WHY BOYS SHOULD NOT SMOKE.
By A. C. Morrow
THE use of tobacco is expensive. Money paid out for the filthy weed is worse than wasted. Think of it—one billion of dollars spent every year, and for what? To degrade men mentally, morally, and physically. We said to a young man one evening:— "Are you going to take Mary to hear Gough to-night?" "No, I cannot afford it. The tickets are fifty cents." "How many cigars do you smoke in a day?" "Ten cents apiece for them. I like a good one." "Twenty cents a day for five days is just one dollar." "I never thought of that. But I could never give up my cigar." The money spent on tobacco would not only enable young men to enjoy innocent amusements and give pleasure to those they love, but would beautify their homes, furnish them with libraries, and enable them to save against a day of adversity or need. Franklin's maxim, "A penny saved is two pence earned," is never more true than when used in connection with such a useless article as tobacco. Many who are victims of tobacco, and indulge in its use in the presence of women and children and non-smokers, might be surprised to hear themselves designated as thieves, but they certainly deprive others of a gift which they have no right to purloin. Neal Dow says: "Men whose moral sense is dulled by the tobacco habit do not even consider that people have a right to pure, fresh air, so important to their comfort and health, and they poison it with tobacco smoke. The pure air is as much their right as the purse in their pockets; and the forcibly taking it away by the tobacco smoker is as much stealing, in the moral sense, as picking the pocket." Then, tobacco is a poison, just as surely as strychnine or arsenic. It is more dangerous than either of these, because its baneful influence is not so quickly felt. But it enfeebles the body, weakens the memory, dims the sight, impairs the taste and the smell, deadens the nerves, deranges the digestion, tends to insanity, and, used excessively, causes terrible diseases. We know one man who, from the constant use of tobacco, suffered agonies from a cancer on his lip and in his mouth, which entirely ate away his tongue, and he died a lingering, horrible death. One man, a great smoker and chewer, smoked fifty cigars, for which he paid seventeen cents apiece, in less than a week. He not only burned $8.50, but was prostrated by a disease similar in character to delirium tremens. Tobacco not only injures the body and deadens the sensibilities, and blunts the moral sense, but it is the primary cause of the death of thousands of persons every year. A young man, only nineteen years of age, stood one Saturday evening in Schenectady on a bridge looking into the abyss below, and laughing and talking with a friend. He was offered a chew of tobacco, and accepted it. In a few moments he became dizzy, and, turning to go home, lost his balance, and fell a distance of many feet to the rocks below. He was carried93home, but never recovered consciousness, and died the victim of a single chew of tobacco. Boys, never begin the habit which is sure to result in some evil, and may cause you a sorrow which shall be everlasting.—A. C. Morrow, in Christian at Work.