126 PElilLS. — INTEMl'KKANCE. 



liquors increases. In Great Britain, Belgium, Holland 

 and Germany, which are the European countries lying 

 in the nervous belt, there has been a marked increase in 

 the use of alcohol during the last half century. Since 

 1840, its consumption in Belgium has increased 238 per 

 cent. In 1869 there were 120,000 saloons in Prussia; in 

 1880 there were 165, 000. From 1831 to 1872, while the pop- 

 ulation (not including recent annexations) increased 53 

 per cent., whiskey saloons increased 91 per cent. For 

 all Germany, the increase in consumption of spirituous 

 liquors, per caput, from 1872 to 1875, was 23.5 per cent. 

 It appears, however, that there was a decrease in the 

 amount used per caput from 1.27 gallons in 1872 to 1.09 

 gallons in 1887. But during the same period the amount 

 of beer consumed increased from 21.50 gallons per caput 

 to 24.99 gallons.^ In Great Britain, during the year 1800, 

 a population of 15,000,000 consumed a little less than 12- 

 000,000 gallons of spirits. Fifty years later, a population 

 of 27,000,000 consumed 28,000,000 gallons. In 1874, a 

 population of 32,000,000 consumed 41,000,000 gallons. 

 That is, while the population increased 113 per cent. , the 

 consumption of spirituous liquors increased 241 per cent. 

 From 1868 to 1877, while the population increased less 

 than ten per cent. , the amount of spirituous liquors con- 

 sumed increased thirty-seven per cent. During the 

 next ten years the amount of spirits used per caput 

 somewhat decreased ; but the Chancellor of the Excheq- 

 uer in his statement of English finances in April, 1890, 

 said that the revenue from alcoholic beverages showed a 

 universal rush to the beer barrel, the spirit bottle and 

 the wine decanter. ' ' In 1888 the number of drams taken 

 reached 245,000,000; in 1889, 275,000,000,''— an increase of 

 twelve per cent. 

 The following table ^ shows the number of gallons of 



1 Statistisches Jahrbuch fiir das Deutsche Reich. See The Cyclopaedia 

 of Temperance and Prohibition. Funk and Was^nalls. 



2 From the Quarterly Report of the Chief of the U. S. Bureau of Statistics, 

 for the three months ending March 31, 1889, and from Spofford's American 

 Almanac, 1889. 



