Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — Belgium Grows More Drunken. [ARTICLE]

Belgium Grows More Drunken.

There has been an extraordinary increase of late in the consumption of alcoholic liquors in Belgium, says the New York Evening Post. This fact was brought out very clearly In a discussion on the subject which occurred recently in the chambers. M. Lejune, former minister of justice, declared that the nation was reverting to a new form of barbarism which could only be described by the term alcoholic barbarism. From statistics furnished by him, it appears that the revenue from the excise, which amounted to 4,000,000 francs in 1851, has now reached the total of 33,000,000; that during the same period the number of public houses has increased from 53,000 to 175,000, and that the annual consumption of spirits is at the rate of twelve litres per adult His figures show also that from 1851 to 1888 criminality Increased at the rate of 200 per cent., and insanity at the rate of 138 per cent, and that of every 100 deaths among the male portion of the community eighty ean be traced to alcoholic causes. M. Lejune attributes this disastrous state of things to two causes. The first is the insufiiciency of the food procurable by the working classes, and the second the poisonous quality of the spirits purchased by them.