I am glad to notice a strong effort on the part of the friends of
humanity to encourage those who wish to quit the use of tobacco. To
quit the use of this weed is one of the most agreeable methods of
relaxation. I have tried it a great many times, and I can safely say
that it has afforded me much solid felicity.
To violently reform and cast away the weed and at the end of a week to
find a good cigar unexpectedly in the quiet, unostentatious pocket of an
old vest, affords the most intense and delirious delight.
Scientists tell us that a single drop of the concentrated oil of tobacco
on the tongue of an adult dog is fatal. I have no doubt about the truth
or cohesive power of this statement, and for that reason I have always
been opposed to the use of tobacco among dogs. Dogs should shun the
concentrated oil of tobacco, especially if longevity be any object to
them. Neither would I advise a man who may have canine tendencies or a
strain of that blood in his veins to use the concentrated oil of tobacco
as a sozodont. To those who may feel that way about tobacco I would say,
shun it by all means. Shun it as you would the deadly upas tree or the
still more deadly whipple tree of the topics.
In what I may say under this head please bear in mind that I do not
speak of the cigarette. I am now confining my remarks entirely to the
subject of tobacco.
The use of the cigarette is, in fact, beneficial in in some ways, and
no pest house should try to get along without it. It is said that they
are very popular in the orient, especially in the lazar houses, where
life would otherwise become very monotonous.
Scientists, who have been unable to successfully use tobacco and who
therefore have given their whole lives and the use of their microscopes
to the investigation of its horrors, say that cannibals will not eat the
flesh of tobacco-using human beings. And yet we say to our missionaries:
"No man can be a Christian and use tobacco."
I say, and I say it, too, with all that depth of feeling which has
always characterized my earnest nature, that in this we are committing a
great error.
What have the cannibals ever done for us as a people that we should
avoid the use of tobacco in order to fit our flesh for their tables. In
what way have they sought to ameliorate our condition in life that we
should strive in death to tickle their palates.
Look at the history of the cannibal for past ages. Read carefully his
record and you will see that it has been but the history of a selfish
race. Cast your eye back over your shoulder for a century, and what do
you find to be the condition of the cannibalists? A new missionary has
landed a few weeks previous perhaps. A little group is gathered about
on the beach beneath a tropical tree. Representative cannibals from
adjoining islands are present. The odor of sanctity pervades the air.
The chief sits beneath a new umbrella, looking at the pictures in a
large concordance. A new plug hat is hanging in a tree near by.
Anon the leading citizens gather about on the ground, and we hear the
chief ask his attorney-general whether he will take some of the light or
some of the dark meat.
That is all.
Far away in England the paper contains the following personal:
WANTED.--A YOUNG MAN TO GO AS MISSIONARY TO supply vacancy in one
of the cannibal islands. He must fully understand the appetites and
tastes of the cannibals, must be able to reach their inner nature
at once, and must not use tobacco. Applicants may communicate in
person or by letter.
Is it strange that under these circumstances those who frequented the
cannibal islands during the last century should have quietly accustomed
themselves to the use of a peculiarly pernicious, violent, and
all-pervading brand of tobacco? I think not.
To me the statement that tobacco-tainted human flesh is offensive to the
cannibal does not come home with crushing power.
Perhaps I do not love my fellow-man so well as the cannibal does. I know
that I am selfish in this way, and if my cannibal brother desires to
polish my wishbone he must take me as he finds me. I cannot abstain
wholly from the use of tobacco in order to gratify the pampered tastes
of one who has never gone out of his way to do me a favor.
Do I ask the cannibal to break off the pernicious use of tobacco because
I dislike the flavor of it in his brisket? I will defy any respectable
resident of the cannibal islands to-day to place his finger on a
solitary instance where I have ever, by word or deed, intimated that he
should make the slightest change in his habits on my account, unless it
be that I may have suggested that a diet consisting of more anarchists
and less human beings would be more productive of general and lasting
good.
My own idea would be to send a class of men to these islands so
thoroughly imbued with their great object and the oil of tobacco that
the great Caucasian chowder of those regions would be followed by such
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and such remorse and
repentance and gastric upheavals that it would be as unsafe to eat a
missionary in the cannibal islands as it is to eat ice-cream in the
United States to-day.