The Boy and the Cigarette.
THE City Council of Oakland last night passed an ordinance making it a misdemeanor for boys under sixteen years of age to smoke cigarettes in any public place. . . . It was brought out in the testimony before the Oakland Council that a great many boys who attend the public schools are in the habit of smoking cigarettes. These are not the only ones. But the principal of the High School and other teachers had observed the pernicious practice and testified that the habit has a deleterious effect on the mental development of the boys. There is a loss of memory and inability to fix the mind steadily on subjects of study. In short, the boy who smokes cigarettes is in a bad way. There is nothing new in these revelations. But the evil had become so great and obtrusive that something was required to be done. The prohibition of cigarette smoking in the streets by small boys is a very good sanitary regulation, and one having some regard for decency. It will hardly go far enough to reform the boy who is addicted to smoking cigarettes. Indeed it may well be doubted whether he is not already past reform. . . . In ninety cases out of every hundred, the boy who gets the habit of smoking cigarettes once fixed on him will never amount to anything. . . . He will in most instances have a weak brain, a lack of stamina, and will fall into the ranks of dullards.—San Francisco Bulletin, Aug. 17, 1886.