Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/813

Rh of injuring himself and the public when he knows that it will be so used, and when he has reason to believe that it will be so used, not caring whether it is or not, and, further than this, that he does it for his own selfish gain. In short, the liquor-dealer sells his deleterious liquids for the purpose of profit with a full knowledge of their injurious tendency, and in utter carelessness as to the injury they may do. We find a recognition of the truth of this position in the provisions of the civil-damage laws, and in the restrictions placed upon licensees as to sales to minors and persons known to be drunkards.

Let us pursue this further by means of a couple of supposed instances, such as occur every day. John Smith has been, during the week, a capable and industrious workman, earning full wages every day. Saturday night he gets his pay and goes to the stores, where he falls in with boon companions and spends his week's wages at the grog-shop, standing treat and drinking himself until his money is gone. Late at night he is put out into the street drunk, the liquor-seller having got his money and being ready to close the shop. Result the first: The liquor-seller has received, say, twelve dollars, of which at least three quarters, or nine dollars, is profit. Result the second: Smith is arrested and put into the lock-up for the remainder of the night; in the morning he is brought before a magistrate and fined one dollar and costs amounting to at least five dollars, and usually more, for want of which he goes to jail for ten days. Result the third: Smith's family applies to the overseers of the poor for assistance, and they, being unable to refuse, are likely to expend five or six dollars. Total results, leaving out the moral deterioration of Smith and his family, nine dollars profit to the liquor-seller, costs of prosecution paid by the county, Smith and his family supported at the expense of the town and county for ten days, and Smith's productive labor for ten days lost to the community.

At the least calculation, in order that the liquor-seller may make his profit, the community has lost much more than an equal amount. In this instance I have supposed the liquor-buyer to spend a full week's wages, but the contrast is still greater if we suppose, as is more frequently the case, that the buyer has only money sufficient to buy liquor enough to cause his intoxication; that he is arrested and committed to jail for non-payment of fine and costs. The county then has the costs to pay, and the liquor-seller's profit is only a very small percentage of the expense he has caused the community. Let us attack his profit, wherever his trade is injurious to the public, and we shall be in a fair way to drive him out of the business altogether, or to oblige him to exercise such care in his management as to deprive it of its harm.

The first effect arising from the use of intoxicating liquor is drunkenness. It is proper that this offense against decency should be punished. Let the liquor-seller pay the expense of inflicting such