prize: essay 
ON THE 
RELATIONS 
OP 
Temperance and Intemperance 
TO 
LIFE INSURANCE. 
BY 
Rev. WM. H. TIFFANY. 
Issued by the AM ERICA X ROE UEAIl LIRE INSUR- 
ANCE CO., Hi) and 121 Rroadway, X. 3'. 
The question of tlie effects of Intemperance on Health and Longevity 
arc interesting to every person, and to society ; to man in his individual 
experience, and in his associational relations ; to the one insured, or seek- 
ing to be insured ; and to the Company granting insurance. 
Let us examine the matter. Is intemperance hurtful to health ? A 
stranger, on becoming acquainted with the facts in the case, would won- 
der at the question being asked, seeing no ground for doubt ; but experi- 
ence and observation would prove to him the propriety and need of 
revelation and reason to show such hurtfulness ; and to point out the 
remedy for same. 2 
Sally Burton kept a Tavern in England, and liad one of her indebted 
customers paint her a sign. On one side he painted a thin tall man, talk- 
ing to a fat fellow, and saying : “ O ! mortal man, that liv’st by bread ; 
what makes thy nose and cheeks so red ?” To which the plump person 
replies : “ Thou silly man, that looks so pale ; it’s drinking Sally 
Burton’s Ale!” From which the tavern gained the name of “The 
Mortal Man.” Many persons desiring the possession as well as appear- 
ance of plump prime health, pour down the stimulating drink, smack 
their lips, and say, “ O! what strength flashes through my system ; drink- 
ing is delightful, and not deleterious. ” 
But alcohol is a deceiver, it is a gay deceiver of youthful virtue ; it 
deceives the unwary wayfaring man ; while it is no less an artful treacher- 
ous deceiver of the scientific. It is always evil, and only evil continually. 
This' we will proceed to show. 
In the obtaining of reliable statistics, there is sometimes some strange 
difficulties, especially if the pinch is in the pocket, or in popularity, or 
in an appetite. 
The State Board of Charities in Massachusetts in 1871 addressed the 
following inquiry to one hundred and sixty-four medical gentlemen, who 
by learning and experience were supposed best able to answer wisely : 
“What, in your judgement, has been the effect of the use of intoxicating 
liqu ors, as a beverage, upon the health and lives of the people in your 
town, or in the region where you practice ? ” 
48 say, very destructive to life and health. 
49 say, injurious in greater or less degree. 
16 say, public health not affected by their use. 
27 say, their people very temperate. 
5 say intoxicating drinks not used among them. (Has not the Millen- 
ium dawned there ?) 
4 say, effect is bad on foreigners, but not on native Americans. 
1 says, useful in the decline of life. 
1 says, their use promotes longevity, (i. e., probably in the future life.) 
13 give indefinite replies. (Don’t know : probably liavn’t yet found 
out.) 
If an equal number of lawyers, merchants, literary men, or clergy- 
men, were summoned to give testimony as above, it may well be ques- 
tioned whether there would be so small a residuum of absurdity and 
ignorance caused by love of drinks, as some of the doctors show. 
It has been asserted that w'e need the stimulus of ardent spirit. We 
answer : ‘ ‘ Which is best for the horse, the spur or whip outside, or the 
oats inside ? Will the swing of a pendulum on one side cause it to rise 
any higher than in reaction it will swing up on the other side ? Undue and 
unhealthful stimulus is certain of hurtful reaction, wasting our powers. 
Eliphalet Nott, D. D., said: “Intoxicating liquors are unnecessary 
and positively injurious ; in health liquor is always injurious, impairing 3 
tli8 functions of the brain, the stomach, and, indeed, the whole or- 
ganism. ” 
Jeremy Taylor, on Temperance and Health, says: “All the world is 
largely convinced of the excellency of temperance in order to their own 
felicity and health ; because, when themselves have left virtue and sober 
diet and counsels,—first lost their temperance and then lost their 
health,-—they are forced to go to temperance and abstinence for their 
cure. But by the same means they might preserve their health by which 
they do restore it.” 
