$29,600,000 A Year.

And this is waste. All other expenditures in which our people indulge bring back in some way or other a return; but this yields nothing either of fruit, or growth, or enhancement. In the original shape it would supply food to thousands of human beings; whilst in a rectified form it is a destroying agent, productive only of 'other ruin. Compare this waste, too, with the wealth, of which we page 7 boast so much, as the result of our industry. Our State ranks among the first in the Valley of the Mississippi as to those great elements which go to constitute productive capacity. Yet this waste is equal to one-fourth of all the farm crops of Missouri, which, according to the census of 1870, was $103,035,759. It is more than one-third of all the capital invested in manufactures, which was $80,257,244. And it is nearly one-half the actual cost of all our completed railroads, which may be set down at $60,500.000. It would seem as though content should sit enthroned amid this abundance. But employers complain of sad