A Pipe Light.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 104, 7 November 1871, Page 2

A Pipe Light.

Smoking, unlike tea-drinking, does imply a vast amount of sensuality and selfishness, and does produce great evils among the population, especially of cities. The smoker smokes, not because lie needs a minute drop of nicotine to calm his nerves, but be ;anse he feels a dreamy, lazy, an : md enjovmeat in smoking and puffing out the hot fuui 's. He smokes exactly as a child eats 101 l p ips, or as a woman snuffs at her vlnaigr j i t-3. The child is not hungry, hut it likes' s igar. The woman is not faint, but she 1 kis the pleasant odour, and the grateful, gentle siimu'us. With regard to tobacco, there is no question that its operation is to lessen the vital forces of the body; and the effect of this upon a population already debilitated by the impure atmosphere and the confined life of a citv, tends to swell the ranks of pauperism and crime. In England, even children smoko tobacco of such foul strength that no Turk or Spaniard—and they are always smoking—could use it without nausea. This precocity has a fatal influence. The moderate smoker would say If a man really wants a pipe or a cigar,—and such a thing is as conceivable as that he should want a tonic, as quinine; or a sedative, as opium; or a stimulant, as camphor ;—if his pu'se it ful 1 , his temper irrtable, his tendency t> aggravate himself and every one around him f, in one expressive word, ho has an attack of tl at amoving complaint “ the jumps,” let him by all means take a moderate dose of that admirable sedative, tobacco. But that is exactly what our young men will not do. They literally give themselves up to, or, in for once not exaggerated language of the anti-tobacconists, “become slaves to,” their pipe, and they tobacco which, compared to that of Turkey, is as vitriolised gin to claret in its pernicious effects. We may ha sure that a confirmed smoker is more or loss indolent, and selfish, and cold-hearted, however great may be his superficial good-nature and honhommic. lie is •cynical and indifferent to all great ideas. And there can bo no doubt that he becomes more or less indifferent to the comfort of others, and, if not ex icily a “blackguard” or a “ hog,” yet at least a hear. For, let the smoker argue about “ disinfection” and “ infectifuge” as he may, to smoke in a habit able and inhabited room is, if not a “ beastly,” yet "at least a dirty habit. It is at least certain that one half the world does not smoke. Ladies would not dislike smoking as they do, if men limited themselves to one cigar or one pips in the open air.— Echo.