Dr.. Johnson says : “Water is the only fluid which does not possess 
irritating—or at least stimulating—qualities ; and in proportion as we rise 
in the scale of potation, from table beer to ardent spirits, in the same 
ratio we educate the stomach and boivcls for that state of morbid sensi- 
bility which in civilized life will sooner or later supervene. ” 
Dr. Jones, in “Man: moral and physical,” says : “Every kind of in- 
toxication disturbes the voluntary operations of the mind by poisoning 
the brain, and thence impeding the will upon the circulation, by prevent- 
ing its control over the nerves of sense and action.” 
Dr. Moore says: “Interfering with the affinity existing between the 
blood and the air, allowing the accumulation of carbon or other noxious 
agents in the circulating fluid, and thus arresting the action in the 
nervous system. ” 
Say Drs. Good and Cullen : “ By disturbing the chemistry of life to 
such a degree that the nerve-matter no longer duly subserves its purpose 
as a medium through which the soul exercises volition and perceives sensa- 
tion.” 
Hippocrates declared that water is the most reasonable and useful drink, 
and, more than any other, suited to the necessities of the human frame. 
Darwin declares : “ It is remarkable that all the diseases arising from 
drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, 
even to the third generation ; increasing, if the cause be continued, till 
the family becomes extinct.” 
Dr. F. II. Hamilton, in his work on “Military Surgery,” pp. 70, 74, 
says, “It is earnestly desired that no such experiment will ever be 
repeated in the armies of the United States. In our own mind, the con- 
viction is established by the experience and observation of a life, that the 
regular routine of alcoholic stimulants by a man in health is never in any 
circumstances useful. We make no exceptions.” 
The British Psychological Journal states that “Persons who have a 
morbid craving for alcoholic drinks are the offspring of persons who have 
indulged in stimulants, or who have weakened the cerebral organization 
by vicious habits.” 
“At the period during the Revolutionary War, when the army re- 
ceived no pay, and had not the means of procuring ardent spirits, it was 
healthy.”—Dr. Mann. The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review says that “On 
examining the details of reports concerning sickness and mortality in the 
army of the East Indies, it was found that the ratio of sickness and mor- 
tality among teetotalers was from five to ten per cent, less than for the 
men nsing alcoholic or fermented liquors. ” 
Says Dr. Brown, (of England,) on “Insanity“ The drunkard not 
only enfeebles and weakens his own nervous system, but entails upon his 
family mental disease.” 
Dr. N. S. Davis declares : ‘ ‘ Alcohol, by its presence, diminishes the 
temperature, the strength, and the power of endurance.” And, “That 
the appetite for alcoholic drinks and the state of inebriation are diseased 
conditions of certain organs and structures is susceptible of the clearest 
demonstration. ” 
And Dr. Elam, in his work on “ Physical Degeneracy,” says, “All this, 
fearful as it is, would be of trifling importance did the punishment 
descend only on the individuals concerned, and terminate there. Unfor- 
tunately, this is not so ; for there is no phase in humanity in which hered- 
itary influence is so marked and characteristic as in this. The children 
unquestionably do suffer for or from the sins of the parent even to untold 
generations. And thus the evil spreads from the individual to the family, 
from the family to the community, and to the population at large, which 
is endangered in its highest interests by the presence and contact of a 
‘morbid variety’ in its midst.” 
In an “Address by Two Thousand Physicians of Eminence in Eng- 
land,they state : , 
“We, the undersigned, are of opinion : 
“ . . . That the most perfect health is compatible with total abstin- 
ence from all intoxicating beverages.” 
“ . . . That total and universal abstinence from alcoholic liquors 
and intoxicating beverages of all sorts would greatly contribute to the 
health, the prosperity, the morality, and the happiness of the human 
race. ” 
‘ ‘ The statistics of the General Life Insurance Company of London 
prove that if one hundred thousand intemperate persons, from fifteen to 
twenty years of age, be compared with one hundred thousand persons of 
regular habits, thirty-two of the former class will die as frequently as ten 
of the latter class. Out of one hundred fliousand of each—-sixteen 
thousand nine hundred and seven of the intemperate, it is said, will be 
dead before the age of fifty, and only four thousand two hundred and 
sixty-six of the temperate. The proportion of the deaths of intemperate 
to temperate persons, it is calculated, is, therefore, thirty-two to ten. ” 
The visible effect of intemperance upon the physical was seen in the 
case of Tom Sheridan ; he is said to have once fallen into a coal cellar on 
his way home from a wine supper, and his abuse of the man for liot keep- 
ing a light at his cellar-door was warmly retorted by the wife. “ Do you 5 
hink” cried Sheridan “I want to steal your coals ?” “No,” answered 
the woman, “but your nose might set the coals on fire.” 
