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It has been repeatedly pointed out that the latest social development, especially in the United States, tends to separate the community into two classes, -- the total abstainers and the hard drinkers. The tenser nervous organization of the modern man is in a state of less stable equilibrium than that of his progenitors, who lived largely out of doors, used their muscles in heavy work, ate large quantities of coarse food, and drank large quantities of mildly alcoholic liquor. In America, climatic conditions intensify the tendency indicated. A dry atmosphere and extremes of heat and cold produce nervous diseases unknown to European medical practice, or, at least, known here in advance of their appearance in Europe. (59) It is a matter of common observation that the children of European immigrants usually drink either less or more than their parents, and those who drink resort to the stronger liquors.

The results of the inquiries into the interrelations of poverty, pauperism, and intemperance, made under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty and presented in a most condensed form in the preceding pages, are seen to occupy a middle ground between the extreme views entertained by the older writers and those of Booth and Warner. It is not difficult, indeed, to account for the wide variations of opinion. -- The older opinion was held at a time -- when there was little knowledge of the social and economic causes of poverty -- when it was accepted as inevitable rather than inquired into. Drunkenness was of all causes the most obvious and the most unpleasant, and being intermingled with the others, was therefore liable to be used as an explanation of all the rest.

On the other hand, Charles Booth and Amos G. Warner, representing two different types of scientific observers, were profoundly impressed with the deeper causes of misery and with the necessity of getting at the facts behind such obvious causes as drunkenness. They were inclined consequently to give intemperance no more than its numerical value in apportioning the causes of poverty. Mr. Booth, having set down as statistically true his percentages of 12.6 and 21.9 for drink as a cause of workhouse pauperism, apparently felt that it did not represent the whole truth and thereupon wrote that striking paragraph which has been quoted ever since as the true expression of the effect of drink upon the poor: --

"Of drink in all its combinations, adding to every trouble, undermining every effort after good, destroying the home, and cursing the young lives of the children, the stories tell enough. It does not stand as apparent chief cause in as many cases as sickness and old age; but if it were not for drink, sickness and old age could be better met." (60)

The general average of 15.98 per cent, in Table VI., indicating quantitatively the proportion of intemperance among applicants for relief, was taken from Charity Organization Society records, made with the purpose of showing all the causes and for the use of charity workers, and the indirect effect of drink was not included. Of the five Charity Organization Societies which furnished Professor Warner with data on the causes of poverty in 1890-1892 four also supplied Mr. Koren with data on the relation of drink to poverty in 1896-1898. The difference in the figures of these societies taken in the one case incidentally to another object, and in the other with the utmost care -- sometimes by a specially trained person -- for the sole purpose of ascertaining the proportion of intemperance among applicants for relief, is considerable, amounting in three cities to a total excess of 9 per cent, in Koren's tables. This fact alone would account for the difference of 3 per cent between "Warner's general average of 15.2 and Koren's of 18 per cent for drink as a direct cause.

DRINK AS A CAUSE OF POVERTY.
Charity Organization Society Records.

Whatever the reasons for these differences of statistics, the experience of many American charity workers seems to corroborate Mr. Koren's results, especially as to the indirect influence of drinking habits in producing need. The frequent use of such phrases as "a great curse and the cause of great misery," "intemperance is a conspicuous factor," etc., in the reports of charity workers whose phraseology is otherwise restrained, indicates a strong conviction. Professor Devine sums up forcibly the attitude of those who are in daily contact with distress, when he says: --

"It is a conservative estimate that one-fourth of all cases of desti-tution with which private agencies have to deal are fairly attributable to intemperance. This estimate includes only the cases in which there is an obvious connection between the use of alcohol and the dependent condition in which the family is found. The question as to how much should be added to cover the cases in which there is only a partial or indirect responsibility is a matter for conjecture, and estimates on this point are likely to differ according to the standpoint of the one who makes them. It is a matter for conjecture also, and estimates differ here again, as to what other evil consequences, aside from poverty and destitution, are due to drink. That there is an endless train of evils aside from the burden of pauperism and dependence which it entails, cannot be gainsaid. Insanity, suicide, and death in other forms result from the use of alcohol, in many instances in which no question of relief arises. Cruelty, neglect, and unhappiness result directly from the use of alcohol in families which are by no means near the verge of dependence. Crimes are committed under its stimulus, and demoralizing associations are formed or strengthened under conditions in which the use of alcohol is an important element, and it makes easier the path to vice and the indulgence of every debasing appetite. Certain diseases, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia, are far more likely to attack those who are subject to alcoholism, and it greatly impedes the recovery of those who are attacked. These consequences are not exhausted in the lives of the intemperate themselves, but are bequeathed to posterity in various forms of degeneracy, spiritual and physical." (61)