SOMETHING FOR TOMORROW

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14129, 29 May 1920, Page 6

SOMETHING FOR TOMORROW

THE CIGARETTIST. (By Elbert Hubbard.) Cigarette smokers are often active, alert, competent men. They are qmc - to sec an opportunity, ready to ’ ' advantage of it, appreciative, sympath ctic, kind. But when you sec such a one he is in his prime, at his best, his star is at the zenith, nor on the horizon or at nadir. Never again will be be as much of a man as he is now. His future lies behind. He is not grown g m to a better man. He is not in the me of evolution. If you want a man who will train on, tlee the cigarett st as you would a pestilence. He will surely disappoint you. And the better and brighter your young man, the faster las descent to Avernus 1 Cigarette smoking is nil ugh the habit begins foreclosure proccedin„s. then Beelzebub limiself (prince ol law vers) cannot vacate them you go to the devil's auction. As a close observer ol men and an employer of labour fo ove twentry-hvc v •■irs 1 "ive vou this: Never advance the pav of a cigarette smoker-neve.• promote him—never depend upon him to carry a roll to Gomez unless you do not care for Gomez and are willing to lose the roll. I say do not promote the cigarette smoker, for the time will surely come when you will rue the day you ever placed him in a- position where he can plague you by doing those things which he ought not, and by leaving undone those things he should have done. If you have cigarettists on your payroll who are doing good work, do not discharge them Simply keep them as loug as they are of profit to you, ami when thev become a cave, gently lay them off,'and say you will send lor them when you need them. \nd then never send for them. Poison affects different people differently, American nerves cannot withstand, artificial stimulants. The dull and phlegmatic Russian ean do things we cannot. The Don, Dago, Greaser and Turk are built on different lines from us. Americans need all the brain power they possess in their business—the modern hidalgo has no business . For the cigarette habit no argument can possibly be made. Ask the “fiend ’ about it, and he will smile a silly, supercilious smile out of his gamboge face, and feel for his cigarette box. _ _ Cigarette smoking is not-, periodic it is continuous —a slow, insidious, sure poison. Its results eau be foretold as accurately as. the expert alienist can foresee the end of incipient locomotor ataxia. Fortunately, most young men who begin the habit quit it before it ••■ets a vital hold upon them. Were this not so, how could the student body outstrip their professors at Harvard, Tale and Dartmouth ’ These young men smoke cigarettes just as they dabble m strange vices when away from the immediate restraint of family and home. Later, most of them square away and become pillars of society. But for the young man wlib has become so calloused that lie smokos c igaiettes in the presence of his mother, sister or sweetheart there is little hope. Hope is only for tlie youth who is ashamed of his lapses T.he poison has already tainted his moral nature, and for him the work of dissolution, disintegration and degeneration has begun. He. is a defective—a physical, mental and moral defective

I admit that the moral strabismus of the cigarcttist is not always caused primarily by his smoking. I admit that it is a fact that the idle, slipshod, inert, secretive, untruthful take to the habit very kindly. ■ln short, 1 admit, that because a thing goes with a thing, the thing is not necessarily the cause of the thing. The hoodlum who hangs around the livery stable or country station, and is prone to the haymow habit, is invariably a cigarette smoker, and surely it would not. be fair to blame his temperamental disabilities to cigarettes; his trouble lies deeper. The cigarette smoker is not a degenerate because he smokes cigarettes. Quite often he is a cigarette smoker liecause he is a degenerate.

In preparing a culture bed for vice germs, do not omit cigarettes. Cigarettes stupefy the conscience, deaden the brain, place the affections in abeyance, and bring the beast to the surface.

Cigarette smoking begins with an effort to be smart. It soon becomes a pleasure —a satisfaction —and serves to bridge over the moment of nervousness or embarrassment. Next it becomes a necessity of life, a fixed habit. This last stage soon evolves into a third conditoin —a stage of fever and unrest —wandering of mind, accompanied by a loss of moral and mental control. And finally a flabbiness of tissue results from taking the smoke into the bronchial tubes, where pure air is required, to oxygenise the blood, and a nervous weakness follows that leaves the victim unprotected, and a prey to any sort of malady or disorder to which he may be exposed or liable. Beginning as a habit, the matter ere long becomes a vice. The first indication of degeneration is in your cigarette smoker’s secretiveness . He feels his weakness and so seeks to present a bold front. “Bluff” is his chief characteristic. He tries to make an impression—he talks big, is full of promises plans and confidential utterances. He confuses dates, times and places, and often will tell you he has done a thing when he only intends to do it. Only the strong man is honest —only the healthy Tell the truth . A lie is a disease of* the will—hypocrisy is a symptom. When a cigarettist pays his devotion to nature he always passes the time

away by rolling a cigarette, this being the only instance when he -displays a zeal in improving the moments as they fly. Jle dreams over his work, dawdles indefinitely, picks tilings up and lays them down, and proves for us again and again the maxim that the strong man is the one who can complete a task, not merely begin it. One marked peculiarity of the cigarette fiend is that invariably he makes a great discovery: It is that cleverness, astuteness, trickery and untruth ate good substitutes for simplicity, frankness, and plain, common honesty. For physical' exertion our cigarctteist has a. profound dislike. He calls a cab and pavs for it with your money, and it he has only a block to walk he takes a car. Should you by much effort get him into an outdoor game he soon grows wearv and stops to light a cigarette. When he rides he pollutes the morning air with smoke.' Ere long he will grow as limp as a printer 's roller in duly: his vertebrae is Goodyear; all of his decision goes into smoke, and it you‘ever had any hopes for him they are ashes. . The difference between mine ana thine is a very hazy proposition to the cigavettist —meum and team are not in his lexicon. Larceny and lying are sprouts that, grow from the same soil. The cigavettist has an abnormal egotism—he has much faith in himself. If this faith wavers he rolls a cigarette. Often in advanced stages half the day is given to rolling cigarettes. To find men who roll cigarettes for their own smoking for one or two houis a day is not. difficult. To roll his own cigarettes gives the defective somethin" to do. Nervous, clutching, scratching, searching, vellbw-stained hands —hands that alternately play the devil's tattoo and roll cigarettes these are the hands that forge your name and close over other people’s money.

] do not make my appeal to the cigavettist himself because it is of no use. He has a fixed belief that he is immune, and that all men are mortal but himself. His name is Mr Knowrtali. He grins at warning; laughs at the advice of his best friends, and turns your brotherly appeal into a joke. He sets his foolish little will against the knowledge and experience of the scientific and business world —all of which action is but a symptom of his paranoiac malady.

The man who quits the cigarette habit must see his own folly and convince his’own mind of the existence ot the vice ere it can be eradicated.. The trouble is in his brain. There is no salvation for him outside himself. There is no doubt but that the cigarettist is often a man of many good impulses, and over and over in his heart there sweep resolves to cease all subterfuges and be true, but these maudlin -resolves are not to be trusted anymore tban vou hearken to the promises of a “dope fiend.” The choice between cigarettes and daily doses of cocaine, morphine or bromide is veryslight—all and each lead downward to the grave. Dishonour, perfidy, disappointment, disgrace are the end of all. And so l close by again sending a warning note to the-employer of labour: place no confidence in the cigavettist, never promote him —he is an irresponsible being —a. defective. Love, him if you can; pity him if you will, but give him no chance to clutch you with his nicotine fingers and drag you beneath the wave.