Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — Juvenile Smoking. [ARTICLE]

Juvenile Smoking.

Expressions of Individual opinion regarding this form of youthful perversity are not lacking; but before the custom can be wholly abolished a general and outspoken objection must be made and maintained. No one who has really given any thought to the matter would hesitate in condemning the injurious folly of the practice. Stunted growth, Impaired digestion, palpitation, and the other evidences of nerve exaustion and irritability, have again and again impressed a lesson of abstinence which has hitherto been far too little regarded. A further stage of warning has been reached in a case which lately came before a coroner. A boy was in the habit of smoking cigarettes and cigar-ends, and, after an attaok of sickness, died somewhat suddenly. The post-mortem examination revealed fatty ohanges in the heart, which there was little doubt, as the verdict held, had been fatally supplemented in their influence by the smoking habit referred to. This, of course, is an extreme example. It is also, however, after all, only the strongly colored illustration of effects upon health which are daily realized in thousands of instances. The pipe or cigar is nothing less tuan dangerous when it ministers to the unbounded whims and cravings of every heedless urchin. Clearly there is need of some controlling power here, for the parent, in certain classes, Is almost as ignorant of consequences and, probably, often quite as apathetic as his boy.