Do you know how much money is being squandered to-day, in the United
States, in the filthy, health-destroying use of tobacco?
No.
Only $410,958! That's all.
In Commissioner Wells's report, it is shown that in the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1868, the amount received from the tax on chewing and smoking
tobacco was, in round numbers, fifteen million dollars. Add to this the
cost of production, and dealers' profits, which are five times more than
the revenue tax, amounting to seventy-five million dollars. The number of
cigars taxed was six hundred millions. It is calculated as many more are
used through smuggling, making a grand total yearly expenditure in the
United States of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars for tobacco
alone!
[Illustration: THE IDOL OF TOBACCO USERS.]
Give me $410,958 a day, and I will go into the pauper houses of these
United States, and bring forth every pauper child; I will go down into the
dark, damp cellars, and away into the cobweb-hung attics, and bring forth
every ragged child of crime and poverty. I will take all these little
bread-and-gospel-starved children, feed, clothe, and send them to school
and Sabbath school, the year round, with $410,958 a day.
Christian ministers and professors, think of it! Young men and boys, think
of it!
Yes, the Americans smoke, snuff, and chew one hundred and fifty million
dollars in tobacco annually. The Chinamen consume $38,294,200 worth of
opium in a year. The Russians stuff and glut over an unmerciful amount of
lard and candles in a year; and the Frenchmen disgust the rest of mankind
by eating all the frogs they can catch. Then there are the cannibals of
the South Seas--they love tender babies to eat, but not an old
tobacco-soaked sailor will they masticate.
Tobacco kills lice, bugs, fops, small boys, and other vermin.
Tobacco fees doctors, and fills hospitals.
Tobacco fills insane asylums and jails.
Tobacco fills pauper houses and graveyards.
Tobacco makes drunkards.
Tobacco and rum go hand and hand; they are one, inseparable; they are
twins, yea, Siamese twins, the Chang and Eng of all villanies. I never saw
a drunkard who did not first use tobacco. Did you?
John H. Hawkins, the father of Washingtonians, said he never was able to
find a drunkard who had not first used tobacco.