SMOKING AND DRINKING

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3711, 7 June 1883, Page 4

SMOKING AND DRINKING

(fall Mall Budget, lGth March.)

What is tho real influence of wine and cigars, gin and tobacco, stimulants and narcotics, upon the brain r Do they give increased strength, greater lucidity "of mind, and more continuous power;' Do they weaken and cloud the intellect? Is a man's intellectual strength hindered or'helped by their use "r These are the questions to which it practical enquirer has been endeavoring to lind some satisfactory answer. And he has evidently taken much trouble about his work. He has addressed his enquiries to men of letters, novelists, essayists, journalists, men of science, statesmen, in England, France, Germany, and America. Their replies lie has embodied in a volume of 200 pages. (titud;/ and lilimuliiiih, by A. A. Reade : published by A. J luywood and Sous.) Altogether some 121 answers have been received to his appeal, ; nd in many cases tho writers have not only replied to the direct questions, "Do you smoke:" "Do you drink:" but have given many details of their everyday habits, which adds much to the interest of the collection.

Twenty-live use wine at dinner only ; thirty are abstainers from all alcoholic liquors; twenty-four uso tobacco. Of these twenty-four only twelve smoke while at work; Mr Edison c'iowm, and Darwin suult'. One or two find alcohol " useful at a pinch." "Not one resorts to alcohol" for inspiration. Mr Gladstone " detests " smoking, though he finds wine is necessary to him at the time of greatest intellectual exertion. He drinks one or two glasses of claret at luncheon, the same tit dinner, with tho addition of a glass of light port. M. Jules Simon objects to smoking on the ground that it tends to separate men from the society of women. M. St. llilaire thinks that in Franco no stimulants aro needed. Tho Duke- of Argyll has never touched tobacco, and only takes alcohol under medical advice. Sir John Lubbock considers tho use of tobacco in most cases prejudicial. Louis Blanc never smoked nor drank, and fio could not give tin opinion. Of tho scientific opinions, those of M. Paul Bert, give at some length, are, as usual with him, outspoken, trenchant, and to the point. " I never smoke," ho says, " because I am not fond of tobacco. I take wine to all my meals because I like it." As with all other pleasure it is a question of degree Professor Tyndall thinks the man happiest who is able to dispense with tho use of both. Sir Homy Thompson, iv a speech at Exeter Hall, declared that brain workers could not stand alcohol. Professor Huxley did not commence to smoke until ho was -.10 years of age. Dr. \V. 13. Carpenter had never used tobacco, and had never felt the need of alcoholic stimulants. Darwin used to drink v glass of wine daily. "I have," he adds, " taken snuff all my life, and regret that t ever acquired the habit. I feel sure that it is a great stimulus and aid in my work." He was accustomed to smoke two paper cigarettes of Turkish tobacco. " This rests mo after I have been compelled to talk, with tired memory, more than anything else." Out, of twenty men of science only two smoke. Professor Boyd Dawkins finds quinine tho best stimulant, Edison invariably chews tobacco when at work; smoking he thinks too violent in its action. Night, he fancies, is tho best time for intellectual work.

To turn from men of science to men of letters, Mi' Matthew Arnold tolls us that lie has novor smoked, and h is always drunk ■wine—chieily claret. As a general rule ho drinks water in the middle of tho day. At a Into dinner " a glass or two of sherry and (joiiic light claret mixed with wator, toiu to suit me very well." He comes to the very acceptable conclusion that, in general, " wine—used in moderation—add.s to the agrcoablcnest: of life—for adults, at any rate, and whatever adds to the agrecabloness of life adds to its re-sources and powers." Mr Freeman is candid enough in Ida reply. He tti'jd on .jo or twice when young to smoke,

but " finding it nasty did not try it again." Why people smoke he has no notion. As to alcohol, he has no theories. He drinks wine like oilier people, and finds brandy an excellent medicine. "I have drunk beer and wine as 1 have eaten beef and mutton, without theories one way or the other/ Mr Leoky is not a smoker. Mr Iluskid is very emphatic. He abhors smoking for two reasons. A cigar or pipe often makes a man content to "bo idle: the excessive use of tobacco abroad, and the consequent spitting everywhere, and upon everything. "Mr Charles Keade sums up the matter in three curt but pithy sentences: "I. have seen man}- people the worse for tobacco. 1 have seen many people apparently none tin.' worse for it. I never saw anybody preeoptibly the better for it." On the other hand to Mr Wilkie Collins tobacco is his best friend. " When I read," he says, " attacks on smokers I feel indebted to the writer. lie adds largely to the relish of my cigar." Mr Anthony trollope, too, gives his testimony in favor of tlio weed, having been a smoker all his life. Mr Thomas Hardy never smoked a pipeful in his life and never found alcohol helpful in novel writing. ~Mv James Pa3'ii is a constant smrnker. and the guiltiest of his brethren. He smokes the Avholo time he is writingthree hours a day—and after meals. Those who object to it," lie thinks, have never tried if, or find it disagrees with them. Kiugsley was a great smoker. He used a long and clean clay pipe ; when they accumulated he sent tlioin back to be re-baked. Tour-

genieff, the Russian novelist, neither smokes nor drinks. Mark Twain began, according to his own account, to smoke immoderately when eight years old, allowing himself 100 cigars a month, when 20 he smoked 200 a 'month, and by tho time lie was 30 his monthly allowance was 300. For four months he works five hours a day, and five days in the week, and smokes the whole time he is at work. Wine lie finds a clog to the pen, but two glasses of champasrne are an admirable stimulant to the ioTigiie. Mr Frederick Harrison has never touched tobacco in his life. The Rev. Mark Pattison has been a smoker all his life.

Of all the people in the world one niic-ht fairly expect to find the traveller and the newspaper correspondent in the ranks of the smokers. Dr W. 11. Russell for in-

stance, has smoked and taken wine for years. Mr O , Donovan gives .some very strong evidence in favor of stimulants, and draws a picture of his arrival in some wretched mud-built town, where lie has lain down in some miserable hovel, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. But the newspaper letter had to be written. It was then that he found stimul.iuts gave him "energy to unpack his writing materials, lie on his face, and propped at both elbows, to write for hours by the light of a smoky lamp." Mr Henty finds it difficult to write without smoking. Mr Sain has been a constant smoker for nearly 40 years, "but as to smoking stupefying a man's faculties or blunting his energy, that allegation 1 take to be mainly nonsense." According to M. Tainc a cigarette is useful between two ideas—when he has the first but not the second. Three-fourths of the men of letters of his acquaintance smoke, but none of them has recourse to alcohol. M. Tame declares that English journalists write their articles with the aid of a bottle of champagne. "With us," he adds, "the articles are written in the daytime. Wo have, therefore, no reason to resort to this , stimulant." There are many more opinions which we have no space to quote, it is .suitt<:ioufc te u<l<l th;it Mr Rondo's (tonclusioii is that al-'.ohol and tobacco are of no value to a health}- student. The most vigorous thinkers and hardest workers abstain from stimulants. The "student" will probably work out the problem for himself, but ho might do worse than consult Mr Reade's curious collection, and think over the words of Wendell Holmes : "I do not advise you, youuu - man, to consecrate tho flower of your youth to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you think. I have seen the green leaf of early promise grow brown before its time under such nicotian regimen, and thought the brown ambered meerschaum was dear at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved."