And a score of similar instances could be mentioned, showing that the unthinking and general use of alcohol as a beverage at our tables is steadily and constantly diminishing.

Great temperance societies are springing up in this and other civilized countries and are having a powerful influence in showing the harm of the use of alcohol and in inducing people to abstain from using it.
This movement is only fairly started, but is being hastened by such practical and important influences as the experience of many of the great business corporations, such as railroads, steamship companies, insurance companies, banks, and trust companies, which support the findings of science against alcohol in almost every respect.

On account of the manner in which alcohol unconsciously dulls the senses and blurs the judgment, these companies began long ago weeding out from their employ all men who were known to drink to excess; then they began to reject those who were likely to occasionally over-indulge, or take it too freely; and now, finally, many of them, particularly the railway and steamship companies, will not employ--except in the lowest and poorest paid classes of their service--and will not promote to any position which puts men in charge of human life and limb, those who use alcohol in any form or amount.
Nearly all the captains, for instance, of our great trans-atlantic liners, whose duties in storm or fog keep them on the bridge on continuous duty for forty-eight, sixty, and even seventy-two hours at a stretch, with thousands of lives depending upon their courage and their judgment, are total abstainers.

And while twenty-five years ago they used to think that they could not go through these long sieges of storm duty without plenty of wine or whiskey, they now find that they are far better off without any alcoholic drink.
Another powerful force in the same direction is our insurance companies, practically all of whom now will refuse to insure any man known habitually to use alcohol to excess, because where lists have been kept of their policy-holders showing which were users of alcohol and which total abstainers, their records show that the death rate among the users of alcohol is some twenty per cent greater than among the total abstainers.

A similar result has also been reached in the companies that insure against sickness, whose drinking members average nearly twice as many weeks of sickness during the year as the abstaining ones.