“HOW MUCH?”—AMOUNT IN THE WORLD.—“SIAMESE TWINS.”—A MIGHTY ARMY.—ITS NAME AND NATIVITY.—A DONKEY RIDE.—LITTLE BREECHES.—WHIPPING SCHOOL GIRLS AND BOYS TO MAKE THEM SMOKE.—TOM’S LETTER.—“PURE SOCIETY.”—HOW A YOUNG MAN WAS “TOOK IN.”—DELICIOUS MORSELS.—THE STREET NUISANCE.—A SQUIRTER.—ANOTHER.—IT BEGETS LAZINESS.—NATIONAL RUIN.—BLACK EYES.—DISEASE AND INSANITY.—USES OF THE WEED.—GETS RID OF SUPERFLUOUS POPULATION.—TOBACCO WORSE THAN RUM.—THE OLD FARMER’S DOG AND THE WOODCHUCK.—“WHAT KILLED HIM.”
How much?
Do you know how much money is being squandered to-day, in the United States, in the filthy, health-destroying use of tobacco?
No.
Only $410,958! That’s all.
In Commissioner Wells’s report, it is shown that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, the amount received from the tax on chewing and smoking tobacco was, in round numbers, fifteen million dollars. Add to this the cost of production, and dealers’ profits, which are five times more than the revenue tax, amounting to seventy-five million dollars. The number of cigars taxed was six hundred millions. It is calculated as many more are used through smuggling, making a grand total yearly expenditure in the United States of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars for tobacco alone!
THE IDOL OF TOBACCO USERS.
Give me $410,958 a day, and I will go into the pauper houses of these United States, and bring forth every pauper child; I will go down into the dark, damp cellars, and away into the cobweb-hung attics, and bring forth every ragged child of crime and poverty. I will take all these little bread-and-gospel-starved children, feed, clothe, and send them to school and Sabbath school, the year round, with $410,958 a day.
Christian ministers and professors, think of it! Young men and boys, think of it!