LEGISLATION AGAINST THE DRINK EVIL. 447 



citizen). It seems to me that the reason for this difference lies dis- 

 tinctly in the fact that the countryman, who will gratify his appetite 

 for drink, has no choice but the concoction of ardent spirits, high 

 wines, or whatever it is which the local publican sets before him. To 

 him the word " wine " suggests a luxury beyond his venture or his 

 purse. And so for the price at which, in a large city, he could ob- 

 tain half a bottle, or even a bottle, of wholesome red wine, the con* 

 sumption of which at a settling would do no possible harm, he throws 

 into his stomach a glass of biting poison, and, horrible to relate, 

 another and another; whereas the whole bottle, or at least the half 

 bottle, probably shared with a neighbor, would have satisfied his 

 craving without ruining his digestion or stealing away his brains. 

 This clause of our discussion runs largely into our IX. But mean- 

 while here are some figures which may startle prohibitionists as 

 completely as did the figures given in these pages four years ago, 

 which went to prove that habitual drunkards lived longer than total 

 abstainers. (These figures have been strenuously denied in declama- 

 tion and denouncement. I have yet to learn that any attempt has 

 been made by industry in collection of counter-figures to demonstrate 

 their fallacy.*) But here are certain other figures: It appears by 

 the official report of Dr. Nagle to the Health Department of the 

 city of New York for the first thirty-one weeks of the year 1893 

 (the city then prior to the consolidation or to the present " Raines " 

 law) that in the community (as it then was of 1,765,645 inhab- 

 itants) out of 29,080 deaths only twenty-nine were directly trace- 

 able to the use of liquor. And this in a community where 10,749 

 liquor saloons were in operation from sunrise to midnight daily, not 

 to mention the use of wines and liquors in hundreds of hotels and 

 clubs and of wines and malt liquors on tens of thousands of private 

 tables. These figures are startling, and read quite as extravagantly 

 as those quite to the reverse conclusion with which the prohibition- 



* Perhaps for convenience of reference the figures heretofore found so startling may be 

 repeated. Of 4,234 deaths collected by the British Medical Association, divided for refer- 

 ence into five classes namely : a, total abstainers ; 6, habitually temperate ; c, careless 

 drinkers ; d, free drinkers ; e, habitual drunkards the ages of death of those in each class 

 were registered, together with the causes of death ; and the average of death for each class 

 computed with the following result : 



Total abstainers lived on an average 51.22 years ; 



Habitually temperate lived on an average 62.13 



Careless drinkers lived on an average 59.67 



Free drinkers lived on an average 57.59 



Habitual drunkards lived on an average 62.03 



To cancel such a statement as this, some industry is required on the other aide ; at least 

 a collection of 4,284 other cases. Anybody can say that a laboriously tabulated state- 

 ment is false. But it requires patience to demonstrate it. 



