Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1883 — The Utility of Drunkenness. [ARTICLE]

The Utility of Drunkenness.

Darwin shows that the onward progress, the development, or what may be described as the collective prosperity of the. species, is brought by overmultiplication, followed by a necessary struggle for existence, in the course of a* Inch the inferior or unsuitable individuals are Aveeded out, and “the survival of the fittest” necessarily follows ; those superior or more suitable specimens transmit more or less of their advantages to their offspring, which, still multiplying excessively, are again and again similarly sifted and impi'oved or developed in a boundless course of forward evolution. In the earlier stages of human existthe fittest for survival were those whose brutal or physical energies best enabled them to struggle with the physical difficulties of their surroundings, to subjugate the cruelties of the primeval plains and forests to human requirements. The perpetual struggles of the different tribes gave the dominion of the earth to those best able to rule it; the strongest and most violent human animal Avas then the fittest, and he survived accordingly. Then came another era of human effort gradually culminating in the present period. In this, mere muscular strength, brute physical power and mere animal energy have become less and less demanded as we have, by the aid of physical science, imprisoned the , physical forces of nature in our steam boilers, batteries, etc., and have made them our slaves in lieu of human prisoners of war. The coarse, muscular raving, yelling, fighting human animal that formerly led the war-dance, the hunt and the battle, is no longer the fittest for survival, but is, on the contrary, daily becoming more and more out of place. His prize-fights, his dogfights, his cock-pits and bull-baiting are practically abolished, his fox-hunt-ing and bird-sliooting i»re only carried

on at great expense by a wealthy residuum, and by damaging interference with civilized agriculture. The unfitness of the remaining representatives of the primeval savage is manifest, and the survival is purely prejudicial to the interests and future progress of the race. Such being the case, we now require some means of eliminating these coarser, more brutal, or purely animal specimens of humanity, in order that there may be more room for the survival and multiplication of the more intellectual, more refined, and altogether distinctively human specimens. It is desirable that this should be effected by some natural or spontaneous proceeding of self-extinction, performed by the animal specimens themselves. If this self-immolation can be a process thht is enjoyable in their own estimation, all the objections to it that might otherwise bo suggested by our feelings of humanity are removed. Now-, these conditions are exactly fulfilled by the alcoholic drinks of the present day when used for the purpose of obtaining intoxication. — W. Matlien Williams, in Popular Science Monthly. ——T—i“" A CONVENTION of Baptist preachers was held at Pittsboro, N. C., a few days ago. On the opening day two . yontg clergymen were married, and afbceremony the bridegrooms before the "committee of arrange men ; > be assigned to temporary “home i t Pittslmro. The waggish me •hereof the committee, learning tbs' r»o had been married that m „ : signal the In'idos to ft hom; ;*r .• '• •« of' the town and their husband* to a homo at the other end.