第22章 THE VICIOUS.(2)

Then,again,let us never forget that the temptation to drink is strongest when want is sharpest and misery the most acute.A well-fed man is not driven to drink by the craving that torments the hungry;and the comfortable do not crave for the boon of forgetfulness.Gin is the only Lethe of the miserable.The foul and poisoned air of the dens in which thousands live predisposes to a longing for stimulant.

Fresh air,with its oxygen and its ozone,being lacking,a man supplies the want with spirit.After a time the longing for drink becomes a mania.Life seems as insupportable without alcohol as without food.

It is a disease often inherited,always developed by indulgence,but as clearly a disease as ophthalmia or stone.

All this should predispose us to charity and sympathy.

While recognising that the primary responsibility must always rest upon the individual,we may fairly insist that society,which,by its habits,its customs,and its laws,has greased the slope down which these poor creatures slide to perdition,shall seriously take in hand their salvation.How many are there who are,more or less,under the dominion of strong drink?Statistics abound,but they seldom tell us what we want to know.We know how many public-houses there are in the land,and how many arrests for drunkenness the police make in a year;but beyond that we know little.Everyone knows that for one man who is arrested for drunkenness there are at least ten and often twenty--who go home intoxicated.In London,for instance,there are 14,000drink shops,and every year 20,000persons are arrested for drunkenness.But who can for a moment believe that there are only 20,000,more or less,habitual drunkards in London?By habitual drunkard I do not mean one who is always drunk,but one who is so much under the dominion of the evil habit that he cannot be depended upon not to get drunk whenever the opportunity offers.

In the United Kingdom there are 190,000public-houses,and every year there are 200,000arrests for drunkenness.Of course,several of these arrests refer to the same person,who is locked up again and again.

Were this not so,if we allowed six drunkards to each house as an average,or five habitual drunkards for one arrested for drunkenness,we should arrive at a total of a million adults who are more or less prisoners of the publican--as a matter of fact,Isaac Hoyle gives 1in 12of the adult population.This may be an excessive estimate,but,if we take half of a million,we shall not be accused of exaggeration.Of these some are in the last stage of confirmed dipsomania;others are but over the verge;but the procession tends ever downwards.

The loss which the maintenance of this huge standing army of a half of a million of men who are more or less always besotted men whose intemperance impairs their working power,consumes their earnings,and renders their homes wretched,has long been a familiar theme of the platform.But what can be done for them?Total abstinence is no doubt admirable,but how are you to get them to be totally abstinent?When a man is drowning in mid-ocean the one thing that is needful,no doubt,is that he should plant his feet firmly on terra firma.But how is he to get there?It is just what he cannot do.And so it is with the drunkards.If they are to be rescued there must be something more done for them than at present is attempted,unless,of course,we decide definitely to allow the iron laws of nature to work themselves out in their destruction.In that case it might be more merciful to facilitate the slow workings of natural law.There is no need of establishing a lethal chamber for drunkards like that into which the lost dogs of London are driven,to die in peaceful sleep under the influence of carbonic oxide.The State would only need to go a little further than it goes at present in the way of supplying poison to the community.If,in addition to planting a flaming gin palace at each corner,free to all who enter,it were to supply free gin to all who have attained a certain recognised standard of inebriety,delirium tremens would soon reduce our drunken population to manageable proportions.I can imagine a cynical millionaire of the scientific philanthropic school making a clearance of all the drunkards in a district by the simple expedient of an unlimited allowance of alcohol.

But that for us is out of the question.The problem of what to do with our half of a million drunkards remains to be solved,and few more difficult questions confront the social reformer.

The question of the harlots is,however,quite as insoluble by the ordinary methods.For these unfortunates no one who looks below the surface can fail to have the deepest sympathy.Some there are,no doubt,perhaps many,who--whether from inherited passion or from evil education--have deliberately embarked upon a life of vice,but with the majority it is not so.Even those who deliberately and of free choice adopt the profession of a prostitute,do so under the stress of temptations which few moralists seem to realise.Terrible as the fact is,there is no doubt it is a fact that there is no industrial career in which for a short time a beautiful girl can make as much money with as little trouble as the profession of a courtesan.The case recently tried at the Lewes assizes,in which the wife of an officer in the army admitted that while living as a kept mistress she had received as much as #4,000a year,was no doubt very exceptional.Even the most successful adventuresses seldom make the income of a Cabinet Minister.