A LECTURE OAT TOBACCO. 6 1 



and other dangerous places. This lawlessness does not 

 stop here. Those who fancy that tobacco is necessary to 

 them — even boys who have got to like it — have not 

 hesitated to sneak and tell falsehoods, if they cannot else 

 indulge in it ; to swindle, peculate, and steal, that they 

 may obtain it. There may be cases in which a smoker 

 may suppose that he has gained valuable introductions by 

 his habit, but the rule is the reverse. Horace Greeley 

 remarked : " I do not say that every smoker or chewer 

 is necessarily a blackguard, however steep the proclivity 

 that way ; but show me a genuine blackguard who is not 

 a lover of tobacco in some way, and I will show you two 

 white blackbirds." Ruifians, wife-beaters, and murderers 

 have soothed themselves after their crimes, with the pipe, 

 and when imprisoned have raved — not at the ignominy, 

 but at being deprived of tobacco.'^ 



Some smokers among my audience may think this very 



1 "The Daily News " (November 12) reported that some boys 

 from a Ramsgate boardmg-school came over to Canterbury to play 

 football with the King's School : several of them visited tobacco- 

 nists' shops, and two boys of sixteen were noticed to have in their 

 pockets pipes and cigarettes, which they had not paid for. They were 

 brought before the police-court, when they pleaded guilty, and 

 were let off with fines of ^^5 each and costs. We wonder what 

 had been the influence of parents and tutors on these poor de- 

 graded lads. The superintendent of the Reform School at West- 

 boro', Mass. (the first established in America), states that all the 

 boys committed there have been users of tobacco ; and it is the 

 one thing that gives him most trouble — that he is working hardest 

 to extirpate. 



2 In a recent article in " The Daily Telegraph " on " Life at 

 Portland Convict Prison," the writer gives some striking illustra- 

 tions of the fascination which tobacco has for convicts of every 

 degree, who will risk " eighteen lashes with the cat " to obtain a 

 bit of it. 



