Elmer: But where does alcohol like this you have shown us come from?
Mother: By dis-til´ling wine or beer.
Amy: What does “distil” mean?
Mother: To distil means to fall in drops. See the drops of water gather and fall as I hold this glass of ice-water in the steam coming from the teakettle. The drops are distilled water.
Helen: Is that the way they distil wine and beer?
See the drops fall.
Mother: They could hardly do it in this way, but men found that by boiling beer or any liquid having alcohol in it, and letting the steam pass through a long tube called a “worm,” they got stronger alcohol. You see the alcohol comes out in the steam, and as it passes through the long tube, or coil, it is cooled, and drops into a cask. The oftener it is distilled, the stronger it grows, that is, the more pure alcohol there is in it.
Elmer: But why do you call alcohol a murderer?
Mother: Because it kills. Strong alcohol will kill any living thing. Dr. Richardson, of England, has said: “There is no animal that may not be affected by alcohol. A pigeon will take opium enough to kill several men, and receive no harm; but alcohol will poison it. A goat can take enough tobacco to kill several men, but it can not take alcohol.”