You see the long, low heap of sand thrown up by the waves. Beyond is the sea looking toward Rockaway. Behind the bar is a long pool of still water, and you can see how the waves, in pushing the sand forward, drove it into the pool in long fingers, or capes. See the sea-weed and rubbish thrown up by the surf. It is all sorted out, the larger pieces at the top, and the smaller bits trailing along toward the pool. All the light sand is arranged by itself next the pool of still water. This bar was thrown up on top of the beach by a storm, yet it serves to show how the sand-bars made under water look. Even on shore you can hear the bars roaring and moaning all day and night, as the great work of the sea goes on, never stopping, never hurrying, for centuries after centuries.
[ON CIGARETTE SMOKING.]
BY AN OLD SMOKER
I am an old smoker, that is past all doubt; but I was a young smoker as well. I can remember my first smoke as if it was but yesterday. It was a fine day in June, and I was about twelve years old. Three of us, all at about the same advanced period of life, felt a noble ambition to show ourselves men as soon as possible, and we concluded that, while it might do for girls to spend their money on candies and pies, every boy who had any self-respect would prefer the manly pleasure of a smoke.
We raised about a quarter among us, and bought three clay pipes and some tobacco. We began to show our manliness at recess. We got behind the school-house, into the nook of an old snake fence, and lit our pipes.
The results were terrible. I do not mean the mere flogging we all got for not being back in school after recess, for in those good old days a flogging more or less was a thing of no importance. I mean the agony of head and stomach we endured during this first attempt at manly enjoyments. I remember how we saw each other getting paler and paler, how our caps distressed us, how our neckties seemed to choke us, and how a cold perspiration broke out, how we hung limp and feeble over the fence, and how we finally lay upon the grass thinking that our last moments were approaching.
We did not any of us die, however, and in my case at least much good was accomplished. My ambitious views were checked, and I never could bear the smell of tobacco for full ten years.
There is plenty of evidence to show that the use of tobacco by boys at the time when they ought to be growing absolutely stunts their growth. It undoubtedly hurts their digestion. Dr. Hammond says that tobacco impairs both sight and hearing, and that he has seen several instances of boys having their eyes seriously, if not incurably, injured by smoking.
It should always be borne in mind that many things which a full-grown man can do without hurting himself may be very harmful to the growing boy, who requires all his powers to promote his physical development. I therefore do not say, "Take a vow never to touch tobacco," but I do say, "Never touch it until you are old enough to know whether you can use it without injury to yourself."