198 ■ MISSIONARY LIFE 
as they say; so Mr. Parker, who interprets for the 
chief, did it. J. Gomer. 
September 6, 1875. 
EVILS OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN AFRICA. 
To say that liquor kills more than the sword is 
putting it very weak. It not only kills more, hut 
worse ; for the sword only kills the body, but this 
kills pockets, reputation, mind, soul,, and body, 
and not unfrequently wife and children. It is 
more to be dreaded than small-pox, or cholera, or 
any known epidemic. It is the concentration of 
everything that is degrading and ruinous. No 
kind of devilish, low business can well get along 
without it. It is the scourge of all Christian and 
heathen lands. Having made four trips to Africa, 
the cargo upon each vessel, with one exception, 
was principally rum. Rum and missionaries — 
but hundreds of barrels of rum to one missionary 
— go to heathen lands. In western Africa it is 
the curse of curses now. In other days it did 
much to carry on the slave-trade. One barrel of 
rum has been known to purchase quite a number 
of slaves; and often by getting the people 
drunk slave-traders carried them away without 
giving any remuneration, which was indeed but 
little worse than to get them by giving the rum to 
head-men, who would make war upon some small 
