Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/289

Rh pains in studying up the facts. The greater part of the book consists of dispatches sent to the "Pall Mall Gazette," and published in that and several other papers; but some of the chapters are now published for the first time.

pamphlets named at the head of this article are issued by the Brewers' Association, with the declared purpose of promoting temperance by substituting the use of beer for spirituous liquors. The Association has a literary bureau, which is engaged in disseminating the doctrine, held by many other people besides brewers, that the best way to promote temperance is to extend the use of the weaker liquors and restrict that of the stronger ones. Accordingly, it advocates high taxes on distilled liquors, and the removal of the taxes now imposed upon ale and beer. The various pamphlets before us arc mostly prepared by Mr. Thomann, the manager of the bureau, or under his supervision, and treat of various aspects of the subject under discussion. Some of them are designed to combat certain assertions and arguments of the prohibitionists; others are devoted to examining the effects of excise and other laws that have been enacted by different governments in relation to liquors. Those on the liquor laws of this country, contain a large amount of information tending to show that restrictions on the sale of malt liquors lead to a larger consumption of the products of the still.

Perhaps the work most important to the brewers' argument is that upon the effects of beer upon those who use it freely. It opens with a quotation from a total-abstinence writer, to the effect that beer inevitably produces various diseases, disorders of the liver and the kidneys being specially insisted on. Allusion is also made to the fact that one or two life-insurance companies had come to the conclusion that insuring the lives of habitual beer-drinkers was too risky to be advisable. To these facts and assertions, Mr. Thomann replies, first, by citing the opinion of certain physicians to the opposite effect, and then goes on to give some statistics relating to the health and longevity of the workmen in the breweries of New York and its vicinity. The brewers of this and the neighboring cities have a benevolent association for assisting sick and disabled workmen, and this association has established a system of medical supervision and examination which has collected facts regarding the health of the workmen genererallygenerally [sic], and the cause of the deaths occurring among them. The men have the privilege of drinking without cost all the beer they want, and consume an average of ten pints a day; yet, according to the statistics that are given, the death-rate among them is less than that of the generality of city residents as given in the United States census. In reply to the charge often made that beer is adulterated, Mr. Thomann cites the report of the New York State Board of Health to the effect that the four-hundred and seventy-six samples of malt liquors examined by them contained no deleterious ingredient whatever. These pamphlets will be sure to attract the attention of all interested in the subject of temperance, and may lead to a renewed discussion of the whole question of prohibitive and restrictive legislation.

the annual meeting of this society for 1886, papers were presented on a variety of topics, including even a phonetic alphabet. The Charleston earthquake was the subject of a long discussion, and there were also papers on other geological topics. A communication was presented on Lieutenant Lockwood's polar expedition, showing that that explorer had penetrated to a point nearer the north pole than any one