It will be said that their families had to suffer for want of even the
little that most of them spent in that way: but the persons that use
this argument should carry it to its logical conclusion. Tea is an
unnecessary and harmful drink; it has been condemned by medical men so
often that to enumerate its evil qualities here would be waste of time.
The same can be said of nearly all the cheap temperance drinks; they
are unnecessary and harmful and cost money, and, like beer, are drunk
only for pleasure.

What right has anyone to say to working men that when their work is
done they should not find pleasure in drinking a glass or two of beer
together in a tavern or anywhere else? Let those who would presume to
condemn them carry their argument to its logical conclusion and condemn
pleasure of every kind. Let them persuade the working classes to lead
still simpler lives; to drink water instead of such unwholesome things
as tea, coffee, beer, lemonade and all the other harmful and
unnecessary stuff. They would then be able to live ever so much more
cheaply, and as wages are always and everywhere regulated by the cost
of living, they would be able to work for lower pay.

These people are fond of quoting the figures of the 'Nation's Drink
Bill,' as if all this money were spent by the working classes! But if
the amount of money spent in drink by the 'aristocracy', the clergy and
the middle classes were deducted from the 'Nation's Drink Bill', it
would be seen that the amount spent per head by the working classes is
not so alarming after all; and would probably not be much larger than
the amount spent on drink by those who consume tea and coffee and all
the other unwholesome and unnecessary 'temperance' drinks.

The fact that some of Rushton's men spent about two shillings a week on
drink while they were in employment was not the cause of their poverty.
If they had never spent a farthing for drink, and if their wretched
wages had been increased fifty percent, they would still have been in a
condition of the most abject and miserable poverty, for nearly all the
benefits and privileges of civilization, nearly everything that makes
life worth living, would still have been beyond their reach.

It is inevitable, so long as men have to live and work under such
heartbreaking, uninteresting conditions as at present that a certain
proportion of them will seek forgetfulness and momentary happiness in
the tavern, and the only re