48 TOBACCO. 



that at least seven out of every ten boys smoke by 

 the time they are fourteen years old." 



On a winter's day may be seen skating on the 

 lake in Central Park, New York, thousands of 

 children, girls as well as boys, most of them puff- 

 ing cigarettes bought at a restaurant close by for 

 a penny apiece. Indeed, one can hardly walk the 

 streets without meeting small boys with discarded 

 stumps of cigars or cigarettes in their mouths. No 

 wonder that Dr. Rush should have exclaimed : 

 ff One cannot witness this sight without anticipating 

 such a depreciation of our posterity in health and 

 character as can scarcely be contemplated without 

 pain and horror." 



TOBACCO AND DRINKING. 



It is tobacco in some form which perhaps more 

 than any other cause leads to the dram-shop. An 

 English physician states that he examined the 

 breath of thirty smoking boys between the ages 

 of nine and fifteen. In twenty-two of them he 

 found various disorders of a serious nature, and 

 ff more or less marked taste for strong drink" 

 a taste generated by tobacco. His prescriptions 

 had little effect till smoking was given up, when 

 health returned. It is also said that when smok- 

 ing was abandoned the boys recovered. These 

 facts are stated on the authority of the British 

 Medical Journal. 



A French physician, who had studied the effects 

 of smoking on thirty-eight boys between nine and 



