Gentlemen and Tobacco by Edward P. Jones

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 24, 1884

Gentlemen and Tobacco

By Edward P. Jones

IT is interesting, but not always pleasant, to sit at the window of my studio and notice the different phases of humanity as they pass upon the street. There goes a young man—a gentleman—smoking a cigar. Yes, he would pass for a gentleman. He looks clean, wears fine clothes, doffs his hat to young ladies, and walks with a firm, manly step. Now there comes another—a man smoking an old, weather-beaten pipe. The man looks weather-beaten, too. I knew him ten years ago, when he was as much a gentleman as the one who just passed. But now his clothes look rough and dirty, his nerves are shattered, his step has lost its firmness and elasticity. He gives the ladies a whiff of smoke instead of a bow; he is negligent and slovenly in his habits, and would pass for an ordinary man—very ordinary, and filthy too. Of all bad habits, none so conduce to uncleanness and to a disregard for the rights of others, none so surely destroy the gentleman, as the use of tobacco. Young men who are scrupulously neat in person and attire when they first commence, and who for a long time use it so cautiously that few of their friends detect them, are seen a few years later with the black streaks on their lips and black stains on their garments, and as they grow careless in person they become indifferent to those obligations toward others which are enjoined by common politeness. Cautious at first not to offend, they gradually abandon restraint, and finally lose altogether that nice sense of propriety which marks the true gentleman in all the relations of life. Nothing more forcibly demonstrates the demoralizing influence of tobacco than the carelessness it engenders in this respect. It is the bane of good manners. Ladies and gentlemen cannot walk the streets without being compelled to inhale its sickening fumes. The smoker cannot walk the street without causing discomfort to others. But he soon learns to think of himself alone, and ignores the possibility of offending. The baneful habit blunts all the finer feelings of his nature, and drives him through all restraints—expressed or implied. These tobacco-users may talk about their rights, but they have no right to impose upon the rights of others. Every individual owes to society a certain amount of attention to his personal appearance. He has no right to make himself repulsive to those with

Gentlemen and Tobacco.

whom he comes in contact. He has no right to be a nuisance or a fraud. He has no right to gratify evil passions, or indulge in error or vice. The world has a claim to the services of a true manhood, and to attempt to fill the bill with a wreck of tobacco or strong drink, is downright robbery! The smokers are a big crowd, but they smell bad, and that is improper; they spit, and that is nasty; they are nervous, and that is unmanly. We would shun smoking-girls, because we like them sweet and clean, and they would like us sweet and clean. But they try to be agreeable—even to smokers—and keep still about the horrid breath. But if smoking wasn’t so common they would let us know that their noses are as good as ours. I know that fashion tolerates it, and even sanctions it. Nothing is too absurd to be approved by her tyrannic majesty. But fashion is a fool, and a very foolish fool at that. If the young were taught that what is wrong for girls is wrong for boys; if boys would never permit an act in themselves which they would be ashamed to have their sisters see or imitate; if young women would require in marriage that purity which they are ready to give in return; if husbands and fathers were as pure as wives and mothers are expected to be; if, in short, we had a single code of morals for both sexes, I think that tobacco would be less fashionable; fashion would be less vulgar; men would be more manly, and we should all feel better, happier, and more noble.—Edward P. Jones.