202 



THE FAVORITE POISON OF AMERICA. 



stoves, and the unventilated apartments which 

 accompany them ! 



"Stoves" — exclami a thousand readers in 

 the same breath — "stoves poisonous ? Non- 

 sense ! They are perfectly healthy, as well 

 as the most economical, convenient, labor- 

 saving, useful and indispensable things in the 

 world. Besides, are they not real Yankee 

 inventions ? In what country but this is 

 there such an endless variety of stoves — 

 cooking stoves, hall stoves, parlor stoves, air- 

 tight stoves, cylinders, salamanders, etc. ? 

 Why, it is absolutely the national inven- 

 tion — this stove — the most useful result of 

 universal Yankee ingenuity." 



We grant it all, good friends and readers ; 

 but must also have our opinion — our calmly 

 considered and carefully matured opinion — 

 which is nothing more nor less than this, that 

 stoves — as now used — are the national curse ; 

 the secret poisoners of that blessed air, be- 

 stowed by kind Providence as an elixir of 

 life, — giving us new vigor and fresh energy at 

 every inspiration ; and we, ungrateful beings, as 

 if the pure breath of heaven were not fit for us, 

 we reject it, and breathe instead — what? — the 

 air which passes over a surface of hot iron, 

 and becomes loaded with all the vapor of 

 arsenic and sulphur, which that metal, highly 

 heated, constantly gives off! 



If in the heart of large cities — where there 

 is a large population crowded together, with 

 scanty means of subsistence — one saw a few 

 persons driven by necessity into warming their 

 small apartments by little close stoves of 

 iron, liable to be heated red-hot, and thereby 

 to absolutely destroy the purity of the air, 

 one would not be so much astonished at the 

 result, because it is so difficult to preserve 

 the poorest class from suffering, in some way 

 or other, in great cities. But it is by no 

 means only in the houses of those who have 

 slender means of subsistence that this is the 

 case. It is safe to say that nine-tenths of all 



the houses in the northern states, whether be- 

 longing to rich or poor, are entirely unven- 

 tilated, and heated at the present moment 

 by close stoves ! 



It is absolutely a matter of preference on 

 the part of thousands, with whom the trifling 

 difference between one mode of heating and 

 another is of no account. Even in the midst 

 of the country, where there is still wood in 

 abundance, the farmer will sell that wood and 

 buy coal, so that he may have a little demon — 

 alias a black, cheerless, close stove — in the 

 place of that genuine hospitable, wholesome 

 friend and comforter, an open wood fire- 

 place. 



And in order not to leave one unconverted 

 soul in the wilderness, the stove inventors 

 have lately brought out " a new article," for 

 forest countries, where coal is not to be had 

 either for love or barter — an " air-tight stove 

 for burning wood." The seductive, convenient, 

 monstrous thing! "It consumes one-fifth of 

 the fuel which was needed by the open chim- 

 ney — is so neat and clean, makes no dust, 

 and gives no trouble." All quite true, dear 

 considerate housewife — all cjuite true; but 

 that very stove causes your husband to pay 

 twice its savings to the family doctor before 

 two Avinters are past, and gives j'ou thrice as 

 much trouble in nursing the sick in your 

 family as you formerly spent in taking care 

 of the fire in your chiranej^ corner, — besides 

 depriving you of the most delightful of all 

 household occupations. 



Our countrymen generally have a vast deal 

 of national pride, and national sensitiveness, 

 and we honor them for it. It is the warp 

 and woof, out of which the stuff of national 

 improvement is woven. When a nation be- 

 comes quite indifferent as to what it has done, 

 or can do, then there is nothing left but for 

 its prophets to utter lamentations over it. 



Now there is a curious but indLsputable 

 fact, (somebody must say it,) touching our 



