OBJECTS: A Black Muslin Flag on Which Is Written
Some of the Woes of the Cigaret Habit=
Some months ago in Jersey City, N. J., a large warehouse and its
contents were destroyed by fire. This was the dreadful blaze known as
the Great Triangle Fire which finally destroyed a million dollars
worth of property. The deadly cigaret was believed to have been the
cause of this disaster. An employee walking about the place tossed or
allowed to drop from his hand a lighted cigaret.
A cigar thus dropped goes out at once; a cigaret continues to burn
until it burns itself out, and so this cigaret continued to burn and
ignited other material, and thus the great fire had its start, and
one million dollars worth of property was thus destroyed. That was a
Million Dollar Cigaret.
All cigarets are costly. They destroy things much more valuable than
personal property or real estate. They destroy health, character, and
the chances of good success in life. These things are more valuable
than hills of gold. The cigaret is more deadly than natural death,
for it produces a living death and at last flings the ruined soul on
the bank of the Lost River in the Kingdom of Eternal Darkness.
Sir Christopher Furness has found that cigaret smoking among boys not
only causes deterioration of physique, but "tends to develop lounging
habits, with the result that the juvenile smoker's work is less
conscientiously done, and he is lacking in sprightliness and
alertness. Where, as is often the case," Sir Christopher adds, "the
boy smokes clandestinely, habits of deceitfulness will probably be
formed." Sir George William's experience as an employer has
conclusively proved to him that a boy is a far from satisfactory
worker if he smokes, and he says:
The effects of smoking, with its tendency to encourage drinking, are
to reduce a lad's energy, to lessen his intellectual capacity, and to
weaken his moral character.
The fact that every great public school prohibits smoking among its
boys, and punishes offenders with a strong hand, is eloquent of the
evil effect tobacco has on the young mind. The Leeds School Board
some time ago enlisted the services of eminent medical authorities in
its battle against the cigaret, and the Plymouth Board circularized
the teachers and parents of the children on the subject. A Committee
of the Liverpool School Board which investigated the matter declared
that "cigaret smoking affects the system generally, and arrests
physical development," and it would be possible to quote thousands of
such opinions from the educational side.
It goes without saying that the doctor is the strongest enemy of the
cigaret for boys. "All the evidence," says Dr. Andrew Wilson, "points
to the undermining of a growing lad's physique by indulgence in
tobacco," and Doctor Wilson continues:
Add to this the moral effect--that of rendering the already
precocious boy still more precocious, and of turning him into an
insufferable prig, and you thus condemn the habit from another point
of view.
Sir Henry LittleJohn, the veteran medical officer of health for
Edinburgh, has used his great influence against the boy smoker on
many grounds, and there is much force in his argument that
the practise is fraught with dangers to society at large, owing to
the secrecy with which the habit is carried on, the assembling at
nights, the tendency to visit ice-cream shops to assuage the heat of
the mouth that has been engendered by the filthy practise, and, in
addition, we have ultimately that disregard of the proprieties due to
the other sex which is introducing in our midst a laxity of morals,
which, in the future, must bear fruit.
Magistrate Crane of New York City says:
Ninety-nine out of a hundred boys between ten and seventeen years of
age, who come before me charged with crime, have their fingers
disfigured by yellow cigaret stains... The poison in the cigaret
seems to get into the system of the boy and destroys all moral fiber.
Tobacco interferes with the functions of the eye, of the heart, and
of the kidneys. Tobacco smoking interferes with the development of
the boy.
Professor McKeever says the cigaret-smoking boys of several schools,
the records of which were investigated, were described by his
informants by such epithets as sallow, sore-eyed, puny,
squeaky-voiced, sickly, short-winded, and extremely nervous.
The greatest danger of the cigaret habit is its insidious nature. The
boy does not realize the danger until it is too late to correct it.
Hundreds of tombstones today bear silent testimony to this fact.
A chemist took the tobacco used in an average cigaret and soaked it
in several teaspoonfuls of water and injected a portion of it under
the skin of a cat. The cat almost immediately went into convulsions
and died in fifteen minutes. Dogs have been killed with a single drop
of nicotine.
Investigation shows that prominent business men positively refuse to
engage men for responsible positions who smoke cigarets. The cigaret
smoker, sooner or later, proves to be unreliable either physically,
mentally, morally, or all three.
In Detroit alone, sixty-nine merchants have agreed not to employ
cigaret-users. Chicago firms such as Montgomery Ward & Co., Marshall
Field & Co., Morgan & Wright Tire Co., all prohibit cigaret smoking
among employees, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor
Company, are both opposed to the cigaret.
The manager of one of Ohio's largest mercantile houses, when asked
for a job for a boy who smoked cigarets, said:
I'm sorry, but I can't use cigaret smokers. First, they smell bad,
and I don't want to put them in contact with the nice young ladies
who work here or the nice ladies who trade here. Second, cigarets
prevent the development of strong, clear, reliable moral character.
They excite the lower passions and dull the sense of right and wrong.
Judge Ben Lindsay of Denver says:
I have been in the Juvenile Court nearly ten years, dealing with
thousands of boys who have disgraced themselves and their parents,
and I do not know of any one habit which is more responsible for the
troubles of these boys than the vile cigaret habit.
Superintendent, Mervine of the Wells Fargo Express Company, issued a
letter to all agents of the company, in which he said:
Any one who habitually smokes cigarets, in this climate especially,
has something connected with his record or his qualifications that
makes him a dangerous person.
Dr. Sims Woodhead, professor of pathology in Cambridge University,
says that cigaret smoking, in the case of boys, partially paralyzes
the nerve-cells at the base of the brain, and this interferes with
the breathing or heart action.
Now produce a flag made of black muslin which you call the Cigaret
Flag, on which you have pinned small slips of paper on which you have
written some of the short sayings herewith given, Read these lines
from the flag and say, "We will now listen to the message of the
Cigaret Flag."
If you blow a mouthful of cigaret smoke through a clean white
handkerchief, it will leave a dark brown slimy stain. In this carbon
deposit are the different poisons which eat on the delicate spongy
membrane of the back of the throat like acid on a piece of cloth.
Conclude by warning the boys not to smoke the deadly cigaret, never
to begin; and if they have smoked, then first urge them to make the
last cigaret the last forever. Tell them that Jesus wants boys with
clean lips and pure hearts. The cigaret habit has roots which go deep
into the heart. This is what makes the grip of the habit so strong.
Jesus said that "Every plant my heavenly Father has not planted shall
be rooted up." So this is one of the plants doomed by God. Let him
pull it out from your heart by the roots; only thus can it be taken
away to stay.
=4