44 ^ LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 



that any one uses tobacco (except, perhaps, those who 

 have been brought up in its atmosphere) its noxious prop- 

 erties are evident enough ; and if these seem to pass away 

 — if " Nature withdraws her monitor when the warning is 

 unheeded " — the evil is not removed because it is stored 

 up secretly. 



It is pleaded that were wholesomeness our rule, other 

 things in continual use should be abandoned — that tea 

 and coffee, e. g., are as injurious to some as tobacco is to 

 others. But " two wrongs " — or even twenty — " do not 

 make a right." There may be excess, no doubt, in " the 

 cup which cheers but not inebriates," and many weaken 

 their digestions and impair their nerves by tea or coffee 

 drinking ; yet I never heard of any one being killed by 

 swallowing a few leaves of tea or grains of coffee. There 

 is nothing but what is good for something, and we have not 

 denied that tobacco has medicinal uses ; but those who 

 take medicines when they are not ill may become so ill as 

 to get beyond the help of medicine ; those who play with 

 a poison may find that the poison makes them its sport 

 and its victim. Tobacco has been commended as a disin- 

 fectant, destroying the germs of disease, and as a prophy- 

 lactic, rendering the smoker insensible to infection ; but 

 though it kills the blight on plants, it may not destroy that 

 which blights mankind ; and insensibility to danger is by 

 no means safety. Indeed, it is said that smokers, from 

 their impaired vitality, are the more liable to take a disease ; 

 while it has often happened that cures have been checked, 

 when the atmosphere of the room has been tainted with 

 smoke. The oblivion of pain and discomfort resulting 

 from tobacco is often a doubtful benefit. If a poor man 

 smokes to allay his hunger, he forgets that hunger should 