Samson’s great strength—under God's blessing the means—arose from 
his temperance ; and the clear intellect of Daniel from abstinence ; and John 
the Baptist—the greatest among men, up to his time, was a teetotaler. See 
also the perpetuity and prosperity of the sons of Bechab. Bemember the 
vast strength of the ancient Britons whose food was very plain, and who 
drank water only. The Babylonians babbled in their babel of wine, and 
were conquered by the temperate Persians. The inhabitants of India use 
no wine, and endure great fatigue. 
“Mental ills are often found in the stomach’s ails certain of aggra- 
vation l>y the brewer’s ale, and the distiller’s depraving drink. 
“Beer has brought many a body to the bier." 
“Bacchus has drowned more than Neptune.” 
“Lapse of years is not life.” Life is sweet feeling; clear, keen 
thought; pure, truthful, vise words, and brave, noble doing; all of which 
is poisoned and prevented by intemperance. The intemperate sensually 
sensates, dreamily thinks, foolishly talks, and wickedly acts, in the 
destruction of hi»s whole triple nature, physical, mental, and moral. 
The greatest chemist of the present day says : ‘ ‘ There is a prevalent 
belief that alcohol is capable of so acting upon the stomach as to assist 
digestion. But a very slight acquaintance with the conditions under 
which the function is carried forward will satisfy us that such action is 
impossible. Stomach digestion is carried on by a fluid called the gastric 
juice, secreted from the inner membrane or wall of the organ. The 
solvent or digestive power of this fluid over food is due to two different 
kinds of substances which it contains. The one is an acid,—it may be 
hydrochloric, or lactic,—and imparts an acidulous character to the 
digestive operations of the stomach. The other substance essential to 
digestion is a peculiar organic principle called pepsin. This is a nitrogen- 
ized compound which exists dissolved in the gastric juice, and is supposed 
by Liebig to be of the nature of a ferment [it is not]. It is known that this 
substance is indispensable to digestion ; but its nature and properties are 
not so well understood. Chemists obtain it by adding alcohol to the gastric 
fluid, which precipitates the pepsin. Alcohol throws down pepsin from the 
sohible active form, to the solid inert condition. Taken into the stomach, 
then, alcohol, so long as it remains there, must be a prompt and power- 
ful antagonist of the digestive process. These statements are explicitly 
corroborated by the latest and highest physiological authority. ” 
A doctor requested by his impatient patient to strike at once at the 
cause of his disease and finish it, raised his cane and demolished the 
decanter. O ! that there were more such faithful doing. 
Cobbett, the keen, clear-headed, said : “In the midst of a society 
diere wine or spirits are considered as of little more value than water, I 
•?ved two years without either ; and with no other drink but water, except 6 
■when I found it convenient to drink milk. Not an hour’s illness, not a. 
headache for an hour, not the smallest ailment, not a restless night, not a, 
drowsy day, have I known during these two famous years of my life. My 
mind is in full vigor,” etc. 
John Milton said, “What more foul common sin among us than 
drunkenness ? And who can be ignorant, that if the importation of wine 
and the use of strong drinks were both forbidden, it would clean rid the 
possibility of committing that odious vice, and men might afterwards live 
happily and healthfully without the use of intoxicating liquors.” 
A gentleman says : “I was walking in Lothian street, when I saw a. 
woman walking along very drunk. She was carrying a child; it was lying 
over her shoulder. I saw it, slipping farther and farther back. I ran 
and cried out; but before I could get up, the poor little thing, smiling 
over its miserable mother’s shoulder, fell down like a stone, on its head, 
on the pavement; it gave a gasp, turned up its blue eyes, had a convul- 
sion, and its soul was away to God ; its little, soft, woful body lying dead ; 
and its idiotic mother grinning and staggering over it, half seeing the- 
dreadful truth, then forgetting it, and cursing and swearing. 
This was a sight! So much misery, and wickedness, and rain. It 
was the young woman’s only child. 
