TOBACCO

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 17

TOBACCO

(srECIAI.LT WRITTEN* TOT. Til!'. [By W.F-.M.! There was once a lunatic who had the curious habit of beating his hea4. against the wall of his cell. A visitof to the asylum found him employed in this way, and asked him if it was not painful and why he was doin-j so: the lunatic replied that it w; - certainly very painful, but thai n. was so lovely when he left off. The tobacco smoker differs from the lunatic in only one way. but that is an important one; he finds it extraordinarily unpleasant to leave off. There is hardly anyone who does not resolve, late at night, when his last pipe is drawing to a close, that in future he will smoke les-. Generally the resolve is forgotten by the morning; but some few contrive to cut out the early prje which introduces breakfast. Fewer still deny themselves after breakfast, and by midday their good resolution, more literally than most, has gone up iu smoke. Admittedly, some strongminded men fast for days, and one or two. whose strength is almost supei'-human, for as much as three months; but their sufferings arc? great, and increase from day to day. Nor do they suffer alone; and sooner or later there comes a time when their wives seize on a moment of weakness and set tobacco before them once again—"La femme est toujours Dalila." Yet there is no great pleasure i;i smoking. The first few puffs are satisfying enough: but for the rest of the pipeful we are hardly conscious ih at the thing is in our mouths. It would presumably be unpleasant if our hearts stopped beating, but we get no particular pleasure from its present activity; and it is much the same with smoking. Philosophers have taught tha*. pleasure is only worth having if it is greater than the pains with which it is bought. They would have smiled at the modern millionaire who urgeus to toil 16 hours a day to win health which we should never have time to enjoy: but what would they say to this habit which torments us when we deny it and gives us so little pleasure when we indulge it'.'

The use of tobacco is one of thoso vices which distinguish mankind from the beasts. Laziness and gluttony and similar faults we sharp, probably, with the lowest sentient life. Even drunkenness is not exclusively our own, for it is said that certain South American monkeys have learnt to steal corn from the natives and ferment it in pools of water among the rocks, and then grow fuddled on the resulting liquor. But so far as we know no animal in a state of nature uses tobacco in any shape or form.

It is bad for the wind and destroys all sense of smell; and what its effects can be on the organs of taste the following tale will show. In a certain house a tremendous smel! of burning rubber was noticed one evening: the members of the household, greatly perturbed, searched high and low to trace it. and finally ran -it down in the pipe which the head of the family was smoking. Questioned, he admitted that his pipe had had an unusual flavour, though he had not known what it was; and it was discovered that he had torn out part of the lining of his pouch and stuffed it into his pipe with the tobacco. Yet the same man would smoke only one mixture, and swore that no other had the same flavour.

It may even be blamed for loosening the bond of marriage. If you are sentimentally inclined, you will, no doubt, think it a charming picture to see father smoking his pipe as he reads his evening paper, while his wife darns the children's socks. But wait till she goes out to the kitchen and finds that he has removed the last box of matches from the mantlepiece; then the scene is changed, indeed. And then tobacco ash turns up in such unexpected places—in beds, and even in the dinner.

Nor is the financial side of the matter to be neglected. Few men smoke less than 10 shillings worth of tobacco in a month; and even if you think 10 shillings a matter of small importance, you would probably be glad of six pounds at the end of the year. You can buy a great deal with six pounds; and if you have nothing else to do with ii. you can always buy your wife a hat. Or consider it another way: assuming that the life of the average smoker is 50 years, he burns £3OO before he dies; and if Raleigh had never gone to America every parent might leave that sum to be divided among his grateful children. The modern child must have more respect for his parents than moralists assert, or he would rise in a body and break his father's pipes iu pieces.

At best, the habit is tolerated: it is nowhere considered a virtue. Railways and tramway boards provide places where you may smoke; I know of none where you must. In the days of Queen Victoria, when smoking was forbidden at Buckingham Palace, it is said that a bishop was found with It is head in the fireplace, that the smoke of his cigar might escape up the chimney without polluting lite palace air: and there are few who have not smokvd surreptitiously in scarcely more dignified fashion. When the craving comes, all other considerations vanish; life is a weary and unprofitable business until we draw in a mouthful of the familiar fumes. Has the Sunlight League ever investigated the atmospheric pollution caused by tobacco smoke? The individual unit is small, but in the aggregate it must amount at least to as much as the destructor.

With such considerations as the smoker tries to restrain himself. Then he pauses to think of fresh arguments; his hand, unguided by conscious intention, slips into his pocket and feels a familiar roundness. He draws it out: from tho other pocket comes a pouch. In n moment', the pipe is tilled and match is lighted; and not till then does he wake from his abstraction to find that the world is a happy place once more.