TOBACCO. 59 



tendencies of our tinio. Not only do children smoke, but they 

 chew the poisonous narcotic. A clergyman states that not 

 long since he was stopped on the street l)y a boy of very 

 diminutive stature, who said, '* Mister, give me a chew of ter- 

 backer, will yer?" Also, that he knows of several boys under 

 five years of ago who cry for Tobacco, one of whom has been 

 chewing for two years. A few days ago a lady noticed a wliole 

 family engaged in smoking— -grandparents, parents, children, 

 even the baby-girl of four summers, who, with a long clay pipe 

 between what might otherwise have been her cherry lii)s, was 

 putling away as if she had had the experience of her grandsire 

 of fourscore. JJoys and young men are naturally imitative and 

 full of emulation, and are in special danger of contracting' the 

 pernicious habit. Elderly persons rarely begin to smoke, 

 because the temptation is not so great, and because the jud'^- 

 nient is more intelligent and better a))le to control the individual 

 de})ortment. 



Strong men may not be conscious of much haiin arising from 

 the practice, but they will lind out in the end — they will tind 

 out in dyspepsia, indigestion, (^pik'psy, apoplexy, in loss of 

 mental and physical vigor, in accelerated old age— what a daily 

 dose of narcotic poison has done for them. Eminent {)hysiciariS 

 declare that the majority of Tobacco-users do die of Tobacco 

 j)oisoning; that death as surely results from chronic as from 

 acute poisoning, though the full eiT»'cts may be delayed for 

 years. A man whose life is shortened three, or six, or a dozen 

 years by Tobacco-using, is killed by poison as truly as though 

 he died instantly from the effects of an overdose. 



The poisonous nicotine partly contracted in the adult smoker 

 by the resisting forces of his maturer constitution, takes hold 

 of the fornnng tissues of the young, and weakening them, takes 

 the pink flush of health from tlu; cheek, damages the functions 

 of the body, takes away the healthy ai)petite for plain food, 

 and creates a very unnatural thirst, which \\\\\ hardly be satis- 

 fied with anything short of alcoholic drinks. 



