60 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 



Those who feel indignant at being robbed of their 

 right to enjoy the fresh air, and to meet their friends 

 without being drugged, ought in charity to remember 

 that these spoilers of their liberty have often lost their 

 own. Smokers who have been enslaved in childhood, 

 and learnt to smoke before they were of an age to reason, 

 are objects of pity. Great is the power of habit — of 

 this we are glad when reason approves a habit ; but, 

 unhappily, unreasonable habits are the most difficult to 

 change. It is no longer thought impossible to reform a 

 drunkard. But we are assured that it is easier to give up 

 alcoholics than tobacco or opium ; the slavery is more 

 incessant and complete. No one can be constantly 

 drinking ; but persistent smokers inhale their nicotine all 

 day long, and its enervating influence takes away the 

 desire, and almost the power, to be free. It is pitiable, 

 the degradation to which the slave of tobacco is reduced ; 

 he declares that he is not half himself unless under its 

 influence. Except in the case of the drunkard who reels 

 along tlie streets, the slave to drink may not be publicly 

 exposed ; but the smoker, who can go nowhere without 

 his pipe or cigar, bears about him the outward and visible 

 sign of his bondage. 



As regards our last topic — the influence of tobacco on 

 morality — we have shown that no inveterate smokers ob- 

 serve the Golden Rule, " Whatsoever ye would that men 

 should do unto you, do ye even so to them." They not 

 only ignore the laws of courtesy, but defy the regulations 

 of public companies. In spite of notices at railway sta- 

 tions and elsewhere, they disgust you with their pipes ; 

 and, as we have stated, they are reckless of human life, 

 breaking the laws which forbid these practices in mines 



