The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, SEPT 15, 1906. THE CIGARETTE EVIL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3712, 15 September 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, SEPT 15, 1906. THE CIGARETTE EVIL.

Foxton like other places throughout the colony possesses inveterate cigarette smokers and it is a common sight to see boys under the statutory age puffing and evidently enjoying a cigarette. Since 1888 legislation in America has been adopted in 47 out of the 53 States in the Union to stamp out this growing evil. Ohio started, and the most stringent regulations now are in Wisconsin, lowa, Tennessee and Indiana. The latter State has now introduced a Bill prohibiting a man from being in possession of cigarettes, or even paper which might afterwards be filled. with tobacco. The anti-cigarette legislation now extends to one-fourth of the population of the United States. It made both storekeepers and children responsible, but the law was winked at as to the responsibility of the children. sH

Mr E. P. Gaston, London manager to Messrs Funk and Wagnals of New York, recently gave evidence at the meeting of the Select Committee of the London House of Lords, to which Lord Reay’s Bill for the prohibition of smoking was referred, in reference to legislation on the subject in the United States. ‘‘You ought,” he concluded, ‘‘to prohibit the sale of cigarettes imported from America. The American cigarette is the worst thing our country sends to you—worse than Chicago tinned meat.”

After the enquiry concluded Mr Gaston was interviewed by the representative of the Doudon Daily Mail and explained the manufacture of cheap cigarettes such as are imported in large quantities into this country. “As a rule,” he said, 11 the work is carried on by low'-class Italians, who prowl about the streets of the city with bags slung over their shoulders, into which they pitch anything they can find that has a semblance of' tobacco about it. Cigar ends, cigarette ends, ‘ quids ’ of tobacco thrown away .by .those-who habitually chew —anything and everything that .can be picked up in the gutter of on the floors of the saloon bars is (collected, and in due time finds its way back to the ‘ factory, ’

where it is thrown into a hopper | with a little genuine tobacco and ■ worked up again for cheap ciga- j rettes. The makers of this vile product, continued Mr Gaston, say they sterilize the mass, but expert analytical chemists have said that this is not so. Further, these same authorities have detected amongst the contents of the cigarettes quantities of belladonna, opium, and cocaine, with which the tO' bacco has been ‘doped.’ The tips of certain cigarettes are immersed in a solution of cocaine, which produces a peculiar hazy, benumbing feeling on the smoker, and these' cigarettes are popular with boys. The number of cases of insanity amongst boys who smoke them is amazing. Many social reformers in America class the cigarette as a greater curse than drink. We hope the cigarette devotee who reads this article will pause and think the matter over.