Arithmetic Applied to Tobacco.
By Van Horn
COULD the young man who is rolling the first morsel of tobacco under his tongue, realize the immense drain he is about establishing on his system and pocket, he would turn from the grim idol with disgust. It is a much-quoted saying that "figures will not lie," and we will spend a few minutes applying them to the subject under consideration. After a chewer has become "rooted and grounded" in his habit, he will spit, on an average, twice in five minutes, and half a teaspoonful at a time, making 24 expectorations in an hour, or about 240 in a day, which will amount to 120 drachms, or about a pint. This will give 360 pints, or 45 gallons in a year, almost 1½ barrels! If his vitality withstands this drain for 50 years, he will have lost 2,250 gallons, or over 71 barrels, enough to fill a good-sized cistern! Estimating a pint as weighing a pound, he will lose 7 pounds per week, or 365 a year, and 18,250 pounds, or over 9 tons, in 50 years. Can we wonder that the devotee of tobacco is thin and haggard-looking, when we consider that he spits away his own weight in less than six months? Let us make another calculation. After fully forming the habit, he will chew about 2 inches of light plug per day. For convenience, we will say 1 foot per week, or 52 feet in a year, which will amount in 50 years to 2,600 feet, or nearly half a mile. At present prices, this is worth 2 cents per inch, which gives the neat little sum of $624, which if deposited in the saving's bank instead of the tobacconist's till, would have given the chewer a fine farm, instead of 18 or 20 bushels of useless quids. But, suppose the man is a smoker and indulges in cigars. Very moderately, we will say only 3 per day, each 4 inches long, and costing 2 cents apiece. Each day he will consume 1 foot of tobacco, at an expense of 6 cents, or 7 feet in a week, 30 per month, and 365 feet per year, costing $21,90; in 50 years he will burn 18,250 feet, which would make a cigar 3½ miles long, costing $1,095. Set upon end, that cigar would extend beyond the top of Mount Blanc! We might calculate the time spent in taking a chew, or lighting a cigar, and prove that it would be sufficient, if rightly spent, to give a man a thorough knowledge of several sciences; but at present we push our inquiries no further.—Van Horn, in Presbyterian Witness.