The Effects of Cigarette Smoking
WHAT sight more common than half a dozen boys, lads and young men smoking cigarettes on the platform of a bob-tail car? And what more trying to one's nerves than the filthy odors they puff into the car and over the other passengers? Ten years of this almost universal habit have left their mark in the sunken eyes, the pallid faces, the weak nerves and the flabby muscles of these so-called men. That many of them find no real enjoyment in the practice is shown by their habit of spitting. Aside from the vulgarity and nastiness of this muscular exercise is the detriment it does the general system. No man—certainly no growing boy—can expectorate constantly without injuring himself. Bootblacks, messenger boys, school-children, clerks, smoke and spit, smoke and spit, as together in a great and multitudinous army they move along towards idiocy and imbecility. What a cheerful prospect it is, to be sure!” — N. Y. Herald.