56 ST NICOTINE 



stunted, weakly growth and the train of evil which follow on 

 deranged nerve-tissue, it would seem to be no more than 

 humane that the Legislature should step in and prohibit the 

 sale of tobacco in any form to children under the age of 

 say, sixteen. Already some of the states of North America 

 have instituted penal enactments for the protection of 

 children against the indulgence, which to them is 

 pernicious. 



But what shall be said of the young man whose downy 

 lip bears testimony to his approaching majority — the age 

 when life is a romance and the future aglow with roseate 

 dreams ? He knows himself to be the hope and pride of 

 his parents, that in him is centred all sorts of brilliant 

 possibilities. Nothing could be more fitting, he thinks, 

 than that he should proclaim to the world that he is now a 

 man by airing the park with his first cigar. And who so 

 heartless as to say him nay? He now becomes confidential 

 with the tobacconist, and learns from him the names of the 

 choicest brands, as the Vegueras, the kind specially pre- 

 pared for the Prince of Wales, selected from the finest 

 growths of the plant raised in the Veulto Abajo district of 

 Cuba, as well as the outer signs of many another rich and 

 rare leaf from the gardens of the Queen of the Antilles, or 

 from the plantations of the Indian Archipelago. By-and-by 

 his whole energies will be devoted to the service of his 

 king and country, doing the world's roughest work away out 

 in the wilds of Africa, or administering justice, it may be, 

 among lawless tribes in Imperial India ; and many a time, 

 when belated on a desolate track with nothing to cover him 

 but a blanket borrowed from his trusty peon, he will draw 

 from the recesses of a deep pocket or knapsack a homely 

 briar-root with more real pleasure than he ever felt when 

 smoking the choicest cigar on the Mall. 



