“In France, the increase in cases of lunacy and paralysis keeps pace, almost in exact ratio, with the increase of the revenue from tobacco. From 1812 to 1832, the tobacco tax yielded 28,000,000f., and there were 8000 lunatic patients. Now the tobacco revenue is 180,000,000f., and there are 44,000 paralytic and lunatic patients in French asylums. Napoleon and Eugenie, assisted by their subjects, smoked out five million pounds of tobacco the year before they went on their travels. Take notice. As ye sow, so also reap.”
Sir Benjamin Brodie, before quoted, says, “Occasionally tobacco produces a general nervous excitability, which in a degree partakes of the nature of delirium tremens.”
The Meerschaum. A Sonnet.
“The gorgeous glories of autumnal dyes;
The golden glow that haloes rare old wine;
The dying hectic of the day’s decline;
The rainbow radiance of auroral skies;
The blush of Beauty, smit with Love’s surprise;
The unimagined hues in gems that shine,—
All these, O Nicotina, may be thine!
But what of thy bewildered votaries?
How fares it with the more precious human clay?
Keeps the lip pure, while wood and ivory stains?
Stays the sight clear, while smoke obscures the day?
Works the brain true, while poison fills the veins?
Shines the soul fair where Tophet-blackness reigns?
Let shattered nerves declare! Let palsied manhood say!”
J. Ives Pease.
Uses and Abuses of Tobacco.
In our opening remarks on tobacco, we stated some of the uses of tobacco, such as killing bugs and lice on plants, vermin on cattle, etc. It prevents cannibals from eating up our poor sailors; and, in the Mexican war, it was ascertained that the turkey buzzards would not eat our dead soldiers who were impregnated with tobacco!
Dean Swift published a pamphlet, in his day, showing how the superfluity of poor children could be made an article of diet for landlords who had already consumed the parents’ substance. All may not admit that there is a superfluity of children and youth in the larger towns and cities of our country. A New York paper says that “five thousand young men might leave New York city without being missed.” Now for our argument. “Like begets like.” The lamb feeds upon pure hay or sweet grass. It is the emblem of purity; it represented Christ. The lion and tiger have only tearing teeth, and subsist upon animal food, and they are of a wild, ferocious nature. Man stuffs himself with tobacco poison. It becomes a part of him,—muscle, blood, bone! Like begets like, and behold the tobacco-user’s children, puny, yellow, pale, scrofulous, rickety, and consumptive. Many years ago it was estimated that twenty thousand persons died annually in the United States from the use of tobacco. Nine tenths begin with tobacco catarrh, go on to consumption, and death.
“The diseased, enfeebled, impaired, and rotten constitution of the parent is transmitted to the child, which comes into the world an invalid, and then, being exposed more directly to the poisonous effects of this pernicious habit of the parent, its struggle for life is exceedingly short, and in less than twelve months from its birth it sickens, droops, and dies, and the milkman’s adulterated milk, especially in cities, is often made the scape-goat for this uncleanly, if not sinful habit of the parent.”
If it is true that the wicked mostly make up the tobacco-consumers, you perceive by this, that like the prisons and gallows, tobacco catches and kills off the superfluous wicked population and their offspring. The sins of the parents are visited upon their children, and what a host of puny, wretched, and wicked little children tobacco helps to rid the world of. Selah!