When she came to herself she became mad, and is to this day a drivel- 
ing idiot, and goes about forever seeking for her child, cursing the 
woman who killed it. 
That is a true tale, too true. 
Not so guilty was that mother as she, who, tempting her child to 
drink, destroys both soul and body. ” 
The National Grand Lodge of Locomotive Firemen assembled in 
St. Louis in 1871, and at the opening of the proceedings was addressed by 
the Grand Master, Henry Hoppman, of New York. Li the course of his 
remarks that gentleman said : 
‘ ‘ I think the question of intemperance is one of the utmost impor- 
tance to us as railroad men. No man of intemperate habits is worthy of 
the lowest position within the gift of any railroad company. I venture to 
say that more than half the accidents which occur on the various railroads 
throughout the world are due to men who habitually use intoxicating 
drinks.” 
This testimony is of some importance, coming from a prominent mem- 
ber of the one class of men who know more than others can on this sub- 
ject ; and should certainly interest the people who travel so much ; and 
the Insurance Companies, that have so many risks involved in the matter. 
At one of the railroad stations on the Chicago and North-Western 
Railway, recently, an anxious inquirer come up to the door of the baggage- 
car and said, “Is there anything for me?” After some search among 
boxes and trunks the baggage-man rolled out a keg of whiskey. “Any- 
thing more?” asked the wet-grocer. “Yes,” said the baggage-man, ‘•'liere is a grave-stone that goes with that liquor.” The countenance of 
the wet-grocer assumed a wrathy appearance, and the car door was shut 
with a slam. 
The Christian Advocate, of Aug. 17, 1871, presents the following: 
“Hereditary Results of Intemperance.—One of the strongest arguments 
against Intemperance, namely : its hereditary effects, has not received the 
general attention it really deserves. Even Dr. Crane, who, in his “Arts 
of Intoxication ”—a work of marked excellence—has touched the question, 
tells us only part of the terrible story. We have been familiar with the 
effects of the habitual use of alcoholic liquors upon the drunkard him- 
self—in the craving appetite, the burning thirst, the diminution of the 
power of the will, which have rendered it so difficult to reclaim him. 
The phenomena of drunkenness are known to every child where a pro- 
hibitory law does not prevail, and the horrors of delirium tremens, with 
its hallucinations of creeping things, are understood to belong—soon or 
late—to the victims of this vice. But beyond this is the “alcoholic 
poisoning,” from which there is scarcely ever a recovery. The physical 
strength is undermined, the nervous system exhausted, the will powerless. 
“The special signs of this affection,” says Dr. Elam, an eminent London 
physician, not supposed to be affected with American fanaticism, “are 
trembling of the hands and fegt, diminution of strength, paralysis—partial 
or general, starting of the tendons, cramps, and painful spasms. At a 
more advanced period convulsions and epileptic attacks occur. In the 
sensitive sphere of the nervous system we notice at the outset itchings 
and prickings, being exaggerations of the general sensibility, difficulty of 
speech, and general disorder of the special senses. They are enfeebled in 
both body and mind to the very extreme, and the moral sentiments are 
perverted in equal proportion. Death ensues in a few months or years, in 
a state of indescribable misery and suffering.” 
The path to this appalling future every habitual drunkard is treading. 
The picture should compel him to retrace his steps with all promptitude, 
and deter him who is now an abstainer from ever entering the path. 
But, fearful as this is, the effects almost inevitably produced on the 
drunkard’s children, through the operation of the laws of inheritance, are 
more fearful still. 
Temperance Reformers have portrayed the wretchedness of the family 
of the inebriate consequent upon his improvident and degraded life, and 
told us of their coarse and unwholesome food, their insufficient clothing, 
and their brutal treatment; but almost infinitely worse than these is the 
poison infused through their birth into their blood, the baleful influence 
of which often extends to the third and fourth generation. Most persons 
have probably an indefinite suspicion of the possibility of such an entail 
of woe ; but careful observers are prepared to write it down as an almost 
unfailing law, literally illustrating the ancient Scripture, “The fathers 
have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The 8 
perversions of mind and body above spoken of as belonging to the ine- 
briate belong in some form to liis children, and first among tliem is the 
appetite for alcoholic drinks. 
