, 9,088,894 gallons of
wines, 34,239 gallons of spirituous compounds, and 1,012,754 gallons of
ale, beer, etc., or a total of 272,530,107 gallons for 1870, with a
total increase of 30,000,000 gallons in 1871, and of 35,000,000 gallons
in addition in 1872.

All this in a single year, and at a cost variously estimated at from six
to seven hundred millions of dollars! Or, a sum, as statistics tell us,
nearly equal to the cost of all the flour, cotton and woolen goods,
boots and shoes, clothing, and books and newspapers purchased by the
people in the same period of time.

If this were all the cost? If the people wasted no more than seven
hundred millions of dollars on these beverages every year, the question
of their use would be only one of pecuniary loss or gain. But what
farther, in connection with this subject, are we told by statistics?
Why, that, in consequence of using these beverages, we have six hundred
thousand drunkards; and that of these, sixty thousand die every year.
That we have over three hundred murders and four hundred suicides. That
over two hundred thousand children are left homeless and friendless. And
that at least eighty per cent. of all the crime and pauperism of the
land arises from the consumption of this enormous quantity of
intoxicating drinks.

In this single view, the question of intemperance assumes a most
appalling aspect. The

POVERTY AND DESTITUTION

found in so large a portion of our laboring classes, and their
consequent restlessness and discontent, come almost entirely from the
waste of substance, idleness and physical incapacity for work, which
attend the free use of alcoholic beverages. Of the six or seven hundred
millions of dollars paid annually for these beverages, not less than
two-thirds are taken out of the earnings of our artisans and laborers,
and those who, like them, work for wages.

LOSS TO LABOR.

But the loss does not, of course, stop here. The consequent waste of
bodily vigor, and the idleness that is ever the sure accompaniment of
drinking, rob this class of at least as much more. Total abstinence
societies, building associations, and the use of banks for savings,
instead of the dram-sellers' banks for losings, would do more for the
well-being of our working classes than all the trades-unions or labor
combinations, that ever have or ever will exist. The laboring man's
protective union lies in his own good common sense, united with
temperance, self-denial an