TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



78 



Thus it will be seen that the amount of money expended 

 and changing hands for tobacco, in this country alone, is 

 enormous ; allowing ten cents per pound for the raw ma- 

 terial in 1880, it reached the sum of ^47,3io,757-30. ^nd 

 this only on the first change from the producer's mto the 

 manufacturer's hands, to say nothing of the added value 

 given to it in the factory, and the added cost due to the 

 revenue tax. What more effectual argument can be made 

 by the economist than the simple presentation of these 

 ficrures? The official returns show that in Germany, Spam, 

 Holland Great Britain and the United States tobacco costs 

 more than bread. " A single firm in New York paid to 

 the government in ofie month in 1880, a revenue tax ot 

 ^120 000 ! The average monthly tax paid by this house 

 for Internal Revenue is over ^100,000. The shipment of 

 of snuff by this concern to one city in North Carolina 

 amounts to one hundred pounds per month." We learn 

 from the Internal Revenue Reports that more than nmety- 

 five miUion pounds of manufactured tobacco, and one 

 bilion, three hundred miUions of cigars are used m the 

 United States every year, at an expense of two hundred 

 and fifty millions of dollars, while the revenue tax amounts 

 to one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. In the city 

 of New York alone, about seventy-five millions of cigars 

 are annually consumed at a cost of more than nine miUions 



of dollars. 



Now we do not assume that this outlay is wrong because 

 it is so enormous. There is said to be no better use for 

 money, as a general thing, than to "spend it as one goes 

 alon- " This, however, is a question of spendmg money 

 to the best advantage ; there ought to be no doubt m re- 

 gard to the character of any personal indulgence which 



