p. 573 | Health and Temperance by Rev. A. Sims

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 36.

Health and Temperance.

By Rev. A. Sims

Smoking and Chewing.

"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Matt. 7: 12.

SHOULD all other arguments fail to produce a reformation in the conduct of tobacco consumers, there is one which is addressed to good breeding and benevolence, which, for the sake of politeness and humanity, should prevail. Consider how disagreeable your custom is to those who do not follow it, an atmosphere of tobacco effluvia surrounds you wherever you go. Every article about you smells of it; your apartments, your clothes, and even your breath. Nor is there a smell in nature more disagreeable than that of stale tobacco, arising in various exhalations from the human body, rendered still more offensive by passing through the pores, and becoming strangely impregnated with the noxious matter which was before insensibly perspired.

"Some of the most disagreeable things relative to the practice against which I have been writing, are still behind the curtain, and designedly detained there; and it is there alone where I wish every persevering smoker to seek for a certain vessel named the spitting dish, which, to the abuse of all good breeding, and the insult of all delicate feeling, is frequently introduced into public company. May they and their implements, while engaged in this abominable work, be ever kept out of sight."—Dr. A. Clarke.

The annoyance and insult to which railway travelers and others are frequently subjected, shows that the acquirement has not mended their manners. The very presence of heavy smokers in a crowded and heated assembly, with nature at work to expel the nicotine from their insulted bodies, makes the whole company suffer from the loathsome nuisance. Smokers are (most of them) selfish and disagreeable; they have but little regard for the comfort of others. They have only to remember their own unpleasant feelings when learning to smoke, to be convinced how disgusting the weed is to those who do not use it; yet the average smoker will puff his abominable fumes under your very nose, with an air of indifference as sublime as if he were diffusing the aroma of roses.

The unseemly pipe and cigar, the sucking and puffing, the selfish insolence of the smoker in forcing the poisonous smoke, after having been in his dirty mouth and diseased lungs, into the clothes, food, and drink, into the apartments, faces, mouths, and lungs, of clean persons, ladies and children especially, may be fashionable, but, to say the least, it is not in harmony with the golden rule thus to insult society. Why are these sickening presentations viewed with so little manifestation of disgust, even by the refined? Mostly because we are used to them—they are popular and fashionable.

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, That to be hated needs but to be seen; But seen too oft familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

Why are not these unclean persons put aside from society for the same reason that dead animals are removed from the sidewalks in our cities?

Instead of tobacco-using tending to make one more sociable, it operates in just the other way; "it is, on the whole, an enemy to good fellowship;" for, in the first place, it is a pleasure that the husband rigidly confines to himself. What minister would like to see his wife with a pipe in her mouth? But if it be a good thing for the husband, why should it not be so for the wife? Women have to endure more physical suffering than men, and why should not they fly to the consolation (?) of the pipe as well as their husbands? In all respectable society, however, smoking by women is considered an indecency.

But we contend that if the husband really believes smoking to be a beneficial habit, he ought to teach the woman whom he has sworn to love, honor, and respect, to contract the habit! What right has he to confine the enjoyment to himself? Why should not his wife share it with him? But no; if she, poor creature, were to attempt such a thing, he would abuse her as "low," "vulgar," and "a disgrace to her sex!" In this respect the habit does not unite, but separates.

And there is another aspect of this question, to which fidelity compels us to advert. Look at the large sum of money annually spent on tobacco by thousands of working men, and others in humble circumstances! Money that could be usefully spent in providing the household with the comforts of life. And let me ask, What sublime development is there of the social principle in a man's thus robbing his wife and children of what would do much to add to their comfort? This is not society, but selfishness. Besides, our everyday experience shows us that the pipe divides instead of unites society. In company the smoker is an abomination, who must be turned into a separate room. He must seek a retreat in some obscure nook, where his nauseous fumes will not offend the nostrils of the other members of the party. And when he returns from his banishment to the general circle, the stench that he brings with him makes many keep at a distance from him. And yet if he were compelled to pass a whole afternoon and evening without a pipe or quid, he would be moody and restless, and one would be scarcely able to get a civil answer from him! Wherever we go we are reminded that smoking is the foe of good fellowship. In places of public amusement, how often does the announcement "No smoking allowed!" meet the eye. On some railways they provide cars for the principal trains, into which the smokers may be turned as a sheep into a pen, and such cars are accordingly labeled "For smokers!" Thus everywhere the poor smoker goes about, Cain-like, with the brand of "a pest to society" written on his brow.—Rev. A. Sims.