TOBACCO-STOPPERS WANTED.
That very reverend Tobacco Stopper the Dean of Carlisle has been breathing forth a second Counterblast against tobacco, which he denounced as the root, or at least the plant, of evil, and burst arguments to prove it of pure Satanic growth. Now Mr. Punch cannot echo such a damnatory blast, nor join in any whole-hog putting-down of pigtail. As an advocate of temperance in language as in liquor, or in any other form or shape whatever, Mr. Punch holds that smoking is good in moderation; and that it is not the use, but the abuse of it, that harms people. Mr. Punch will therefore join in no Tobacco Total Abstinence Society, nor will he lend a hand towards stopping men from moderately smoking. With regard to boys, however, the case is widely different. All smoking must with them be smoking in excess – in excess both of their physical requirements and capacities. As a matter of requirement, boys no more need tobacco than any other stimulant, and they are not mature enough to use it without injury. Any boy who smokes should be treated, Mr. Punch thinks, as a juvenile delinquent, and by way of counter-stimulant, should have a dose of birch immediately given to him.
That the evil is a “growing one” among us is quite patent. Growing lads of any age from six to sixteen daily practise it. Besides the little vagabonds who prowl about our streets, and play at pitch-and-toss on Sundays with short pipes in their mouths, there are a higher class of juveniles who ought to have their pipes put out, and Mr. Punch would willingly assist that operation. The latter lads stand higher in point of social status, and their position in the streets is certainly more elevated. But although they commonly are seen upon the knife-board of an omnibus, they are by no means raised thereby in Mr. Punch’s estimation; and their habit of short-pipe smoking tends still more to lower them. As a rule, these lads do not smoke because they really like it, but because they think it manly to seen to smoke, and fancy that they show their independence by so doing. It is, therefore, not for pleasure, but for snobbishness, they smoke, and there is no redeeming reason for excusing them. Their pallid pimpled cheeks, and sallow tallowy complexions, are sufficient indications that tobacco does not agree with them: and while their moral health suffers through the snobbishness aforesaid, their vital stamina is sapped by the sucking of their cutties. Every whiff which they inhale blows a portion of their brains out; the more they fill their pipes, the more their heads they empty. They begin to smoke too young, and grow prematurely old by it. By the time that they reach manhood, they have become the very poorest apologies for men; for it is the nature of the weed to make all those grow “weedy” who preciously indulged in it.
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