Note 39 — X.

The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one glass in a little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5 a day, or $1,565 (313 × 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the amount of $65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000. This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little money, a complaint is soon made.