Juvenile Smoking

New Zealand Tablet, 20 December 1906, Page 9

Juvenile Smoking

:. '. .Calverley'" once 'sang - the •' manifold stories ' told by exaggerated opponents to the discf'6dit"'df; Madame Nicotiner—alias ' tiie fragrant Weed^V- r.? _ "§ , '."',...> *.«;•, i How they \vho^"&e fi^es - / All grow by slow-degrees . -. Brainless l&s,\ chimpanzee!^ ■ .;! „,v '-"jVleagrel'as lizards ; i\ ''£'''■■->■' u'"i-iJ -Go mad,-au^'beat their wivgs.j" £ z v Plunge v'stft^i" shocking lives^'^ %■ Kazors and'- Carving-tynives^ '" ' rl^ = _, > - r i#-y--> lllto their^gizzards-^, 51.5 1. i 'besides otheV^enormities^ too/numerous aha* too ary to mention. A serious politic&l counterparty to this cpnsc'iously droll exaggeration;of t the social evils of toliacco, is .furbished by the_^soiemn_., v dictum of- _ Charles Foui-ricr-: / rThe nation .that'e'smokes^perishes '. -^ "Neither smokers nor non-smokers aecepvilsuch sweeping generali- .-, sations. , But -the most progressive,- -.States, basing their - verdict u'poir lay 'and testimony, place ~& serious discount on juvenile"'smoking—aid especially* on the sucking of those deadly cigarettes that, on a the other ,side of .'the," Eafcific, haye" 'received the^ apt 'appellation of ' coffin nails. -Tasmania is now.dropping fdnto oiS line>in. the-^natter^of^periaiismg^«v.enile" snQioking, on the lines adopted—but. thus far not conspicuously in -New - Zealand;--'"The fair ■ Viewer "Of """early promise-, is of.fcen withered by.|th"e, pjoisq,n-bearing,.reverie-ijiroducing weed.' Yet, despite siatutesrin that|case made and provided, how many boys-and. hobbledehoys do we seejday.'by. day Jaiybring'to acquire -the nicotine.Thabit at an .age and in a form • ,\Bhenjij>i.tiist.inost.--.destructive— '- toiiing": after it (as the stamuuairig*Charles Lamb, a prodigious smoker, " said of himself) 'as some men t-t-toil after .Yktue''. pneyf.,George Augustus Sana's old. schoolmasters /treated |.the juvenile smoking habit

Kn his boarding school in\ a way that may ■ possibly commend itself, to some house-fathers and educationists who may read these pages. 'He made it publicly knowny' writes Sala, 'that a boy detected in smoking would not necessarily toe. caned, "but" that on three alternate days for., a week following the discovery of h is >. offence, n he would be supplied at 1, p.m. /with "a clean tobacco-pipe and half an ounce of prime shag,, in lieu of dinner* !v! v The result is told by Sala : 'We had very Jew unlicensed smokers afler this announcement.