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GRAPPLING WITH THE MONSTER
or, The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
by
T. S. ARTHUR
Author of "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room," "Three Years in a Man-Trap,"
"Cast Adrift," "Danger," etc.
[Illustration: IN THE MONSTER'S CLUTCHES. Body and Brain on Fire.]
INTRODUCTION.
In preparing this, his latest volume, the author found himself
embarrassed from the beginning, because of the large amount of material
which came into his hands, and the consequent difficulty of selection
and condensation. There is not a chapter which might not have been
extended to twice its present length, nor a fact stated, or argument
used, which might not have been supplemented by many equally pertinent
and conclusive. The extent to which alcohol curses the whole people
cannot be shown in a few pages: the sad and terrible history would fill
hundreds of volumes. And the same may be said of the curse which this
poisonous substance lays upon the souls and bodies of men. Fearful as is
the record which will be found in the chapters devoted to the curse of
drink, let the reader bear in mind that a thousandth part has not been
told.
In treating of the means of reformation, prevention and cure, our effort
has been to give to each agency the largest possible credit for what it
is doing. There is no movement, organization or work, however broad or
limited in its sphere, which has for its object the cure of drunkenness
in the individual, or the suppression of the liquor traffic in the
State, that is not contributing its measure of service to the great
cause every true temperance advocate has at heart; and what we largely
need is, toleration for those who do not see with us, nor act with us in
our special methods. Let us never forget the Divine admonition--"Forbid
him not: for he that is not against us is for us."
Patience, toleration and self-repression are of vital importance in any
good cause. If we cannot see with another, let us be careful that, by
opposition, we do not cripple him in his work. If we can assist him by
friendly counsel to clearer seeing, or, by a careful study of his
methods, gain a large efficiency for our own, far more good will be done
than by hard antagonism, which rarely helps, and too surely blinds and
hinders.
Our book treats of the curse and cure of drunkenness. How much better
not to come under the terrible curse! How much better to run no risks
where the malady is so disastrous, and the cure so difficult!
To young men who are drifting easily into the dangerous drinking habits
of society, we earnestly commend the chapters in which will be found the
medical testimony against alcohol, and also the one on "The Growth and
Power of Appetite." They will see that it is impossible for a man to use
alcoholic drinks regularly without laying the foundation for both
physical and mental diseases, and, at the same time, lessening his power
to make the best of himself in his life-work; while beyond this lies the
awful risk of acquiring an appetite which may enslave, degrade and ruin
him, body and soul, as it is degrading and ruining its tens of thousands
yearly.
It is sincerely hoped that many may be led by the facts here presented,
to grapple with the monster and to thus promote his final overthrow.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Monster, Strong Drink
CHAPTER II.
It Curses the Body
CHAPTER III.
It Curses the Body--Continued
CHAPTER IV.
It Curses the Soul
CHAPTER V.
Not a Food, and very Limited in its Range as a Medicine
CHAPTER VI.
The Growth and Power of Appetite
CHAPTER VII.
Means of Cure
CHAPTER VIII.
Inebriate Asylums
CHAPTER IX.
Reformatory Homes
CHAPTER X.
Tobacco as an Incitant to the Use of Alcoholic Stimulants, and an
Obstacle in the way of a Permanent Reformation
CHAPTER XI.
The Woman's Crusade
CHAPTER XII.
The Woman's National Christian Temperance Union
CHAPTER XIII.
Reform Clubs
CHAPTER XIV.
Gospel Temperance
CHAPTER XV.
Temperance Coffee-Houses and Friendly Inns
CHAPTER XVI.
Temperance Literature
CHAPTER XVII.
License a Failure and a Disgrace
CHAPTER XVIII.
Prohibition
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
IN THE MONSTER'S CLUTCHES
GOD'S BEST BEVERAGE, PURE WATER
HEAPING BURDENS UPON POVERTY
AN UTTER WRECK
"TAKE WARNING BY MY CAREER"
CRAZED BY DRINK
ALCOHOL AND GAMBLING (12 _sequence pictures_)
FOUR STAGES OF THE DOWNWARD COURSE
A VICTIM OF THE DRINKING CLUB
FINANCIAL VIEW OF THE LICENSE SYSTEM
_"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy
bottle to him, and makest him drunken also._"--HABAKKUK ii, 15.
CHAPTER I.
THE MONSTER, STRONG DRINK.
