BREEDING OUT THE TOBACCO 
HABIT. 
THE BOY AND THE PIPE. 
Tobacco and the Boy. 
What, in your opinion, is the best way to pre¬ 
vent a growing boy or young man from using 
tobacco ? Would you try to induce abstinence by 
a rigid prohibition, enforced by punishment, or 
would you endeavor, from earliest years, to 
create a distaste for tobacco by explaining its 
physiological danger to growing youth ? In a 
great many cities, the dangerous effects of nar¬ 
cotics and stimulants are explained in the 
physiological text-books used in the public 
schools; yet, in the same cities, it is found neces¬ 
sary to pass an an i-cigarette ordinance. What 
stand would you take in the matter ? 
Circumstances Alter Cases. 
“ Circumstances alter cases,” was an 
answer I often received in reply to in¬ 
quiries in my girlhood days. I think 
that answer would apply here. Boys 
(even in the same family) cannot always 
be governed by the same rule. I should 
always try to create a distaste for 
tobacco. Our Vermont boys are taught 
from physiological text-books the dan¬ 
gerous effects of narcotics and alcohol. 
The examples constantly before the 
boys often outweigh anything taught in 
school. I think that those who supply 
the young with the stuff are the ones who 
ought to be punished. prentice. 
Vermont. 
The Selection of a Father. 
In my humble opinion, the best way 
to prevent a growing boy or young man 
from using tobacco, would be to select 
for the father and grandfather of said 
boy men who had never used the weed. 
’Tis true in this day and age of the 
world, it is by no means an easy matter 
to find such a line of ancestry ; but our 
boy comes of anti-tobacco stock, and I 
have never had any uneasiness about his 
being a slave to tobacco, or a cigarette 
fiend. In the eyes of most boys, father 
does about the proper thing ; and if he 
is a smoker or chewer, it is very, very 
hard for a mother to keep sons from tak¬ 
ing up the habit, more especially as such 
a large per cent of their young associates 
indulge in the ugly and pernicious prac¬ 
tice. 
The next best way would be to begin 
as early in life as the boy could under¬ 
stand, to teach him that the use of to¬ 
bacco in any form is a filthy practice, 
calculated to make him nervous, injure 
his memory, dwarf his stature, ruin his 
teeth and breath, and give nothing in 
return. I think that mothers gain very 
little by “ rigid prohibition, enforced by 
punishment ”. In the first place, pro¬ 
hibition, in too many cases, does not 
prohibit; if it did, our coming men 
would be perfect, or nearly so, for the 
average mother would prohibit every¬ 
thing but perfect deportment. When 
youDg America is told that he shall or 
shall not do a thing, he then and there 
decides that he wants to do it very much 
indeed and, unless he be under excel¬ 
lent control, he will try it a little bit 
anyway. After he has disobeyed, the 
ordinary punishment will have but little 
effect. Tobacco costs money, and if boys 
had to earn all their pocket money, I 
don’t believe that there would be nearly 
so many little boys, at least, using it. 
Our boy is a country lad and, of course, 
is removed from many temptations that 
assail his town associates ; but as he has 
been taught that he must earn all his 
spending money, he thinks twice before 
he lets go of it. Picking up potatoes in 
the hot sun for a penny per bushel, or 
milking, slopping hogs and bringing in 
wood and making fires for 31 per week, 
is calculated to make almost any boy 
careful. I believe that one of the great¬ 
est mistakes that parents make is in 
giving boys money just for the asking, 
and to spend for tobacco. Pay them 
liberally for the work they do, if you 
choose, but let them understand what a 
dime is worth and many a cigar or 
cigarette will stay in its box unsmoked. 
The stand I would take in the matter 
of the use of tobacco by boys is a very 
firm one. Realizing that boys are so 
unlike in disposition, there is no rule by 
which all could be governed; but with 
the right kind of an example before 
them at home by father, the scientific 
teaching of the evil effects of narcotics 
and stimulants in our common schools, 
the constant admonition and cautions 
by mother against its use, coupled with 
a little judic'ous praise for its nonuse, 
and compelling the youth to pay for his 
fun by the severest sweat of his brow, 
if he thinks of acquiring the habit, 
ought to give us a class of total abstain¬ 
ers in the near future. 
Indiana. mbs w. w. steyens. 
Creating the Demand. 
My four children were left fatherless 
six years ago ; two were boys, one of 
whom is now 17, and the other 19 years 
of age. Within the past year, the eldest 
one has taken to smoking an occasional 
cigar. The boys have been warned 
against the evils of tobacco from their 
earliest youth. I did not have occasion 
to punish them then, as they did not use 
tobacco in any form. I always read to 
them, or got them to read for themselves, 
all of the deaths or calamities caused by 
cigarette smoking, of which there are 
so many accounts in the daily papers. 
But they do not give them a second 
thought, as they know of boys of their 
own ages who use the cigarettes con¬ 
stantly with, apparently, no evil effects. 