“Drunkards beget drunkards,” said Plutarch of his time ; and there is 
no reason why the law of heritage so widely recognized in the animal 
creation should fail of application in the case of man. If the tendency 
to gluttony, play, hot temper, and libertinage is often. inherited, as is 
almost universally admitted, why not also the predisposition to drunken- 
ness, with all its attendant evils ? A miter in the Psychological Journal, 
a British periodical, gives the result of his observations in these strong 
words ; ‘ ‘ The most startling problem connected with intemperance is, 
that not only does it effect the health, morals, and intelligence of the 
offspring of its votaries, but they also inherit the fatal tendency, and 
feel a craving for the very beverages which have acted as poisons on 
their systems from the commencement of their being ! ” Especially so is 
it when both parents are drunkards. The same writer gives some illus- 
trations of his position which may remind the reader of similar ones 
within his own knowledge. In one case the parents died drunkards—so 
did all the children. They said, “We can’t help it; we inherit a strong 
love for rum and gin.” In another, the parents were both drunkards, one 
dying early of delirium tremens, and the other living to an advanced age 
in spite of his habit ; the large family of children, sons and daughters 
alike, with a single exception, became drunkards, and came to premature 
death by suicide or otherwise. Similar instances are plenty all around us, 
which are commonly accounted for by parential example or feeding with 
liquor in infancy. But we cannot thus account for the love of liquor 
often found in the temperate children of temperate parents, in whom, 
like the slumbering appetite of the pet tiger that awakes to fury on the 
first taste of blood, it needs only a little indulgence to break down all 
restraint. Should we, however, go a generation further back, we should 
often find it due to inheritance. 
Maudsley says : ‘ ‘ Idiocy is, indeed, a manufactured article ; and 
although we are not always able to tell how it is manufactured, still its 
important causes are known, and are within control. Many cases are dis- 
tinctly traceable to parental intemperance and excess. Out of 300 idiots 
Dr. Howe found as many as 145 to be the offspring of intemperate 
parents ; and there are numerous observations proving that chronic 
alcoholism in the parent may directly occasion idiocy in the child.” 
Reclamation from intemperance is possible, as experience amply de- 
monstrates ; but the same experience shows how difficult it is to keep one 
who has been a drunkard from falling again. The social agencies of the 
temperance organizations, the holy influences of the church, and the 
blessedness of a purified home, are too often together insufficient. The 
appetite once formed seldom dies, though it may come to be mastered. 
Mr. Collins testified before a British Parliamentary Commission that he 9 
Iiad come to regard it “ a well-established physical fact ” that the appetite 
for intoxicating drinks, when once formed, “ never becomes completely 
extinct, but adheres to a man through life.” Dr. Hutcheson, of the Glas- 
gow Lunatic Asylum, knew of but a single case of complete cure. And 
is not the experience of our inebriate asylums of a corresponding tone ? 
But how is it of the inherited appetite ? M. Morel, a French physician 
and author, who has entered deeply into this class of studies, says, ‘ ‘ I 
have never seen the patient cured of this propensity whose tendencies 
to drink Avere derived from the hereditary predisposition given him by 
his parents.” 
But this is only one aspect of the case. Bad as it is, worse ones remain. 
The inheritance is often idiocy or imbecility. In Norway, in ten years 
of free liquor traffic, after the removal of the spirit duty, insanity in- 
creased fifty per cent., and congenital idiocy increased one hundred and fifty 
per cent. Dr. HoAve found one hundred and forty-five out of three hun- 
dred idiots, in Massachusetts, to be the children of intemperate parents, 
upon Avhicli Dr. Crane makes some figures, and infers that ‘ ‘ the intemper- 
ate have nearly tAventy-nine times as many idiots among their children as 
do temperate parents.” SAveden exhibits similar alarming facts. 
It sometimes occurs that children of intemperate persons appear of 
bright intellects until they reach a certain age, when they stop groAAdng 
and remain stationary, or relapse into mental imbecility, or into insanity, 
with a strong tendency to suicide. 
