268 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



female sex exceed in tea rather than in alcohol. The male half 

 (strictly, considerably less than half) of the population are 

 responsible for most of the alcohol consumed. Then, boys 

 under fifteen, say, drink very little alcohol, and there are besides 

 a large number of adult teetotallers. Tt is evident, therefore, 

 that the males over a certain age, who are not abstainers, get 

 through a large amount of alcohol per head. 



Percentage How does this affect the evolution of the race ? Mr Archdall 

 f due'to ^ eic * * n his ver Y interesting book, The Present Evolution of Man, 

 alcohol has a very simple answer to the question. There is a constant 

 elimination of those who have an over-strong tendency to the 

 use of alcohol ; thus a more sober race is gradually evolved, 

 and, in fact, the sobriety of a nation is proportioned to the time 

 it has been accustomed to alcoholic liquors. The question, how- 

 ever, is really a very complicated one. First, as to the number 

 of deaths due to alcohol. Mr Reid says one in every ten. The 

 Registrar-General's annual summary for 1897 gives the annual 

 average number of deaths due to alcoholism for the decennial 

 period 1887-1896 as 454 out of a total of 88,594. This is only 

 one in 195. But it must be remembered that the 454 are those 

 only of which alcoholism is the immediate traceable cause. Thus 

 the huge majority of cases are attributed to something else. 

 Habitual soaking, even when not carried to the extent of actual 

 intoxication, is ruinous to the constitution, more so, it is said, 

 than an occasional drunken orgy. Such soaking will leave a 

 man at the mercy of some constitutional weakness, which other- 

 wise would not have been fatal, or might perhaps have remained 

 unnoticed. 



Besides this it must be remembered that drink produces a state 

 of intolerable misery in the drunkard's household, leading often 

 to the death of his children through insufficient food, actual 

 cruelty, or any of the evils that may arise from the degraded 

 habits of the father or mother. If the deaths of the children 

 that are traceable to the drunkenness of their parents be put 

 down to the account of alcohol, then alcoholism in this extended 

 sense has to answer for a very large percentage of the annual 

 deaths. Even if we do not count in the children who are 



