Domestic Life.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 378, 6 August 1903, Page 7

Domestic Life.

t j OHILDEEN WHO SMOKE, H|T is apparent to everyone that HP the cheap and nasty cigarette ■"* is In high favor to-day, writes J. B. Johnson in the • Daily Mail.' It has supplanted the lollypop and the brandy ball in the mouths of oar boys. The youngster of to-day, be he public school boy or purveyor of evening papers, spends his ultimate penny in these cloudy luxuries. The great tobacco firms recognise hit wants and are by no means above his custom. Indeed, it is possible he is their biggest client. When a Chancellor of the Exchequer etates that the large, increase .in the revenue from tobacco is accounted for by the enormous extent of juvenile smoking, it will be understood that the urchin is no small consumer. Special machinery has been devised to cope with his demands. I have been recently Informed that one firm alone employs 60 machines, and that each machine turns out 200,000 cigarettes a day, the weekly output running into millions. The tuck-shop finds it worth while to invest in the necessary license for the sale of penny packets, and the automac maohines assist in their distribution. It is difficult to understand the fascination which the cigarette undoubtedly exercises over children not yet in their teens. Having commenced in a show of bravado, or in imitation oi a bigger companion, the small boy seems rapidly to become an enthusiast. To the children of the slums—the waifs and strays of the streets—the chance' stump of a cigar or the unconsumed half inch of cigarette is often welcome as an appeaser of hunger. For tobacco abates the natural appetite for food; But that the mere boj should prefer his rank packet of weeds to its value in dates or roast chestnuts is evidence of some sinister fascination. For he derives no benefit from his smoke. Physically it tends to his depravity. There is no definite lesion—no ostensible disease-—no visible deformity arising from the habit. The 'fag' is a small thing, and it gradually accomplishes its results. The constant repetition of the small thing tells. It is tobacco versus the growing child. The delicate tissues and processes .of his. tender organism are stunted and warped by the constant absorption of the toxic agent. For hie penny—previous to the advent of the oigarette—the half starved waif at any rate obtained a modicum of nourishment—a few ounces of flavored sugar or of baked fruit and flour. Today his undersized form and wizened features proclaim his deterioration. A high medical authority attached to one of the best known of our provinoial hospitals for children ascribes the prematurely aged and weary appearance of the children of one of our largest cities to the prevailing habit of cigarette smoking. This is the deliberately expressed judgment of a scientifically trained observer. Medical opinion has always consistently condemned tobacco smoking by the young, and the evil is not lessened but rather enormously increased by the facilities and opportunities which the oigarette offers. At Yale University an investigation upon one class of students afforded remarkable results. Comparisons are noted for eight, years between smokers and non-smokers. As compared with the smokers, the non smokers gained 24 per cent, in weight, 37 per cent, in height, 43 per cent, in girth and 8.36 cubic inches in lung expansion, So marked was the 'dwarfing' effect of tobacco upon growing lads. It is small wonder that the legislatures of 38 States of North America prohibit the sale of tobacco to lads under the ages of sixteen or eighteen, or that the social committee of the Norwegian Storthing has drafted a drastic measure against the sale of tobacco to children in towns, author- ' ising the police to take from the hands of boys "pipes and tobacco 0 'found?in their possession; or that ~f: several Continental . Governments ' ■ provide simitar restraints.