“They need not inherit,” says Dr. Elam, from AA'liose “Physician’s 
Problems” many of our statements are taken, “the identical habits or 
dispositions of the parents ; but they inherit a faulty, defective, or vicious 
organization, Avhich developes itself in the most A'aried forms of disease or 
character. The offspring of the confirmed drunkard Avill inherit either 
the original Adce, or some of its countless protean transformations.” It 
may be the appetite for drink ; it may manifest itself in a hysterical ten- 
dency, or neuralgias, or some oddity of manner or temper, or in some 
other aspect of disordered mental action. “ I constantly find, ” says M. 
Morel, “the sad victims of the alcoholic intoxication of their parents in 
their favorite resorts: the asylums for the insane, prisons, and houses of 
correction.” And recent investigations of the laws of insanity authorize 
the gravest forebodings respecting the heritage of the next generation 
from the Arice of intemperance. Our soldiers, battered, bruised, and 
maimed by shot and shell in the War of the Bebellion, are fathers of a 
generation free from marks and scars, sound in body and in mind, and 
Avhole in limb. Such is the rule to Ayhich it would be a marvel Avere there 
no exceptions. The bruises and Avounds of an inebriate seldom disappear 
in his own grave. They pass over to his children and his children’s chil- 
dren in enfeebled bodies and degenerate minds, peopling not only the 
almshouse and the prison, but the hospital and the asylum. The objec- 
tive point of the sod inheritance is family extinction. 10 
The bearing of this line of fact and argument upon those addicted to 
the use of alcoholic drinks is perfectly plain. Its appeal is not to 
one’s self, but for his children. Let him create woe for himself if he will; 
but what right has he to destroy his own children ? It has a bearing 
also upon the whole question of the prevention of the rum traffic. Soci- 
ety owes to itself the duty of self protection. With its measures and 
expenditures for a better civilization, it is by the toleration of the traffic 
counteracting its own work. It is building with crumbling marble and 
worm eaten timber, and is undermining its own foundation. 
Terrible truths, additionally cited by the Herald of Health: ‘ ‘ The his- 
tory of four generations of a family, as sketched by M. Morel, is as fol- 
lows : 
First generation.—The father was an habitual drunkard, and was killed 
in a public house brawl. 
Second generation. —The son inherited his father’s habits, which gave 
rise to attacks of mania, terminating in paralysis and death. 
Third generation.—The grandson was strictly sober, but was full of 
hypocondriacal and imaginary fear of persecution, etc., and had homici- 
dal tendencies. 
Fourth generation.—The fourth in decent had very limited intelli- 
gence, and had an attack of madness when sixteen years old, terminating- 
in stupidity, nearly amounting to idiocy. With him the family probably 
became extinct. And thus we perceive the persistence of the taint in the 
fact that a generation of absolute temperance will not avert the fatal 
issue. ” 
Dr. Lees says: “Plato, twenty centuries ago, recognized a fact in 
physiology, when he forbade the use of wine to the newly-married. It 
perverts the brain of the unborn child ; it strikes a blow at reason and 
virtue in the very womb. It is the real cause of so many ill-balanced 
minds, neither insane or sensible ; and in its higher use it is the teeming 
fount of the sad idiocy which disgraces and depresses our boasted civil- 
ization. In Dr. Howe’s reports to the Legislature of Massachusetts, he 
shows that nearly one-half of the idiots had drunken parents, (145 out of 
300). It is an undoubted fact, exemplified in the history of thousands of 
families, that the children—after their ’ parents joined the Temperance 
Society—are not only physically healthier, but mentally brighter and better 
than those born before.” 
Another Relation of Intemperance to Insurance, generally, may be seen 
in the several cases published by Dr. H. Munroe, of Hull, Eng., where the 
devilishly insane tendency to set fire to houses, and to steal, were started 
and stimulated in the use of intoxicating drinks. Think also of the care- 
lessness and recklessness generated by depraving drink, leading to fires, 
and wrecks, collisions, &c., &c. And the Relation to Life Insurance may 
be seen in the lamentable truth that not only property is destroyed, but 
that which is of greatest value—life itself—is destroyed. 11 
From high to low, rich and poor, in all classes and conditions, intem- 
perance saps the foundations of being. 
The drunken engineer, on steamer or train, or in manufactory, is 
stirred by Satan to steam, up, though immense slaughter results. 
A Cyclopaedia instead of an Essay would be necessary for full record. 
