Perhaps this is a dangerous subject for any one to touch upon, and yet there are a few things still to be said on the subject of smoking to which any respectable person should be willing to listen. Many a young man does not understand why his parents do not wish him to smoke, still less why he is told by these persons that it is wicked or immoral or wrong for him to smoke. As a matter of fact smoking in itself is neither wrong nor immoral nor wicked. To some people it is physically injurious, but they soon find that out, and are obliged by their doctors to give it up. If it is not in any way injurious to you, or to me, or to another person, there is no reason why we should not smoke, except that if you are fond of out-door exercise, if you have an ambition to get on an athletic team, if you look forward to college days when you hope to be a member of some class or varsity team, it is wiser for your own interest that you should not smoke. And the reason is not far to seek.
When a man has been running and breathes hard he is said to be "winded." That is merely a term, however. The fact of the case is that the action of the heart is increased. This sends the blood through his body much faster than usual, and he is obliged to draw air much more frequently into his lungs in order to do the extra work of purifying this blood which moves so much faster than usual. When you smoke, the nicotine in the tobacco has an effect on your nerves, which in turn affects the heart, not at all seriously perhaps, but, at the same time, if you run shortly after smoking, there is still more exaggerated action in the heart, and this requires still quicker breathing. Hence trainers say that a man who smokes injures his wind.
Now it is a law of athletic training that one cannot really get into condition in a month or two. To prepare for a football game on Thanksgiving, one must begin the 1st of December the year before—not the 1st of October of that year. In other words, if you wish to be a member of a 'varsity team you must keep yourself more or less in training not only during your four years at college, but during the years preceding your college course. As a result any sensible person will say that although smoking may be in no way harmful in itself, it is wiser and more to your own interest, if you have any out-door or in-door athletic ambitions, not to smoke until those ambitions are satisfied.
Then there is another side to smoking. A habit of any kind is a very difficult thing to give up. If you form a habit of taking a cold bath every morning, it is hard to break it. If you form a habit of reading only the best books, it is almost impossible to read anything else. If you form a habit of drinking whiskey, it is quite as difficult, but not much more so, to break that. In like manner the habit of smoking is a difficult thing to break up. I do not believe it is any easier to get into the habit of smoking than it is to get into the habit of taking a cold bath every morning. Each is a habit, and only becomes injurious, and then does become injurious, when it grows stronger than your own will. Yet the cold bath may not be healthy any more than is the smoking. Therefore if you have any ambition of any kind to keep yourself in physical condition do not smoke, or do anything that will injure your physical condition. If, however, you decide to take up smoking for one reason or another if it does not injure you physically, the smoking itself may be perfectly right and proper. When, however, you grow to feel that at certain times in the day you must smoke, then the thing is bad, and should be stopped at once. In other words, smoking is not an offence against the Bible, as some people seem to think, but it may, and often is, an offence against health. Whenever health is endangered by it, therefore, keep clear of it.
[THE STORY OF THE ARMY MULE'S LAST KICK.]
There was an experiment tried at a Western fort many years ago, the results of which were never recorded at the War Department. The story is somewhat as follows:
One windy afternoon the Colonel, a fat pudgy little fellow, but a capital Indian-fighter, one of his captains, a long, lanky New-Englander, with whiskers and a drawl, and one of the sergeants were conversing together, every now and then glancing furtively at a solitary mule that was silently wearing the grass off the earth with his mouth.
"Waal, Colonel," drawled the Captain, "I like your scheme, and I reckon I'd try—" But just then the mule reached out with one of his hind legs in the direction of the talker in such an exceedingly suggestive manner that the Captain hastily backed into the Colonel. The Sergeant prevented the two men of war from falling by putting his shoulder to them, which position made the three look like an Egyptian pyramid, minus the sphinx—unless you included the mule for that purpose.
The Colonel's idea was that gun-carriages were useless in Indian fights, and if a howitzer were strapped upon an army mule's back, with the muzzle towards the tail, and loaded with ball-cartridge, the results that would accrue would be disastrous for the Indians.