Temperance by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 8, 1883

Temperance.

By Editor

"Selfish Brutes."

THE New York Tribune thus characterizes those who persist in smoking in public places, to the annoyance of decent people. We heartily wish that other influential journals were as outspoken in regard to this evil as the Tribune is, and that there were a Justice Morgan in every town in the land. Here is the item of good news:—

"The rights of non-smokers were very properly vindicated by the arrest of two disorderly passengers who persisted in smoking in a One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street cross-town car, on Monday night. From this, some encouragement can be derived by our wayfaring citizens, their wives and daughters, and the strangers within our gates. It is one of the serious annoyances of street-car travel, that selfish brutes insist upon smoking where smoking is not allowed, or upon carrying lighted cigars, and cigarettes, whose offensive fumes rapidly convert the atmosphere into that of a smoking-room. The management of the elevated roads took a step worthy of commendation in forbidding passengers to carry reeking cigar stubs, and still more offensive cigarettes in their cars. The officers of the surface roads should promulgate the same rule, and they should see to the enforcement of their present regulations against smoking, which are often disregarded, especially at night. If all police justices act as promptly as Justice Morgan, who on Tuesday fined these two fellows $10 each, and required them to find $300 surety for good behavior for six months, smokers will show a more general regard for the rights of others."