292 The Soverane Herbe 



The resultant lesson was severe enough to postpone 

 for some time a second attempt at nicotian honours. 

 But the cigarette is so mild that it can be smoked 

 with impunity. Thus the path to smoking glory 

 is devoid of all difficulties and terrors. 



There is little doubt that smoking is injurious to 

 the physique of growing youths, though it would 

 be interesting to learn the medical opinion of the 

 effects of tobacco on children in the East. In three- 

 fourths of the States of the American Union, local 

 laws prohibit, under heavy penalties, the sale of 

 tobacco to children under sixteen years of age. 



In Canada a similar law is in force, and pupils in 

 the public schools who are discovered smoking are 

 punished by suspension from attendance, and incor- 

 rigible puffers are expelled. In Norway, a recent 

 law prohibits the sale of tobacco to any child under 

 the age of sixteen, without a signed order from an 

 adult relative or employer. The penalty is a fine 

 varying from 2s. to £f,, and the police are empowered 

 to take away pipes, cigars, and cigarettes from youth- 

 ful smokers. In some parts of Germany there is a 

 similar law. In the town of Westhofen the old 

 ordinance forbidding smoking in public is still en- 

 forced. These details may be interesting to the 

 School Boards in various parts of this country that 

 have advocated recently the suppression of juvenile 

 smoking. In the Isle of Man a measure to this end 

 is promised. The cigarette by its popularity has 

 earned for itself many enemies, and the Legislature 

 of Minnesota (U.S.A.) has just prohibited, with a 

 fine of not less than £10, the manufacture or sale, 



