directly, indirectly, or remotely associated with alcohol as a causative or contributory factor; or, in other words, that the total mortality of Continental United States in 1908, in which alcohol may have figured, possibly approximated 66,000. In brief, Dr. MacNicholl's figure of 680,000, which is equivalent to an estimate of an alcoholic mortality of nearly 75 per cent. of all adult deaths, is, to put it mildly, somewhat removed from the conclusions of all known deliberate investigations of the subject, ranging, as they do, from 7.7 per cent. in Continental United States in 1908 to 14 per cent. in London thirty years ago.

INCREDIBLE STATISTICS.

In the report appearing in the World, which Dr. MacNicholl assured me was substantially correct, he was credited with the flatfooted statement that "during the past five years the birth rate in the United States has fallen off 33 per cent." When, where, and how did he arrive at any specific conclusion as to "the birth rate in the United States," for five years ago, or any other year; in default of any official birth-rate figures for the United States as a whole by years—especially for inter-censal years-how can he, or anybody else, compute how much, or how little, the birth-rate in the United States has fallen off "during the past five years?" With less than half a dozen exceptions, not even the individual States of this country as yet have anything like complete registrations of births. Consequently, the country as a whole most assuredly has not even approximately accurate birth figures, and even the birth-rate calculations for census years, a decade apart, are merely unreliable guesses. That being the case, the alleged computation, and reduction to exact, fractional, figures, of the falling off in the country's birth-rate "during the past five years" is positively mystifying. I might add, incidentally, that the most reliable, and most comprehensive, birth-rate figures obtainable for any section of this country-to wit, those for the State of Massachusetts -show that the birth-rate in that State for the five-year period, 1901-5, was 24.70, as compared with one of 27.08 in the previous five-year period, thus indicating an apparent decline of only 8.8 per cent., as contrasted with the alleged decline of 33 per cent. for the entire country in the past five vears.

EDWARD BUNNELL PHELPS,

Editor the American Underwriter.

T

WINE IN THE SCRIPTURES AND

OTHER ANCIENT RECORDS.

HE Bible is generally believed to contain the earliest references to wine.

The first mention is made in Genesis ix, 20: "And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.”

The Bible expressly states that the three great staple foods of the people in Old Testament days were: Corn, oil and wine.

The Biblical instructions regarding the use of wine are very practical and interesting even at this day. Thus, wine is declared to be most acceptable in the sight of the Lord, for it is expressly commanded that the offerings of corn, new wine and oil should be brought into the house of God. (Neh. 10, 37-39).

Again, in Judges (9, 12-13) we are told that it is "wine which cheereth God and man."

We find that David took a great interest in wine-making, for "over the vineyards was Shimei the Ramathite; over the increase of the vineyards for the wine cellars was Zabdi, the Shiphmite." (First Chronicles 27, 27.)

David was most generous at times with his wines, as "he dealt among all the people even among the whole multitude of Israel as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread and a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine." (II. Samuel 6-19).

According to Isaiah (24, 11-12) a scarcity of wine was considered as one of the dreadful judgments of God upon the land: "There is a crying of wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone, in the city is left desolation."

On the other hand, when wine is plenty, God's goodness is shown, "for how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty, corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.” (Zech. 9, 17).

That wine was good for the workmen is seen from the following passage: "And behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of oil." (II. Chron. 2, 10).

In ancient Hebrew times a "bath" was equivalent to 6.4 gallons, and in later days it was a standard measure of 4.7 gallons.

There

fore, taking five gallons as constituting a bath, King Solomon gave to the workmen 100,000 gallons of wine.

The Old Testament references to the value and use of wine might be extended to great length, but our object is only to show the antiquity of the making and the drinking of wine.

The following are some references from the Old Testament:

Psalm 104, verses 14 and 15:—

"He (God) causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth; “And wine that maketh glad the heart of man.”

Proverbs 31, verses 6 and 7:—

"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.

“Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."

Isaiah 25, verse 6:—

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees,* of fat things, full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined."

