Nicotiana 291 



perfect love of tobacco. How many smokers cannot 

 say: 



' The aroma of that stolen whifF 

 Comes back upon my mind 

 E'en now as vividly as if 

 'Twere borne upon the wind I 



' Another — and expressions fail — 



'Twere better not to try, 

 For turning hot by turns and pale 

 Methought that I should die.' 

 Or: 



' Dark night closed in around me, 

 Rayless, without a star ; 

 Grim Death, I thought, had found me, 

 And spoiled my first cigar.' 



Anti- tobacconists argue from the repugnance of the 

 stomach to tobacco, and that it is only by degrees 

 and in time it can be used with pleasure, that smoking 

 is harmful and obnoxious to nature. The same 

 argument applies with at least equal force to sailing ; 

 sea-sickness is harder to be overcome than the intoler- 

 ance of the stomach to tobacco, and yet no one 

 doubts the benefits to be derived from a sea-voyage. 



To smoke is one of the delights of the schoolboy, 

 none the less sweet because forbidden. By degrees 

 he acquires the habit, until, by the time he is arrived 

 at man's estate, he is proficient in ' the most gentle- 

 manlike assumption of tobacco.' Of late years the 

 increase of smoking among young boys has been very 

 great. The cheapness of cigarettes and the prevailing 

 precocity of youth are the factors in this increase. 

 Before cigarettes were to be obtained at five a penny 

 the boy had his first smoke from a pipe or cigar. 



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