A strong and healthy boy has the ball at his feet.
Sir William Broadbent, the great doctor, and Professor Sims Woodhead have both told us what bad effects tobacco smoking has on the health of boys. Numerous well-known sportsmen and others in all kinds of professions have given up the use of tobacco as they find they can do better without it. Lord Roberts and Lord Wolseley as soldiers, Lord Charles Beresford as a sailor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the judge, Sir William Grantham, all do not smoke, nor do Dr. Grace the cricketer, Mr. Noble and seven of the chief Australian cricketers, Mr. Eustace Miles the champion tennis player, Basset the football player, Hanlon the sculler, Weston the pedestrian, Taylor the golf player, Burnham the scout, Selous the hunter, and very many other celebrated men. They are all non-smokers.
The railway and post office authorities in America will not employ boys who smoke. I know one big employer who not only does not smoke, but will not employ a boy who does. So with a great many other employers in Great Britain. In Japan no boy under twenty is allowed to smoke, and if he does his parents are taken up and fined.
Professor Osler, in speaking against tobacco, said it would be a good thing if all the beer and spirits in England could be thrown into the sea one day, and if, on the second day, you dumped all the tobacco there too it would be very good for everyone in England—although unhealthy for the fish.
No boy ever began smoking because he liked it, but generally because either he feared being chaffed by the other boys as afraid to smoke, or because he thought that by smoking he would look like a great man—when all the time he only looks like a little ass.
So don't funk, but just make up your own mind for yourself that you don't mean to smoke till you are grown up; and stick to it. That will show you to be a man much more than any slobbering about with a half-smoked cigarette between your lips. The other fellows will in the end respect you much more, and will probably in many cases secretly follow your lead. If they do this you will already have done a good thing in the world, although you are only a boy. From that small start you will most probably go on and do big things as you grow up.
DRINKING.
A priest in the East End of London has lately stated that out of a thousand cases of distress known to him only two or three were not caused by drink.
A soldierly-looking man came up to me one night and brought out his discharge certificates, showing that he had served with me in South Africa. He said he could get no work, and he was starving. Every man's hand was against him, apparently because he was a soldier. My nose and eyes told me in a moment another tale, and that was the real cause of his being in distress.