The Smoking Nuisance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 25, 1886

The Smoking Nuisance.

IN commenting upon an order recently issued forbidding smoking in the corridors and vestibules of the White House, the Pittsburg, Pa., Commercial Gazette makes the following sensible remarks:—

“All who wish to enjoy their cigars or pipes are, by common consent, permitted the use of the street for that purpose; but what is a great enjoyment to them is a very serious annoyance to many, and an intolerable nuisance to not a few. A decent regard for the comfort of those who do not smoke should prompt all well-bred persons to do their puffing somewhere else than on the public thoroughfares.

“If it be scarcely permissible, then, by the rules of good-breeding, to smoke in the streets of a crowded city, is smoking at railway stations, in public buildings, and at other places at which persons of all ages and both sexes are compelled to visit, to be tolerated as a privilege which must not be interfered with? Are the approaches to our post-offices, our court-houses, our places of amusement, and even our temples of worship, to be crowded with men and boys belching forth clouds of tobacco smoke, and yet no protest be heard from those to whom the fumes of the weed are disgusting and poisonous? When it comes down to a question of right, the person who puffs tobacco smoke in the face of either man or woman, is a trespasser, as well as a boor.

“There is a good deal of democratic toleration in this country, especially as regards conduct in and around public places; but among persons of culture and refinement, there is a well-recognized boundary which should not be overstepped. There is a moral as well as a conventional side to this question; and those who claim the right to smoke, should be careful to exercise that right in such a manner as not to interfere with the right or comfort of others. If this rule were more rigidly adhered to, smoking in public would be much rarer than it is.”