Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1888 — An Inconsistent Moralizer. [ARTICLE]

An Inconsistent Moralizer.

The Philadelphia Press, ultra-protection of the Pennsylvania sort, devotes considerable space to a lament over “The Boy and the Cigarette,” It calls attention to the death of several young boys addicted to the habit of cigarette smoking, It qnotes one medical authority to the effect that there are no less than 3,000 cases of impaired health in New York City growing out of this dangerous habit, and another to the effect that cigarette smoKing stuhts the growth of boys and sows the seeds of diseases which develop in later years—such as throat ailments, lung tioubles and dyspepsia. It preaches the parents a touching sermon about their duties in the premises, and launches its invectives at the tobacconists, and particularly the proprietors of school stores, who deal in cigarettes of the cheap sort along with slates, pencils, stationery and colored candies. It grows virtuous and demands the passage of a stringent law which shall forbid the sale of cigarettes or tobacco jn any form to minors, except upon a written order from their parents or guardians. Finally it produces some appaling statistics as an argument against “The Boy and the Cigarette,” and says: “According to the reports of the Revenue Department of the Government there were manufactured last year 1,200,000,000 cigarettes, and as an equal number* probably, were made by the smokers themselves, there were at least 2,400,000,000 cigarettes consumed, and even this total does not include the 50,000,000 or more imported from foreign countries. This would give about 100 cigarettes to every male, and as the larger part of them are smoked by youths under 15 years of age the total for each smoker is largely increased. These figures may possibly impress parents with the enormity of an evil which has already done a vast amount of harm and is destined to much more unless promptly checked. ” The paper which indulges in all this lamentation is an organ of the war-tariff-tax advocates, who argue that, as tobacco is a necessary of life, the tax should be removed; and the Press is in favor of its removal in order that the tax ou such superfluous articles of luxury as clothing, wool* salt, sugar, glass, iron, steel, household and farming implements may not be disturbed. But if tobacco is a necessary of life, why should it produce such alarming physioal results, especially among boys, who have more vitality and stronger health than men? —Chicago Tribune.