278 
Vice as an Eliminative Agent . [May, 
shortened by alcoholic beverages a loss to the community, 
inasmuch as “ dead men pay no taxes.” But neither do 
dead men require food and raise its price by the increased 
demand. Nor do they compete for employment, and reduce 
by such competition profits, fees, salaries, and wages. 
Mr. McElroy further contends that “ Whisky makes no 
man lazy, shiftless, dishonest, false, cowardly, or brutal. 
These must be original qualities with him. If he has them 
he will probably take to whisky, — though not inevitably, — 
which then does the community the splendid service of 
hurrying him along to destruction, and of abridging their 
infliction upon the public. People who have done much in 
the way of reforming drunkards have been astonished to find 
how little real manhood remained after eliminating whisky 
fromthe equation; theyhave supposed the manhood tobe only 
obscured, and have been disheartened to find how frequently 
it happens to be demonstrated that there was never enough 
of it to pay for the trouble of saving the victim of intem- 
perance.” 
The passage just quoted is open to the charge of exagge- 
ration. There have undoubtedly been reclaimed drunkards 
who after their reform have merited well of Society. Still 
we think that in too many instances the drunkard, however 
bright or brilliant he may appear, is, on the principle that 
nothing is stronger than its weakest part, an imperfectly 
constituted individual. He may have great talents, espe- 
cially the gift of expression, but he is lacking in common 
sense and in self-command. Hence we notice that, though 
the propensity to intemperance is common among poets, 
novelists, orators, musicians, even of a very high order, it 
is exceedingly rare among men of Science. A drunken in- 
vestigator of Nature is almost a contradiction in terms. 
Mr. Mattieu Williams and Mr. McElroy have been already 
denounced for their “heartless selfishness ” in recognising the 
efficacy of vice as an agent in eliminating the worthless 
portion of the community and in securing room for the 
worthier. We are by no means certain that they deserve 
this taunt. Neither of them created the struggle for exist- 
ence. Were population well within the limits of room, 
employment, and food, we have no doubt that both these 
authors would rejoice. But seeing that we are plunged into 
a struggle in which some must go down, whilst others suc- 
ceed, it is surely well that triumph should be reserved, as far 
as possible, for the better portion of the community. It is 
surely remarkable that almost every “ movement ” of a phi- 
lanthropic character has for its result, though not perhaps 
