"THAT FILTHY TOBACCO."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9124, 4 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

"THAT FILTHY TOBACCO."

. [BY A NON-SMOKEIi.]

The lady who recently .spiced her speech with the remark that cannibals do nob eat smokers, is the author of a most effective counter blast against tobacco. We are now at the tercentenary of smoking, and to say nothing of women, it has become the chosen accompaniment of most of the seven ages of Englishmen. Elderly men remember when to smoke in tho streets or to wear a moustache was a mark of rare eccentricity. Now man and youth might almost be described as smoking animals. A GREAT COLLECTOR OF PIPES. Is this good or evil 1 I was a smoker for fifteen years, and now, although tobacco is by no means an offence to me, yet I am convinced that it yields no benefits, and that, so far as smoking has any effect, it is injurious. I did not know how world-wide the habit was until a chance meeting with that champion collector of pipes, the late Dr. Bragge, of Sheffield. He obtained lists of foreign missionaries, and used to send them money to purchase pipes of every sort, till his museum presented hundreds of varieties, yet it did nob include the " tubaco " of South America, shaped like a Y, with a tube for each nostril, the name of which has, it is said, been transferred to the plant, which may now be smoked in the form of " Rothschild Havanas " at three guineas, or in lowly shag at 4s a pound. The total value of imported tobacco is under £3,000,000, while the taxation upon this value exceeds £9,000,000. Taking pipes arid pouches, lights and other articles with retail profits into the account, it is estimated that the people of the United Kingdom spend £10,000,000 upon tobacco, or nearly £3 a head for every man, after deducting a fifth for abstainers. Economy, therefore, counts for something in the question. The I man who smokes cigars at fifteenpeneeeach, ! the price at which the best are labelled at my own club, and the labourer who takes eighteenpence a week from his wages for tobacco—and I have met with many who spend that amount—might without difficulty make better expenditure of their money. MR. J. S. MILL AND MR. GLADSTONE REFUSED TOBACCO. I am inclined to believe that no man of the very highest order of intellect is a smoker. I have often seen Mr. J. S. Mill and Mr. Gladstone refuse tobacco, and the abstinence of Lord Salisbury, of Herr von lianke and Kaiser Wilhelm will be compared with the inveterate habi tof Bismarck. But I suppose that from the range and industry of intellect no one would compare the German Chancellor with either of the three Englishmen I have mentioned. In any fair comparison the non-smokers have it in intellect as surely as in athletics. It is true that the oldest member of the House of Commons has been a great smoker, as was his brother, Lord Clarendon, and is a man of bright wit. So was Charles Kingsley, who wrote pages in praise of the weed. But Disraeli, who resembled his successors in the office of Prime Minister as to smoking, was superior to Kingsley as a novelist and to Villiers as a satirist. ATJILKTES ARE NON-SMOKRES. "Tobacco is the tomb of love." No devoted enthusiast has ever been wild enough to suggest that tobacco contributes to muscular development and power. In this important respect there can be no doubt of its injurious effect. Whenever there has appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette the record of an interview with any athlete, I have observed that non-smoking is regarded jus a necessity. All agree with Hanlan, the champion sculler, that " best, physical performances can only be secured through absolute abstinence from the use of alcohol and tobacco.'' HABITUAL SMOKERS ALL DISEASED. But. it appears that while perfect health and strength are incompatible with the use of tobacco, the records of actual disease press hard in the same direction. lam not surprised that those of the Anti-Narcotic League—of which 1 am not, and because of my frailty cannot be, a member—glance sorrowfully at the sufferings of the German Emperor, and utter warnings from his sad case, for, unlike his father, His Majesty has been a constant smoker, and there is undoubted ground for the assertion that cancerous disease of the throat is extremely rare if not altogether unknown except in those who are habitual smokers. It would be well if the League were to seek the opinion of Sir Morel! Mackenzie upon this point. But the tendency is notorious. Of men, as compared with women, who may be generally reckoned as non-smokers, the premature mortality is generally connected with some form of heart disease, and there are no witnesses upon this point so deserving of attention as the physicians who examine applicants for life policies. One of these—Dr. Thomson —writes: "Nearly everyone I have rejected, after examining them for life policies, has brought on an aftiection of the heart by smoking."

the FRINCE and AFTER -DINNER SMOKING.

The Prince of Wales has done more than any other man to establish after-dinner smoking. I remember meeting His Royal Highness about twenty years ago at dinner at Lord Granville's, when the introduction of cigars and cigarettes was regarded as a strange innovation, entirely due to the illustrious guests, and to have heard about the same time how the late Lord Foley invited the Prince to his stables as the only place in which he could have license to smoke. The smokers are now in power ; they are undoubtedly a majority of the manhood, though a minority of the population.