Certainly, then, there should be distinctions made in policy, and prac- 
tice, and pay, in the matter of Life Insurance, when this great disturbing 
destroying element or evil comes in to derange the regular right processes 
of nature and business. The Temperate man should not be required to 
pay the same rates as the Intemperate ; and thus pay him a Premium for 
being intemperate, and, by so doing, foster, endorse, increase, and per- 
petuate the evil and the practice. 
Full honors to the American Popular Lire Insurance Company for 
initiating the principle of wise distinctions in reference to other impor- 
tant points of practice ; and now for being the first to propose the discus- 
sion and proclamation of principles to apply in rewarding the royal virtue 
of Temperance, and in the repudiation and restraining of the ruling vice 
of Intemperance. 
And this call for Essays on the subject, in preparation for and proposal 
of more perfect action in the matter of insurance, we think, deserves to be 
ranked as an advanced movement in the great needed reform : a striking 
at an important fundamental principle, touching not only general pro- 
priety, and parental pride and affection, but also pouring a flood of light 
upon the subject through that extremely sensitive medium—the pocket of 
the people. If one will drink, then let him not only pay the rumseller for 
the poisonous stuff, but also the Insurance Company for the extra risk in 
connection with the use of the subtle Satanic poison. 
May the principle become popular; and the American Popular Life 
Insurance Company become pre-eminently more and more popular and 
prosperous. 
“ The wise shall shine as stars in the firmament.” 
“The wine cup’s ruby glow 
Conceals a world of woe ; 
That cup we break ! 
We dash the tyrant down, 
On its defenders frown, 
The cause of Temperance crown, 
The pledge [and policy] we take 12 
We think it best to add an extract from the forthcoming Prize 
Essay of Lieutenant Maclay, of the United States Army, upon the 
“Relations of Professions and Vocations to Longevity.” It is an 
admirable Essay throughout, and he remarks as follows upon 
“ Longevity as Affected by Intemperance.” 
“ Intemperance being one of the most pernicious agencies 
in shortening life, and operating at all times and in all seasons, 
becomes a proper subject for notice in this Essay. No one will 
question the fact of its influence in this respect. Unhappily nearly 
every one can recall some individual corroboration of it, while in 
the broader field of a community or nation it is more strikingly 
apparent. A celebrated French physician, D. Everat, has furnished 
statistics showing that the mortality from this cause is annually 
50,000 in England, 40,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Russia, 4,000 in 
Belgium, 3,000 in Spain, and 15,000 in France. Notwithstanding 
the universality of this vice among nearly all classes of society, few 
persons are aware of how materially human life is abbreviated by 
habits of intemperance. Mr. F. G. P. Nelson, an actuary of London, 
from a series of careful observations, has deduced some valuable 
statistics regarding this subject, which prove that the average dura- 
tion of life, after the commencement of intemperate habits, is as 
viz.: 
Among beer drinkers 21.7 years. 
“ spirit “ 16.7 “ 
“ those who drink beer and spirits indiscriminately 16.1 v’rs. 
The death rate among different drinkers, Mr. Xeison found to be: 
Among beer drinkers 4.597 per cent, yearly. 
“ spirit “ 5.996 “ “ 
“ mixed “ 6.194 “ “ 13 
The annexed table of Neison contrasts the expectation of life 
between temperate and intemperate persons:— 
Expectation of Life, for Temperate and 
perate Persons. 
Intem- 
Per cent, of 
ages. 
temperate. 
INTEMPERATE. 
loss of life. 
Duration of Life 
of Intemp, com- 
pared with Temp. 
20 
44.2 years. 
15.5 years. 
29.7 years. 
35 per cent. 
30 
36.5 “ 
13.8 “ 
22.7 “ 
38 “ 
40 
28.8 “ 
11.6 “ 
17.2 “ 
40 “ 
50 
21.2 “ 
10.9 “ 
10.3 “ 
51 “ 
60 
14.3 “ 
8.9 “ 
5.4 “ 
63 “ 
The expectation of intemperate persons—from the time of becom- 
ing intemperate—varies with the vocation: 
Among mechanics, working and laboring men, . 18 years. 