Then we turn to the New Testament, and we find that the first miracle performed by Jesus Christ was the turning of water into wine, at a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee. Attempts have been made to explain this away by the entirely unsupported assertion that the wine referred to was unfermented. The onus is

on those who make this assertion to prove it, and they cannot do so because the translators of the Bible either meant fermented wine or something which was not wine, and, if the latter was the case, they would obviously have chosen another term. Not only is the teetotal assertion in this matter unsupported, but it is flatly contradicted by the remarks which the guests at the wedding feast made when they tasted the miraculous wine—that the host had kept the good wine to the end. They would not have made this remark about an insipid, unfermented beverage. Besides we know that other references in the Bible refer to fermented wine, and the same term would not have been selected to describe two beverages entirely different in character.

For instance, in the parable alluding to the folly of putting new wine into old bottles, the reference must have been to fermented

*"Wine on the lees" means matured wine which has been long in store.

wine, as otherwise there would be no danger of the bottle bursting, and no point in the parable.

Again, St. Paul when preaching moderation in his Epistle to the Ephesians, wrote: "And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess." Obviously this caution would have been unnecessary if the wine of the New Testament had been an unfermented liquor. There is incontrovertible evidence that Christ Himself partook of wine. He was indeed taunted by his enemies with being “a winebibber," which would hardly have been the case if He had discountenanced the use of wine. (See Matt. 11, 19.)

But the strongest sanction for the legitimate use of alcoholic beverages is the fact that wine was selected as one of the elements in the Lord's Supper, to be used throughout the world for all time.

There is just one other New Testament reference which may be quoted. St. Paul in the 1st Epistle to Timothy, chapter 5, verse 23, wrote:

"Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities."

THE CODE OF HAMMURABI.

In January, 1902, was discovered in a mound at Susa a pillar of black diorite, which was covered with Babylonian inscriptions. It proved to be the legal code instituted by Hammurabi, king of Babylon, about 220 B. C. or 4,112 years ago. This code is a thousand years older than the Mosaic code.

The inscription contained originally about 3,000 lines of writing, divided into forty-nine columns, but five columns had been erased. The code, which reveals a long and old, established state of civilization, covers the law of property, contracts, domestic relations, witchcraft, etc.

Four sections relating to the wine trade have been translated as follows:

1. If a wine merchant for the drink does not take corn, but takes silver by the great stone and tariff of drink—makes smaller than the price of corn; the wine merchant shall be called to account, and they shall throw her into the water.

2. If riotous persons assemble in the house of a wine merchant and those riotous persons she seizes not and drives to the palace (jail?) that wine merchant shall be put to death.

3. No votary or woman residing in the temple may open a wine shop or enter one for drink on pain of being burned

4. If a wine merchant for sweet drinks gives sixty quarts for thirst at harvest time 50 Ka of grant she shall take. (The meaning of which is not clear.)

It should be noted that 2,200 years before Christ the wine trade was an old, established institution and license laws were then in vogue. The existence of such a complete set of laws as the Code of Hammurabi proves a highly organized state of society, which must have taken centuries to bring about. So that, the manufacture and sale of wine must have been a well-defined occupation and an important branch of trade or commerce thousands of years before the days of Hammurabi 2200 B. C.

The best and most vivid idea of the use of wines in very ancient times can be gained from the few pictorial representations which have come down to us. They tell the story even better than words. They are more satisfactory than any mere inscriptions cut in stone or engraved on walls.

If you want to see how the kings of old Nineveh enjoyed themselves, look at the crude picture on the stone slab now in the British museum, and there you will see the king drinking wine with his queen in his gardens.

Not less interesting or ancient is the picture of feasting and wine drinking at an Egyptian party-say 4,000 years ago.

Some of these stone pictures show many details of how private and public banquets were conducted. In most examples, musicians and dancers are prominent, showing that music and dancing held the same place in old Egypt as they do to this day.

Inns of Munich.

The total number of inns and retail liquor dealers in Munich, Bavaria, according to returns compiled up to the end of 1911, was 2,042, compared with 2,023 in existence at the beginning of the year, the increase being in the number of retail dealers. This gives 3.38 drinking places to each 1,000 of the population, not an extraordinarily large number for a city enjoying the reputation for the production and consumption of beer that Munich possesses.