2 PROEIBITION. 



Tobacco is a poison far more dirty and deadly than wiiiskey. 

 Unquestionably its nse is a 'great evil,' the useless expenditure for 

 which would support all the schools and churches. Supposing only 

 12,000,000 people in the United States use tobacco and these spend 

 but five cents per day, the annual expenditure would amount to over 

 $20,000,000. And it is well known that the unnatural thivst and 

 craving, born from the stimulation of tobacco, calls for the use of 

 strong drink. If then, on the ground of the evil, one should be 

 suppressed, the other ought to be. 



Tea and Coffee are evils quite as wide spread and insinuating, 

 if not .so palpable, as the evil of intoxicating drink. The American 

 indulo-es in it for the same reason that the French and German use 

 their extract of grapes and of barley. On the ground of evils, I 

 see no reason why one should be suppressed and the other not. 

 Tea and coffee are no more a necessity than tobacco, and it proba- 

 bly costs the people four times as much. Then there are patent 

 medicines which are a gi-eat evil, being often times but a mere dis- 

 guise of the drinking habit itself. These of course should be 

 suppressed. 



Evils of Eating. — But if what is drank is so injurious to society 

 how much more so are the evils of eating ? How can the dividing 

 line be drawn when the use of intoxicating di-inks follow a diseased 

 ai)petite ? The bar naturally succeeds the table's cuisine. Where 

 a few die of delirium tremens, all dig tJieir graves with their teeth. 

 The race dies, on an average before thirty years of age, and half 

 before they are seventeen, all brouglit about, directly or indirectly, 

 through the stomach. If governmental interference is justifiable, 

 on the ground that a tiling is an evil, wliat better argument could 

 the disciples of Trail and Jack.son and Graham have for abolishing, 

 at one fell swoop by act of Congress, or an amendment to the Con- 

 stitution, the use of meat and pastry ? 



Evih of Dress m s(mie respects outdo the evils of eating and 

 drinking. What more heart rending subject to contemplate tiian 

 the corset! Consid(!r all the vital functions compressed into the 

 .smallest sjjace, tlu; lower portion of tlie lungs in disuse, and the 

 ril)S lapping each other ; is tlierc not here a suljject for legislators 

 to pondtu- upon ? And in order tliat the law may be faithfully exe- 

 cuted, should not the District attorney be empowered, upon suspi- 

 cion or complaint of a member of the Y. M. C. A., to visit any house 

 and diligently search it? Most assuredly he should; if any law 

 should l)e nuide against an evil, it should be executed. 



Hpirihial Evils.— Bui what are bodily ills compared to the evils 

 which prey upon the .soul. Wiiat a far reaching evil is that of 



