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THE SMOKING HABIT.

Come, says Mr Frederick Harriot!, and let us reason together about smoking. He is a misonicotinist—the chief of misonicotinists —and the inventor of the name by which James I. would have been called if only he had anticipated Mr Harrison’s discovery. Mr Harrison simply hates smoking, the habit, the smell and the victims. He has written a long article on the subject, and in this article he claims that he is “ one of the few men in the world who has never touched the filthy weed in their lives, one who looks on smoking as a disease to be shunned on grounds moral, social, aesthetic, and sexual.” Mr Harrison might, perhaps (says an exchange) have stopped to think that a person “ who has never touched the filthy weed” is not therefore the best qualified to judge of its effects. It might have occurred to him that persons who have touched ‘ ‘ the filthy weed” could give him some valuable information on the subject. There is no evidence ot his having sought this assistance, and he should not be annoyed if his. perfevid asseverations on the subject should slide away, in common with the similar barbarities of James I. and Dr Dowie, into the limbo occupied by idle words. For three centuries and more now persons have got up and said that smoking is injurious to health; still statistics show a bigger and bigger balance on. the right side. That, of course, is due to improved sanitary conditions, but it is quite open to lovers of smoking to urge that part. of the happy result must be attributed to the increasing use of tobacco. The main thing is that this gift of nature shall be used discreetly and in moderation. Old Burton hit the truth when he said of tobacco that it was “ divine, rare, super-excellent,” and that it “ goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, ” though he may be held to have somewhat exaggerated when he claimed for it that “ it is a sovereign remedy in all diseases.” And he was absolutely right when he added that excess means mischief, and that tobacco might in certain circumstances cause ‘‘the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.” Of course you could say the same thing about any other practice under the sun —from motor-car riding to gardening, excess is ‘ always a defect—paradoxical as this statement of the position may be. Well, what do we find to be the verdict of great authors and of minor literary persons ? Persons who think and write and read—divines, lawyers, physicians, poets and so forth —use tobacco freely. German philosophers and thinkers smoke heavily, and without any appreciable adverse effect upon their work. If they smoked less and wrote more, say the antismokers, the result would be better. Possibly so, but not necessarily. The benign influence of what they may regard as a divinely-given solace and stimulus has helped them. Without this influence they might have done nothing. Meanwhile the German sages have seen clearly enough through the mist of the smoke which their pipes created to lead the world in deep imaginings and high thinkings and practical achievements.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19070305.2.19

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
529

THE SMOKING HABIT. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 3

THE SMOKING HABIT. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 3

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