Among traders, dealers, and merchants, .... 17 “ 
Among professional men and gentlemen, . . .15 “ 
Among females, 14 “ 
It will be noticed that professional men addicted to drunkenness, 
are shorter-lived than drunkards of other pursuits. In any par- 
ticular pursuit, where intemperance prevailed to a great extent, and 
where it shortened life more than in others, the effect, like that of 
unhealthy localities, would be to reduce considerably the average 
longevity of that vocation.” 
LEGITIMATE DEDUCTIONS. 
With the forgoing facts and arguments it is not possible for the 
American Popular not to heed the lesson so plainly enjoined. 
When also we find so many persons with red noses, and other quite 
as conspicuous indications of what we should call intemperance, 14 
are insured, and at ordinary premiums; and when we find how 
very prone drinking applicants are to state that they are “ correct ” 
and “ temperate” in their “habits,” and “have always been so,” we 
perceive that it is necessary for us to have not opinions, but facts, 
to go upon,—i. e., we must know the kind, quantity, and frequency 
of alcoholics—distilled or fermented—used, both recently and re- 
motely. We want the facts that the person himself has, and we 
can then judge correctly, and as the person himself cannot do. 
It must be observed that increased risk very rapidly increases 
premiums. If a person will not probably live as long by ten years 
if he uses alcoholics as if lie does not, his premium should be 
doubled. 
It is therefore plainly evident that those who are temperate can- 
not afford to be insured in the same class with those who are not 
abstemious, and that a great hardship is wrought upon the truly 
temperate by insuring together all those who call themselves tem- 
perate. 
The following are the questions which the American Popular 
require an applicant to answer: 
m. ITow use Distilled Spirits in kind ? 
Extreme number of glasses in any day during year past ? 
Extreme quantity in any month ? Had Delirium Tremens ? 
n. Ale, Beer, Cider, Wine ? Extreme number of glasses in a day ? 
Quantity in a month ? Use any thing else intoxicating ? 
o. Ever use any Liquors or any thing else to the point of Intoxi- 
cation ? 
p. IIow often and how lately ? 
(Answer these questions fully and explicitly, not to gratify curiosity, but that there may 
never be any doubt nor dispute about the facts in the case.) 15 
The foregoing Essay was in answer to the following advertise' 
ment: 
THE AMERICAN POPULAR LIFE INSURANCE CO., 
419 Si 421 Broadway, cor. Canal St., N. Y. City, 
Believing that knowledge upon subjects connected with life and health is very valu- 
able to Life Iusurance business—which is, indeed, vitally affected by all laws modi- 
fying the mortality or death-rate among men; and believing that a diffusion of such 
knowledge is eminently calculated to promote health and longevity— 
OFFERS A PAID-UP POLICY OF $150 EACH FOR 
1st. Best Essay on methods of promoting the health of N. Y. and other cities. 
2d. Best Essay on Public Economy involved in increasing the average length of life. 
3d. Best Essay on relations of different professions and vocations to Longevity. 
4th. Best Essay on the Relations of Temperance and In- 
temperance to Life Insurance. 
5th. Best Essay on the sign indications of a tendency to disease. 
6th. Best Essay on the distinctions between Paralysis and Apoplexy. 
7 th. Best Essay on the relations of suicide to Life Insurance. 
8th. Best Essay on the duties of Companies in contesting claims for death losses. 
Knowledge upon all these and every other topic affecting or in- 
dicating Longevity and Vitality is especially advantageous to and 
desired by this company, since its 
PRINCIPAL PRINCIPLE 
(not merely a new feature,) consists in insuring persons according 
to the risk, making 
EOTJTt CLASSES 
of sound risks, (insured together in other Companies,) keeping each 
class separate, each paying its own losses and sharing its own sur- 
plus, which gives to the long-lived both a smaller premium and a 
larger assurance than can be otherwise obtained by them. This 
classing is dependent upon Ancestry, Constitution, Habits, 
Vocation, Residence, Intelligence, &c. 
To fill up one of our blanks is useful to anyone, even if he does 
not wish to insure, and it is furnished free. Send or call for one ; 
also for other interesting documents. Dr. Waterhouse on Temper- 
ance, Anecdotes of Old People, and particularly Dr. Rush on Old 
Age—just out—etc. WRIGHT & SCHONDELMEIER, 
BOOK, NEWSPAPER, AND JOB PRINTERS, 
419 BROADWAY, N. Y.