There are two remarkable passages in a very old book, known as the
Proverbs of Solomon, which cannot be read too often, nor pondered too
deeply. Let us quote them here:
1. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived
thereby is not wise."
2. "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath
babblings? who hath wounds without cause? who hath, redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look
not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the
cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an adder."
It is many thousands of years since this record was made, and to-day, as
in that far distant age of the world, wine is a mocker, and strong drink
raging; and still, as then, they who tarry long at the wine; who go to
seek mixed wine, discover that, "_at the last_," it biteth like a
serpent and stingeth like an adder.
This mocking and raging! These bitings and stingings! These woes and
woundings! Alas, for the exceeding bitter cry of their pain, which is
heard above every other cry of sorrow and suffering.
ALCOHOL AN ENEMY.
The curse of strong drink! Where shall we begin, where end, or how, in
the clear and truthful sentences that wrest conviction from doubt, make
plain the allegations we shall bring against an enemy that is sowing
disease, poverty, crime and sorrow throughout the land?
Among our most intelligent, respectable and influential people, this
enemy finds a welcome and a place of honor. Indeed, with many he is
regarded as a friend and treated as such. Every possible opportunity is
given him to gain favor in the household and with intimate and valued
friends. He is given the amplest confidence and the largest freedom; and
he always repays this confidence with treachery and spoliation; too
often blinding and deceiving his victims while his work of robbery goes
on. He is not only a robber, but a cruel master; and his bondsmen and
abject slaves are to be found in hundreds and thousands, and even tens
of thousands, of our homes, from the poor dwelling of the day-laborer,
up to the palace of the merchant-prince.
PLACE AND POWER IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
Of this fact no one is ignorant; and yet, strange to tell, large numbers
of our most intelligent, respectable and influential people continue to
smile upon this enemy; to give him place and power in their households,
and to cherish him as a friend; but with this singular reserve of
thought and purpose, that he is to be trusted just so far and no
farther. He is so pleasant and genial, that, for the sake of his favor,
they are ready to encounter the risk of his acquiring, through the
license they afford, the vantage-ground of a pitiless enemy!
But, it is not only in their social life that the people hold this enemy
in favorable regard, and give him the opportunity to hurt and destroy.
Our great Republic has entered into a compact with him, and, for a
money-consideration, given him the
FREEDOM OF THE NATION;
so that he can go up and down the land at will. And not only has our
great Republic done this but the States of which it is composed, with
only one or two exceptions, accord to him the same freedom. Still more
surprising, in almost every town and city, his right to plunder,
degrade, enslave and destroy the people has been established under the
safe guarantee of law.
Let us give ourselves to the sober consideration of what we are
suffering at his hands, and take measures of defense and safety, instead
of burying our heads in the sand, like the foolish, ostrich, while the
huntsmen are sweeping down upon us.
ENORMOUS CONSUMPTION.
Only those who have given the subject careful consideration have any
true idea of the enormous annual consumption, in this country, of
spirits, wines and malt liquors. Dr. Hargreaves, in "Our Wasted
Resources," gives these startling figures: It amounted in 1870 to
72,425,353 gallons of domestic spirits, 188,527,120 gallons of fermented
liquors, 1,441,747 gallons of imported spirits, 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 and economy. There are very many in our land who
know this way; and their condition, as compared with those who know it
not, or knowing, will not walk therein, is found to be in striking
contrast.
TAXATION.
Besides the wasting drain for drink, and the loss in national wealth,
growing out of the idleness and diminished power for work, that
invariably follows the use of alcohol in any of its forms, the people
are heavily taxed for the repression and punishment of crimes, and the
support of paupers and destitute children. A fact or two will give the
reader some idea of what this enormous cost must be. In "The Twentieth
Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of
New York," is this sentence: "There can be no doubt that, of all the
proximate sources of crime, the use of intoxicating liquors is the most
prolific and the most deadly. Of other causes it may be said that they
slay their thousands; of this it may be acknowledged that it slays its
tens of thousands. The committee asked for the opinion of the jail
officers in nearly every county in the State as to the proportion of
commitments due, either directly or indirectly, to strong drink."
The whole number of commitments is given in these words: "Not less than
60,000 to 70,000 [or the sixtieth portion of the inhabitants of the
State of New York] human beings--men, women and children--either guilty,
or arrested on suspicion of being guilty of crime, pass every year
through these institutions." The answers made to the committee by the
jail officers, varied from two-thirds as the lowest, to nine-tenths as
the highest; and, on taking the average of their figures, it gave
seven-eighths as the proportion of commitments for crime directly
ascribed to the use of intoxicating drinks!
