1870………………… 350 00
1871………………… 400 00
1872………………… 350 00
"These figures speak for themselves, but they are not all. There is a material and industrial prosperity existing in Vineland which, though I say it myself, is unexampled in the history of colonization, and must be due to more than ordinary causes. The influence of temperance upon the health and industry of her people is no doubt the principal of these causes. Started when the country was plunged in civil war, its progress was continually onward. Young as the settlement was, it sent its quota of men to the field, and has paid over $60,000 of war debts. The settlement has built twenty fine school-houses, ten churches, and kept up one of the finest systems of road improvements, covering one hundred and seventy-eight miles, in this country. There are now some fifteen manufacturing establishments on the Vineland tract, and they are constantly increasing in number. Her stores in extent and building will rival any other place in South Jersey. There are four post-offices on the tract. The central one did a business last year of $4,800 mail matter, and a money-order business of $78,922.
"Out of seventy-seven townships in the state, by the census of 1869 Landis Township ranked the fourth from the highest in the agricultural value of its productions. There are seventeen miles of railroad upon the tract, embracing six railway stations.
"The result of my project as a land enterprise has been to the interest of the colonists as well as my own. Town lots that I sold for $150 have been resold for from $500 to $1500, exclusive of improvements. Land that I sold for $25 per acre has much of it been resold at from $200 to $500 per acre. This rule will hold good for miles of the territory—all resulting from the great increase of population and the prosperity of the people.
"Were licenses for saloons and taverns obtainable with the same ease as in New York, Philadelphia, and many country districts, Vineland would probably have, according to its population, from one to two hundred such places. Counting them at one hundred, this would withdraw from the pursuits of productive industry about one hundred families, which would give a population of six hundred people. Each of these places would sell about $3000 worth of beer and liquor per annum, making $300,000 worth of stimulants a year. I include beer saloons, as liquor can be obtained in them all as a general thing, and in the electrical climate of America beer leads to similar results as spirits. Think of the effect of $300,000 worth of stimulants upon the health, the minds, and the industry of our people. Think of the increase of crime and pauperism—the average would be fully equal to other places in which liquor is sold. Instead of having a police expense of $50, and poor expenses of $400 per annum, the amount would be swollen to thousands. Homes that are now happy would be made desolate, and, instead of peace reigning in our midst, we should have war—the same war that is now carried on throughout the length and breadth of the land in the conflict that is waged with crime, where blood is daily shed, where houses are daily fired, where helpless people are daily robbed, and the darkest of crimes daily perpetrated. Concentrate the work of this war that is carried on throughout the land for one day, and you will have as many people killed and wounded, houses fired or plundered, as in the sack of a city.
"The results in Vineland have convinced me—
"1. That temperance does conserve the industry of the people.
"2. That temperance is conducive to a refined and esthetical taste.