These figures, however deplorable and startling in themselves, are as nothing in comparison with what they imply. Death from drink, more than in the case of any other disease, is the ultimate and rarely attained result of the vice of habitual intoxication. Men and women may greatly injure their health, ruin their families, and be disgraceful drunkards, and yet not die of it, or make any near approach to doing so. What is the proportion of those who are morally and physically injured by drink to those who kill themselves by it, is, I suppose, unknown, but I imagine that one in a thousand is, probably, too high an estimate, and that one death among ten thousand moderate drinkers who also occasionally or frequently become intoxicated, would be nearer the mark. This would imply an increase in the consumption of alcoholic drinks, instead of which there has been an actual diminution. The fact probably is that a very large number of moderate drinkers have ceased to consume alcohol in any form, and this would account for a much larger reduction in the total than has actually occurred. On the other hand, owing to the increase of those who are only casually employed in our great cities, and whose one luxury is the excitement of drink, a larger quantity of cheap, and injuriously adulterated spirits and other liquors is consumed, which, combined with a deficiency of wholesome food, leads more frequently to a fatal result. _Increase of Suicide_ The increase has been long known and generally admitted. It is supposed to be largely due to the ever-increasing struggle for subsistence in our great cities, the consequent increase of unemployment, and the dread of the workhouse as the only alternative to starvation. The following are the figures for the last forty-five years for which official data have been published:— _Deaths by _Average Suicide per of Years_ Million living_ 1866-1870 66.4 1871-1875 66.0 1876-1880 73.6 1881-1885 73.8 1886-1890 79.4 1891-1895 88.6 1896-1900 89.2 1901-1905 100.6 1906-1910 102.2 Such a table as this, occurring in a country which boasts of its enormous wealth, of its ever-increasing commercial prosperity, of its marvellous advance in science and the arts, and command of natural forces, should, surely, give us pause, and force upon us the conviction that there is something radically wrong in a social system which brings about such terrible evils. And this should be the more certainly seen to be the case because the same increase is taking place in all those countries which approach us in their wealth and their commercial prosperity. * * * * *