The Potent Weed

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 17, 25 April 1907, Page 9

The Potent Weed

When tobacco was first introduced into Europe from America, it was for a time regarded in Prance and elsewhere as, a cure for all the ills that flesh is hei- to. In has ' Diary ', old Sam Pepys, for instance, ,gi >es us eyewitnesntng testimony (under date June 7, 1665) that, during the Gruat Plague in "London, ' physicians who visited the sick took it very freely ; the men wbo^ent rotund with the dead-carts had their pipes continually alight. This', added, the diarist, 'gave tobacco, a new popularity, and it again took the high medical position accorded 1 to it by the physicians of the French Court '. In his ' Westward Ho !^' Charles Kingsley summed up the exaggerated belief of* the smokers of the period in. the virtues of the ' di-. ine'weed \ He makes Yeo describe it? to Amyas as ' a lone man's companion, -a, bachelor's Mend, a hungry, man's food," a_sad man's cordial, a wakeful man's sleep, and a. chilly man's fire, sir ; whale for stanching of wounds, purging of.- rheum, and settling of the stomach, there's nci herb like unto it under the canopy of heaven '. Nowadays, however,

medical science has rasped.-ttie old gilding, off tobacco. .It 'has ranged the potent weed among the poisons, discourages its use among- adults or at least 'insists on ,stitct moderation, and utterly forbids-- the 'reveriebreeding narcotic'- to yout{h, as likely to create physical--.harm and result in ' a brain enfeebled, and a will enslaved '. To adapt some lines- of Calver ley's, ' Boys oft have had their goose Cooked by tobacco-juice"'. v To prevent physical degeneration from this souroe^—and especially • from* the deadly cigarette— the legislatures in " most countries have provided various pains and penalties for juvenile smoking. In New Zealand the Act is^ not altogether"" a dead letter, as puffing urchins know to their cosil ;at" times. 'Last week in Dunedin a youthful cigarette-burner was discharged "with a caution, •' on- the •understanding that his parents, gave him a good thrash-, ing '. Even haling before the' 'beak ', apart from subse- % qtient tribulation, should tend to discourage the growing - use of ' ooffin-'nails ' (as cigarettes have been aptly .named beyond the Pacific) among our rising genjeration.As regards oiur youth, • that blackguard Raleigh ' hasmuch "to "answer for.