THE USE OF TOBACCO IN WORKHOUSES.

Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 196, 12 April 1878, Page 7

THE USE OF TOBACCO IN WORKHOUSES.

The Daily Telegraph in an article upon the ameliorated condition of inmates of unions and workhouses as compared with that of former times, refers to a discussion that took place by the Board of Guardians of the Holborn Union, when the Board in full conclave assembled sanctioned 3 recommendation that a proportion of the inmates shall be permitted under certain restrictions to smoke tobacco.

The discussion which took place on the subject was really interesting, not only from a Poor-law point of view, but in a medical sense. The General Purposes Committee of the Board brought up a report stating that they had invited 'the medical officers of the Union to assist them in the consideration of the question whether smoking should or should not be tolerated. Dr Y'arrow, of the City-road Workhouse, was of opinion that smoking was permissible in cases of chest disease, in which, we presume, are included bronchitis and asthma. Mr Norton, of the Gray's Inn -road Workhouse, the infirmary of the Union, stated that many of the consumptive patients under his charge were in the habit of asking permission to smoke, that the permission was usually granted, and that no complaints were made by nonsmoking patients as to the fumes of the tobacco being offensive to them. Had any such representations been made, added the medical gentleman of the Gray's Inn-road Infirmary, he would have caused the non-smokers to be removed to another ward — a much more sensible plan than that of putting the smokers' pipes out altogether, but one, nevertheless, which Parliament took about thirty-five years to consider before it applied the system in railway carriages. The Gray's Inn-road patients do not smoke, as a rule, until evening. The sick people generally found their own tobacco ; but Mr Norton had likewise ordered it for the solace of lunatics and imbeciles. . Acting on these wellweighed and practical opinions, the Committee recommended to theHolborn Board that in certain wards of each establishment of the union no smoking should be allowed; but that others should be set apart for smoking purposes at duly allotted times and seasons. For example, the helpers in the different workhouses were to be prohibited from smoking during the hours of labour ; but they were to have a smoking-room of their own, away from the main building, to be used after work was over. In moving the adoption of the report, Mr Garrod remarked that many of the sick paupers thought it a great boon to be allowed to smoke, " not that he thought it did them any good, but they thought it did." The remark, from presumably a non-smoker, was as candid as the concession to the pauper patients who thought that tobacco alleviated the pangs of their malady was g-ood-natured. The next speaker, Mr Callow, however, did not look so benignantly as his predecessor had done on the Indian weed. He understood that many of the inmates of the workhouse had been much annoyed and were made ill by their smoking neighbours ; but, granting even this very probable contingency — seeing that tobacco fumes te-non-smokers are in many instances positive torture — the difficulty would be at onue obviated by adopting the simple and sensible plan suggested by the medical officer of the Gray's Inn-road Infirmary. . Let the non-smokers be kept apart from the smokers. Eventually the recommendations of the General

Purposes Committee were agreed to by the Holborn Board of Guardians. We must heartily concur with the hope expressed by another of the Guardians, Mr Standing, that the concession now granted would be used wisely and in moderation. It should be thoroughly well understood that tobacco-smoking in a workhouse is a privilege, and that so far from its abuse being tolerated, it should only be granted under special circumstances to a restricted portion of the inmates. Smoking in the case of persons in full health is, if not a positive luxury, a very considerable indulgence ; and a workhouse is not a place where people should be ' indulged. Paupers have a right to be treated with justice and humanity; but they should expect no more from over-burdened ratepayers. In nine cases out of ten — times..'-- of

extraordinary dearth or commercial distress always excepted — it is -an ablebodied man's own fault if he finds himself in a' workhouse, and the best thing he can do is to discharge himself forthwith and seek for work, so that he may be enabled to indulge, unfettered, in as many pipes a day as he chooses. We say as he chooses, because in a free country it is impossible to control the actions, so long as they are not unlawful, of any man being a pauper or a prisoner. On the other hand, it is certain that as a nation we are all smoking agreat deal too much ; that our fashionable youth are undermining their digestions and perilously tampering with the action of their hearts by the eternal cigarette ; that among the smaller middle and working classes the cheap cigar and the pipe are often an excuse for mere idleness ; and that smoking among boys — to whom it cannot possibly do any kind of good, while it may do a vast amount of active harm — is becoming prevalent to a most pernicious extent. Whether the reverend schoolmaster who recently headed his advertisement, " Education without intoxicants or tobacco " was in jest or earnest we have no means of ascertaining ; but it is undeniable that out of school there are thousands of mere boys who habitually drink intoxicating liquors and smoke tobacco ; and it would be an excellent thing for the morality of the people could the use of " intoxicants and tobacco " be forbidden to all persons under twenty years of age. There are, nevertheless, multitudes to whom tobacco in moderation is not only a boon, but a soother of pain and a composer of the nerves. To very aged people a pipe of tobacco comes as softly and as gratefully as a cup of warm milk. Great students and great workers, whatever their doctors may tell them, usually smoke as an alternative to going mad ; while medical men are to a certain extent beginning to recognise the virtues of tobaooo as a lenitive in cases of chronic bronchitis and asthma. Both ailments are virtually incurable. The wisest doctor can but alleviate the pangs of the disease. If he be an unwise one, and a non-smoker to boot, he frequently counsels the bronchitic or asthmatic patient to inhale the vapour of hot water or medicated tisanes, or the fumes of all kinds of nasty things — herbs, burning touchpaper, camphor, and the like. The patient rarely derives any benefit from these nostrums, whereas the most acute throes of bronchitis, the direst pangs of spasmodic asthma can, especially late at night, be relieved by a cigar or a pipe of full-flnvoured tobacco, for the milder it is the likelier it will be to irritate instead of soothe. In the the earlier stages of consumption smoking in moderation may possibly be beneficial ; while in the latter stages it does not matter much what a man does. He is doomed. Still, the curious fact may finally be noted~that consumption is mostly prevalent in precisely the two countries in the world where ladies do not smoke, namely, England and the United States. Tlie Spanish-American ladies smoke as persistently as do their Peninsular, their Turkish, and their Hussiun sisters, and they are not consumptive.