THE LIQUOR TRADE AND THE HEALTH RATE.

Evening Star, Issue 3833, 7 June 1875, Page 3

THE LIQUOR TRADE AND THE HEALTH RATE.

To the Editor. Sib,—Dr James Edmunds, of London, Health Officer of St. James’s, in an address delivered in Edinburgh in March last, referred to the above subject in the following terms; — “If yon look into the Registrar-General’s returns for London, and get the deaths for ten years of males between fifteen and fifty-five years—if you take all these over the country, yon will get an average of two in every 10d dying each year. That is the ordinary mte of mortality over the whole country. If on the other hand, you split up the country into sections, such as those who belong to different trades, the result would be different, and you weald bring out the healthiness or unbealthiaess of different trades. Now, you can bring out the death rate of those who are associated, or mixed up with the liquor traffic, and compare that with the death rate among ordinary working men not mixed up with that traffic, and there you will get some important, curious facts. Suppose you take all the laboringmen in the country—how many per thousand of these will die each year do you think? About fifteen per thousand. Suppose,gon the other luand, you take all |the publicans—how many of them do you thank will die at the same age? Would you expect a greater mortiility among the xpass of ordinary work? ing tone n or among the publicans ? Which of th ose classes is best fed—the publicans or the working Well, I think you will say /that the publicans have the advantajge. Which is best housed? I think you will say the publican. Which is better clothed? I think you will say the publican. You would also say that the publican is more free than the working man from liability to accidents, from the falling off scaffolding and other cas unities. _ Then, supposing that there is any ad'rantag4m a glass of beer, (that would also be m favor of the publican; and you might fairly expect that only two publicans would die for three working men. Instead of the rate of m ortality being lower among publicans, howe'er, the fact is that you have two publicans dyiag where oae working man dies—that is, tint while the mortality of the working men in- the country is fifteen per thousand, the mortality of the publicans is thirty per thousand.. I leave that one fact with you, and I hs»ve never been able to discover anything to account for that enormous difference in the rates of mortality, but the single fact that the one class of men drinks a great deal more Leer than the other.”—l am, &c., r. T Temperance. Dnnedin, June 3.

Temperance.