Tobacco is worse than rum because, by its begetting a dryness of the
throat and fauces, it creates an appetite for strong drink. It is too
evident to need corroboration. 1. "Rum intoxicates." So does tobacco.
"Intoxication" is from the Greek _en_ (in) and _toxicon_ (poison).
Therefore, when any perceptible poison is in the person, he is
intoxicated. 2. "Alcohol blunts the senses, and ruins many a fair
intellect." So does tobacco. But since the ruined drunkard used tobacco,
how do you know it was not tobacco which ruined him? Come, tell me! 3.
"Rum makes a man miserable." So does tobacco. The user is in Tophet the
day he is out of the weed. 4. "Whiskey makes paupers." So does tobacco. I
knew a whole family who went to the Brooklyn, Me., pauper house one
winter, when, if the father and mother had not used tobacco, they could
have been in health and prosperity. 5. "Rum makes thieves." So does
tobacco. Men have been known to steal tobacco when they would not have
stolen bread. 6. "It makes murderers." Where is the murderer of the
nineteenth century who was not a tobacco-user, and an excessive user at
that, from George Dennison, who on the drop asked the sheriff for a chew
of tobacco, to Stokes, in his New York cell, surrounded by a cloud of
tobacco smoke, awaiting the decision of the jury to ascertain if it was
really he who shot the "Prince of Erie"?
* * * * *
[Illustration: WHAT KILLED THE DOG?]
You can't always tell just what kills a man, or a dog, as the following
story proves:--
"An old farmer was out one fine day looking over his broad acres, with an
axe on his shoulder, and a small dog at his heels. They espied a
woodchuck. The dog gave chase, and drove him into a stone wall, where
action immediately commenced. The dog would draw the woodchuck partly out
from the wall, and the woodchuck would take the dog back. The old farmer's
sympathy getting high on the side of the dog, he thought he must help him.
So, putting himself in position, with the axe above the dog, he waited the
extraction of the woodchuck, when he would cut him down. Soon an
opportunity offered, and the old man struck; but the woodchuck gathered up
at the same time, took the dog in far enough to receive the blow, and the
dog's head was chopped off on the spot. Forty years after, the old man, in
relating the story, would always add, with a chuckle of satisfaction, 'And
that dog don't know, to this day, but what the woodchuck killed him!'"
We regret our want of space to ventilate tobacco more thoroughly.
[Illustration]