AN ABSURD CORRESPONDENT

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 5 June 1919, Page 3

AN ABSURD CORRESPONDENT

A correspondent of the morning paper signing himself '' NonSmoker," asks (in effect) why we should strain at the gnat of the £100 Peace bonfire, on. Mourjt Eden, and swallow the oamel of £100,000 a year expended by smokers of tobacco ? Of course the answer- is supplied by the querist himself, in his signature. He is admittedly a non-smoker, and there regards-as "wicked waste" the money spent (by those who do not think as he does) in'indulgence in tine weed. Bmrikers (of whom T 'am on©

myself) consider they get excellent value for the cash they lay out in 'baccy, one of the greatest blessings vouchsafed to man. It may not have the power, it is true, as some enthusiasts claim for it, of banishing all the lills of life, but it is certainly, to quote the famous cocoa advertisement, "grateful and comforting," and (in moderation) harmless and even beneficial. To institute any sort of comparison between spending money on useless bonfires and trumpery decorations and spending it on tobacco is an absurdity, worthy of a nonsmoker who condemns a practice he necessarily fails to understand or appreciate. I have seen a good deal of the world, in my time, and have lived in many countries, and I have always observed this —that the people who object to pipe and glass—in moderation- —very frequently indulge in themselves in things that are even more objectionable, and —" compound for gins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to."