Human Physiology. 



CHAPTER VII. 



DRUNKENNESS. 



The Prevalence of Drunkenness Causes and Consequences Cost of 

 Stimulants Numbers Supported by the Trade The Spectacle of 

 Drunkenness Scenes in Liverpool and Manchester Increase of 

 Drunkenness The Temperance Movement in England Medical 

 Testimony Balance Sheet. 



ONE of the sad effects of ignorance, poverty, and the depress- 

 ing conditions of a life of monotonous and often ill-requited 

 labour, is the prevalence of intemperance and drunkenness. 

 Intelligent, free, and happy men, with pleasant occupations,, 

 comfortable homes, and intellectual and artistic recreations, 

 have no need of stimulants. It is the wretched home that 

 drives men to the pot-house, where they must drink. Men 

 stimulate nerves jaded with long and monotonous toil they 

 drown dull care in drink. Thousands find their only solace 

 their only relief from the tedium and misery of life, in intoxi- 

 cation. Agricultural labourers swill immense quantities of 

 thin cider and beer; the poor in towns crowd the hundreds- 

 of low tippling shops, and get intoxicated on adulterated 

 liquors. Husbands spend in drink the earnings of their 

 wives, and then abuse and beat them in their drunken fury. 

 One can hardly open a daily newspaper without finding cases 

 of horrible ill-usage, often ending in murder, of women and. 

 children, by drunken husbands and fathers. The men who- 

 leave their families to suffer by cold and hunger, while they 

 spend all their wages in drink, may be found by thousands. 

 No small portion of the infant mortality, and infanticide by 

 neglect, which form so dark a stain upon the social life of 

 England, is the direct result of drunkenness in one or both of 

 the parents. Women spend the earnings of their husbands on> 



