Boys and Tobacco | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 40.

Boys and Tobacco.

In the interlude to one of his lectures, Joseph Cook of Boston said some excellent things concerning the use of tobacco by minors; he also suggested a fact which ought to rest with great weight upon the mind of every man, when he considers his influence over the boys around him. Mr. Cook said:—

“Can a good man with a cigar in his mouth talk effectively to a boy with a cigarette in his mouth?”

“A hundred times, No! As to the tobacco nuisance, public opinion is rising in both intelligence and sternness. It is doing this under the progress of scientific investigation, and especially under the impulse of notice which has been turned lately upon diseases caused by tobacco. It is now very well ascertained that delirium tremens may be produced by excessive indulgence in narcotics. The facts known to the medical profession as to lip and tongue cancers caused by tobacco, are too horrible to be recited before a public assembly, especially over the grave of that great soldier whose death has made Mount McGregor a sacred height.

“Our military and naval academies do not allow their pupils to use tobacco. Several colleges in the West prohibit the use of tobacco by their students. Germany has excellent laws forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors. Eighteen States in the American Union are now teaching children to abstain from alcoholics and narcotics; and my proposition is that the churches, both preachers and members, should rise at least to the secular level of the State Legislature on both these subjects.”—Light of Home.