“There is no surer way for the young boy to procure as associates
the criminal and immoral, than for him to begin the smoking of
Cigarettes; the use of the Cigarette draws to him the older and more
vicious who are ready to initiate him into that kind of life which
paves his way to destruction.”
In testimony of the grip which the Cigarette habit obtains upon boys,
and its tendency to crime, read carefully the following statement from
Abraham Bowers, Immigration Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. of Chicago:--
“It gives me pleasure to endorse the work of the Anti-Cigarette
League. While I was teacher of the boys in the Cook County jail, I
found that almost every one of them could attribute his downfall
partly to the use of Cigarettes. They were the _most seriously
afflicted_ with the habit of any class of boys I have ever known.
They desired to have a recess every forty-five minutes to go outside
the room to smoke a Cigarette. At night frequently about two or three
o’clock in the morning, some of them would be _aroused from their
sleep_ for the want of a Cigarette, and not having it they would
_pound the cells_, and wake all the other boys and men in the jail,
if necessary to get the Cigarettes. Many of them admitted that they
had _been led to steal_ originally to get money with which to buy
Cigarettes.”
The following statement is from the pen of Judge Leroy B. Crane, of New
York:--
“Cigarettes are ruining our children, _endangering their lives_,
dwarfing their intellects, and making them _criminals_ fast. The
boys who use them seem to lose all sense of _right, decency, and
righteousness_. To have great men requires the most forceful means to
check this pernicious and death-dealing habit. Ask the mothers of
the land to help you and they will respond.
“In my court _ninety-five per cent_ of the boys brought before
me charged with offenses from _shooting crap_ to _burglary_ are
Cigarette smokers, while those who do not smoke them seldom appear
before me.
“This morning three boys were brought before me for petty larceny,
the oldest eighteen, the youngest sixteen,--the stain of Cigarettes
on their fingers, and the mothers there to accompany their boys.
I was compelled to send one to the reform school at the mother’s
request; the other two were placed on probation to give them another
start.
“I call Cigarettes Little White Devils. The U. S. government should
pass laws preventing their sale and manufacture within its borders.”
Of the tendency of the Cigarette to promote crime and insanity, the
following experience will testify:--
“Of all the juvenile criminals tried in my court, not _one for years_
has been found free from the _stain of Cigarettes_ on his thumb
and first two fingers. Of all the _lunatics_ tried in my court, an
attempt is made to learn the cause of lunacy, and in _more than
half_ Cigarette smoking is assigned as the cause.”--_Judge Balder,
Louisville, Ky._
“It does seem, as one stated, ‘that either the smoking of Cigarettes
_causes insanity, or that it is the insane who smoke_.’”