Taking this as the proportion of those who are made criminals through
intemperance, let us get at some estimate of the cost to tax-payers. We
find it stated in Tract No. 28, issued by the National Temperance
Society, that "a committee was appointed by the Ulster County Temperance
Society, in 1861, for the express purpose of ascertaining, from reliable
sources, the percentage on every dollar tax paid to the county to
support her paupers and criminal justice. The committee, after due
examination, came to the conclusion that upwards of sixty cents on the
dollar was for the above purpose. This amount was required, _according
to law_, to be paid by every tax-payer as a _penalty, or rather as a rum
bill_, for allowing the liquor traffic to be carried on in the above
county. What is said of Ulster County, may, more or less, if a like
examination were entered into, be said of every other county, not only
in the State of New York, but in every county in the United States."
From the same tract we take this statement: "In a document published by
the Legislature of the State of New York, for 1863, being the report of
the Secretary of the State to the Legislature, we have the following
statements: 'The whole number of paupers relieved during the same
period, was 261,252. During the year 1862, 257,354.' These numbers would
be in the ratio of one pauper annually to every fifteen inhabitants
throughout the State. In an examination made into the history of those
paupers by a competent committee, _seven-eighths of them were reduced_
to this low and degraded condition, directly or indirectly, through
intemperance."
CURSING THE POOR.
Looking at our laboring classes, with the fact before us, that the cost
of the liquor sold annually by retail dealers is equal to nearly $25 for
every man, woman and child in our whole population, and we can readily
see why so much destitution is to be found among them. Throwing out
those who abstain altogether; the children, and a large proportion of
women, and those who take a glass only now and then, and it will be seen
that for the rest the average of cost must be more than treble. Among
working men who drink the cheaper beverages, the ratio of cost to each
cannot fall short of a hundred dollars a year. With many, drink consumes
from a fourth to one-half of their entire earnings. Is it, then, any
wonder that so much poverty and suffering are to be found among them?
CRIME AND PAUPERISM.
The causes that produce crime and pauperism in our own country, work the
same disastrous results in other lands where intoxicants are used. An
English writer, speaking of the sad effects of intemperance in Great
Britain, says: "One hundred million pounds, which is now annually
wasted, is a sum as great as was spent in seven years upon all the
railways of the kingdom--in the very heyday of railway projects; a sum
so vast, that if saved annually, for seven years, would blot out the
national debt!" Another writer says, "that in the year 1865, over
£6,000,000, or a tenth part of the whole national revenue, was required
to support her paupers." Dr. Lees, of London, in speaking of Ireland,
says: "Ireland has been a poor nation from want of capital, and has
wanted capital chiefly because the people have preferred swallowing it
to saving it." The Rev. G. Holt, chaplain of the Birmingham Workhouse,
says: "From my own experience, I am convinced of the accuracy of a
statement made by the late governor, that of every one hundred persons
admitted, ninety-nine were reduced to this state of humiliation and
dependence, either directly or indirectly, through the prevalent and
ruinous drinking usages."
[Illustration: HEAPING BURDENS UPON POVERTY.]
Mr. Charles Buxton, M.P., in his pamphlet, "How to Stop Drunkenness,"
says: "It would not be too much to say that if all drinking of fermented
liquors could be done away, crime of every kind would fall to a fourth
of its present amount, and the whole tone of moral feeling in the lower
order might be indefinitely raised. Not only does this vice produce all
kinds of wanton mischief, but it has also a negative effect of great
importance. It is the mightiest of all the forces that clog the progress
of good. * * * The struggle of the school, the library and the church,
all united against the beer-shop and the gin-palace, is but one
development of the war between Heaven and hell. It is, in short,
intoxication that fills our jails; it is intoxication that fills our
lunatic asylums; it is intoxication that fills our work-houses with
poor. Were it not for this one cause, pauperism would be nearly
extinguished in England."
THE BLIGHT EVERYWHERE.
We could go on and fill pages with corroborative facts and figures,
drawn from the most reliable sources. But these are amply sufficient to
show the extent and magnitude of the curse which the liquor traffic has
laid upon our people. Its blight is everywhere--on our industries, on
our social life; on our politics, and even on our religion.
And, now, let us take the individual man himself, and see in what manner
this treacherous enemy deals with him when he gets him into his power.