The different tobacco firms use every 
inducement to get young boys for cus¬ 
tomers A letter came this week to my 
eldest son, saying that his name was 
furnished by the merchant of this place, 
wanting him to try their particular 
brand. They also inclosed a coupon good 
for one plug of their tobacco, which he 
was to get free from his dealer, who 
sent his name. The dealer then would 
return them the coupon, for which he 
would receive 10 cents. A laudable en¬ 
terprise, wasn’t it? for a general dealer 
in a small country village. The letter 
and coupon were taken to the “store ” 
by a very indignant woman, a few ques¬ 
tions asked, and a few remarks made. I 
venture to say that the boy will receive 
no more coupons from that source. We 
live on a farm about a mile from the 
village—a very bad place for chewing 
and smoking. Sometimes I think that 
my boy has done remarkably well in 
abstaining from it so long as he has ; 
then again,I am thoroughly disheartened 
to think that all my efforts to create a 
fear and disgust for it, have come to 
naught. A very estimable woman in our 
village caught her young son chewing 
tobacco, and scrubbed his mouth out 
thoroughly with soap and water. She 
reasoned with him, whipped him, and 
did everything that she could think of 
to break him of the habit. She is dead 
now, and the boy is a man, with lips and 
teeth befouled with filthy slime. His 
love for tobacco was greater than his 
love for his mother, fanny fletcher. 
Ohio. 
Beginning With the Father. 
I should show no tolerance for the use 
of tobacco in any form. If my husband 
used it, I would begin on him before the 
boy was born, so that, when grown, I 
could use his father as a good example 
for him to follow, for I believe it much 
easier to keep a boy from using tobacco 
if his father does not approve of the 
practice. 
The very necessity of anti-cigarette 
laws proves that growing youth does 
not care a cent’s worth for “physio¬ 
logical dangers”, and you cannot make 
them. I have known boys to suffer 
torture in the way of headache, nausea, 
etc, while trying to “make men of them¬ 
selves.” They had wrong ideas on the 
subject. The dangerous effects of nar¬ 
cotics and stimulants cannot be made to 
seem so very frightful to the mind of 
the child when robust fathers, brothers, 
and neighbors use the weed with seem¬ 
ing impunity, and mothers—more’s the 
pity—smile indulgently, tacitly, if not 
openly approving. 
A rigid prohibition enforced by punish¬ 
ment, works well until the boy gets old 
enough to practice deceit, or too strong 
to be punished ; then he takes matters 
into his own hands. Right ideas and 
fixed principles are the only reliable 
safeguards a mother can give her boy. I 
would appeal to a boy’s pride. Compare 
his set of clean teeth, with the yellow, 
disgusting prongs of the tobacco user. 
Call his attention to the delightful (?) 
odor of the confirmed smoker’s breath. 
Show him some of the most disgusting 
specimens of so called manhood, who 
have tobacco juice running down their 
mouths, and at the risk of making him 
a “dude,” begin very early to teach 
him habits of personal neatness ; reward 
him, if need be, for carefully brushing 
his teeth and hair, and caring for his 
finger nails—he can understand all that, 
aDd such a boy will hesitate before de¬ 
filing his mouth with tobacco. Be de¬ 
cided in your abhorrence and scorn of 
the tobacco habit, and the smoker’s 
breath ; tell him how sorry and ashamed 
you would be to see any little boy you 
were connected with, smoke in a 
woman’s face. Convince him, if pos¬ 
sible, that tobacco in any form is dis¬ 
gusting and degrading, and leads to 
pauperism. 
With slate and pencil, have him figure 
how much even the moderate use of ‘it 
amounts to in 10 or 20 years, and then 
endeavor to impress upon his mind how 
many good and useful things that more 
than wasted money would buy, if he 
had not “burned” it. Show contempt, 
teach, talk, reiterate, till your boy gets 
an idea that any one is more fool than 
man who uses it, until he knows what 
it costs in health and money to use 
tobacco, and until he feels that he could 
not hurt his mother worse than to come 
to her with the smell of tobacco upon 
his lips; until his whole soul revolts 
against its nastiness, and he will—I 
have faith to believe—of his own free 
will, abstain from its use, and ridicule 
others for using it instead of being ridi¬ 
culed into using it himself. 
New York. mbs. c. e. chapman. 
The Father’s Influence Again. 
In the first place, I would try to influ¬ 
ence the father before the birth of the 
boy, for there is a great deal in heredity, 
and many a smoking father who does 
not approve of his boy smoking, seems 
to forget that it is simply his own habit 
reproduced in his son, and that every 
boy’s ambition, as he is growing up, is 
to “do like papa does.” This we all 
know, for children are born imitators, 
and example goes further than precept. 
No mother pointing out the “ physi¬ 
ological danger,” likes to say to her boy, 
“You must not follow your father’s 
example, it is a bad habit,” for I think 
most women are given to encouraging 
their children to consider their father 
their hero, however much they are them¬ 
selves disillusioned. So they are handi¬ 
capped by this feeling. 
It is no use to punish a child after he 
has learned to smoke. He sees doctors 
and ministers allowed to indulge, and 
draws his conclusions. But I would 
teach him from his earliest years the 
evil effects of it to growing youth, and 
as soon as he can understand, teach 
him that mother dislikes it. Such ad¬ 
monitions, given while the mother is 
first in her child’s mind as a guiding in¬ 
fluence, must have a good effect. “ Why 
does papa smoke ? ” asked a boy who 
wanted to try a cigarette. The mother 
answered, “ Because his mamma died 
when he was little, and he had no one 
to tell him it hurt him ; so don’t begin, 
my son, for papa would be better with¬ 
out it, and it is the boys who must show 
the men a better example.” 
School text-books may now and then 
impress a thoughtful boy, but the mother 
and the boy’s early companions make or 
mar the learning of the tobacco habit. 
Guard him from cigarette-smoking boys 
as you would from the smallpox, and 
teach him that the Bible in many places 
speaks of clean lips. And when all is 
told, the fault lies with the men, who 
will seldom (though I have known ex¬ 
ceptions) deny themselves for the sake 
of being safe examples to their boys. 
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being afterwards dried in the shade and 
rubbed to remove any stiffness. 
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