p. 16 | THE CIGARET EVIL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 24, 1900

THE CIGARET EVIL.

A COMMITTEE of medical men in great London have investigated the ubiquitous cigaret, and found it harmless; it produces no "injury to health." That is what the smoker says. But one paper in New York City calls the following, reported in the press of that city, as a part of the cigaret harvest for a little more than a year:—

Driven insane by cigarets, 30 Robbery inspired by cigarets, 12 Suicide the result of cigarets, 6 Murder caused by cigarets, 6 Killed by excessive use of cigarets, 3 Convulsions caused by cigarets, 2 Blindness from cigarets, 1 Total, 60

This paper furthermore declares that it can furnish to this medical committee, "names, dates, and circumstances connected with every one of the above cases. We would inform the committee, further, that many of our most brutal and notable murders have been inspired by cigarets." Were the members of this committee paid to furnish such an opinion, or were they themselves thralls to the habit?

In a reformatory in Pontiac, Ill., it is said that "out of 63 boys 12 years old, 58 smoked; of 133 boys 14 years old, 125 smoked; and out of 82 boys 15 years old, 73 were smokers."

The cigaret habit is evil and only evil. The nicotine is deadly poison, and it is not the only evil that dwells in the little roll of tobacco. Nervous diseases without number spring from their use; conscience is benumbed; intellect is dulled; the physical powers are weakened and dwarfed; drinking, gambling, bestiality, and criminality follow in the cigaret train. All doctors, praise God, are not alike.