CIGARET FIENDS by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 28, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 26.

CIGARET FIENDS.

By T.

IN the National Conference of Charities recently held in Cincinnati, the Hon. Mr. Torrance, General Superintendent of the Illinois Reformatory, said:—

"On the first day of this month we had 278 boys between the ages of 10 and 15. Of 63 of this number, with the average age of 12, 58 were cigaret smokers; of 133 of them, with the average age of 14, 125 were cigaret smokers; 82 were 15 years of age, of whom 73 were cigaret smokers.

"This demonstrates that 92 per cent. of the whole number were in the habit of smoking cigarets at the time they committed the crimes for which they were sent to the Reformatory; but even more astonishing is the fact that 85 per cent. had become so addicted to their use as to be classed at the time as 'cigaret fiends.'

"My statement that the cigaret is working much more injury to the young than intoxicating liquors may be challenged, but I repeat it, feeling confident of its correctness. To emphasize it, I will say tenfold more injury. If the application were made to the adult, or the young man over 15, it would not be true, but I am speaking of the young boy—the boy under 15—not yet a vagrant or criminal. But a small per cent. of the boys under 15 have yet used intoxicating liquors; not 15 per cent. of those we get, to the extent that it has worked them serious harm. The use of intoxicating liquor is to be condemned; it destroys manhood, destroys homes, beggars wives and children and fills jails, penitentiaries and reformatories, but not to one-tenth the extent of the cigaret does it start the boy from 10 to 15 on the way to become a criminal. Stealthily but persistently this habit of cigaret-smoking is entering many homes and sapping the vitality and manhood of the pride of a father and mother, while they, unconscious of it, are thanking God that their son does not loiter around the saloon."

Tobacco-using has come to be an almost universal habit. And, as Mr. Torrance suggests, it is one of the most potent influences in starting young men in the way of strong drink. The combined influence of these nerve-destroying and soul-destroying evils are working sad havoc with the rising generation. And how can any Christian aid in destroying our boys and girls by setting before them the evil example of tobacco-using? O, may we not put the question still stronger, Can any one be a Christian and use tobacco? Certainly the streets of the New Jerusalem will never be defiled by either the smoke or the expectorated juice of the filthy weed.