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Show An Unconvincing Story. It's rather a remarkable story which an "Alcohol Slave" tells m McClure's for August, The recital covers a period of thirty years, from 1878 to 1908. during which the writer .vho confess ?s ti an early love for statistics, seems to have keep not only an expense book, but an accurate account of his daily doings. During the years specified, he spent !!".-364.60 !!".-364.60 for drink, just $1.57 per day, as he figures It out. His llrst glass was taken at fourteen. At twenty-one be was a habitual drinker. It was not until un-til five years later, however, that ho became be-came Intoxicated for thtf rirsi' time, end, curiously enough, although to tf at point he had been open :ind above board in his drinking, he lost his position because of his first case of inebriety. He subsequently sub-sequently secured and lost many others, none of them as good as the first one, however. His salary receipts for the last twenty years amounted to a little over $18,000. He figures his financial loss because of drink at $61,990.88, which, as he justly observes, would, were it in bank to Ms credit and at 4 per cent Interest, yle'd him an annual income of S7.470.6G. As to the effect of his bibulous career in ether respects, he gives little information, but one finishes a perusal of th. article with an impression that the 'aicohol slave" is anything but a physical wreck, in spite of his tremendous drinking. After all. his main charge against the saloon, and one that requir.-s farther evidence to substantiate it, is that it loo'vs to minors for 50 per cent of its patronage. He mentions a list of twonty iads vhum he induced to drink with him when a boy. Nine of these have reformed. As for the others, four committed suicide, four died of accident or disease due to drink, one Is a bartender, another a street peddler and the third a tramp. This history may be accepted at its lace value. None will question that thsie Is a large sale of liquor to minor?. At the same time, it Is too great a strain upon our credulity to believe that minors constitute con-stitute half the drinkers of the country. If the "alcohol slave", is truth'jil, which one hesitates to question, his reservations reserva-tions have evidently been conducted over too limited a field to Justify a r;-n-eral deduction. |