Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1882 — Habit. [ARTICLE]

Habit.

The force and power of habit, and especially the tobacco and whisky habit, are something marvelous. When children suck their thumbs we put asafetida on, tied with rags. Sometimes that stops the habit. It didn’t with me. Tor the sake of the thumb I swallowed the drug. In later years, when my little girl sweetheart said the other girls laughed at her because her beau. (10 years old) sucked his thumb, I stopped <of my own free will. Love was more potent than asafetida. Some children make odd faces and find it impossible to stop. I do. When I am nervous and excited—not that man should ■ever be the one or the other, but I occasionally am—l find myself winking -and blinking and screwing up my cheek. It relieves somethin?. I don’t know what, but it does. I have been told by ladies that other ladies thought I was winking at them, but life is too short for that kind of sport. I don’t do it and I never did. It’s habit. There

are writers of mv acquaintance who can’t work unless they have a cigar in the mouth. I take dry smokes myself. Result—colic. Why ? Because the tobacco, being more or less chewed, -becomes moist, and, entering the stomach, raises the old Harry. Isn’t it so, doctor? Why, certainly. Other fellows tell me they would no more think of speeding a fast crab on the road without a c gar than of broiling their own baby for breakfast or even for lunch. Beware of habit.* I know men who think themselves gentlemen—yet they swear like pirates. Not that I ever saw a pirate or beard one indulge profanely, but that’s their reputation, and next to being rich is to be thought so. Swearing is a terribly low habit, yet tens of thousands swear. But see. Do they swear always and in all society? No not at all. They are in the habit of swearing here and there, but not everywhere. Ergo, it is a controllable habit, but still a habit.—Philadelphia Times. '