance com- 

 panies had come to the conclusion that 

 insuring the lives of habitual beer-drink- 

 ers was too risky to be advisable. To 

 these facts and assertions, Mr. Thomann 

 replies, first, by citing the opinion of cer- 

 tain physicians to the opposite effect, and 

 then goes on to give some statistics re- 

 lating to the health and longevity of the 

 workmen in the breweries of New York 

 and its vicinity. The brewers of this and 

 the neighboring cities have a benevolent 

 association for assisting sick and disabled 

 woi'kmen, and this association has estab- 

 lished a system of medical supervision and 

 examination which has collected facts re- 

 garding the health of the workmen gener- 

 erally, and the cause of the deaths occur- 

 ring among them. The men have the priv- 

 ilege of drinking without cost all the beer 

 they want, and consume an average of ten 

 pints a day; yet, according to the statis- 

 tics that are given, the death-rate among 

 them is less than that of the generality of 

 city residents as given in the United States 

 census. In reply to the charge often made 

 that beer is adulterated, Mr. Thomann cites 

 the report of the New York State Board of 

 Health to the effect that the four-hundred 

 and seventy-six samples of malt liquors ex- 

 amined by them contained no deleterious 

 ingredient whatever. These pamphlets will 

 be sure to attract the attention of all inter- 

 ested in the subject of temperance, and may 

 lead to a renewed discussion of the whole 

 question of prohibitive and restrictive legis- 

 lation. 



Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of 

 ^VAS^INGT0N. Vol. ix, for 1886. Wash- 

 ington, 1887. 



At the annual meeting of this society 

 for 1886, papers were presented on a vari- 

 ety of topics, including even a phonetic 

 alphabet. The Charleston earthquake was 

 the subject of a long discussion, and there 

 were also papers on other geological topics. 

 A communication was presented on Lieu- 

 tenant Lockwood's polar expedition, show- 

 ing that that explorer had penetrated to a 

 point nearer the north pole than any one 



