The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-02-10
5flilstellaneous.
LETTER TO YOUNG HEN.
BY TIMOTHY TITCoMB.

e form habits, so that if bad habits
are avoided, the good ones will generally
take care themselves. l had no inten-
ton when commenced these letters of
saying anything on dogmatic theology,
but | take the liberty Of suggesting to those
who are up to this kind of thing that if
there is anything that demonstrates total
depraeity, it is the readiness with which
young men imbibe bad habits. have
seen original sin in the shape Of a short
six sticking out Of the mouth Of a lad of
ten years. 1t is strange what particular
pains boys and young men will take to
learn to do that which will make them
miserable, ruin their health, render them
disgusting to their friends, and damage
their reputation. fhEL
Some of the fashionable bad habits of
the day are connected with the use Of to
bacco. Here is a drug that youngman
is obliged to bcsome accustomed to be-
fore he can tolerate either the taste or the
effect it. 1t is a rank vegetable poison;
and in the .unaccustomed an NAL produces
faintness, and horrible sickness. Yet
young men persevere in the use OF, it un-
til they can endure it, and then until
they love it, They go about the streets
with their sinking cigars in their mouths
or into society with a breath sufficiently
offensive to knock horse over. They
chew tobaeco,-roll up great wads Of the
stuff and ram it into their faces until
their checks look like chip1nuck's, cram
med with corn. They spit all over this
lower world ON the sidewalk, in the
stove, in spittoons that become incorpo-
rate stenches, III pools that the unsuspect-
ing slip in with a disgusting slipperiness,
in dark corners of railroad cars where
white skirts in their Unconscious innocence
wipe it up, in lecture rooms and chur-
ches, on fences, into stoves that hiss in
anger at the insult. But the splitting is
not all, The disgorging the quid with
the hand,-that IS the polite way of do
ing it's a beautiful operation. And
then the qaiids after they are disgorgod!
They arc found in odd corners great bo-
luscs, boulders, bulbs. Horses stumble
over them, dogs bark at them, children
tumble into them, they poison young
shade trees, aud break down the consti-
tutions of sweopers.
Now, young men, just think of the
thing. You are born into this world
with sweet breath. At proper age you
acquire a good set of teeth. Perhaps
YOU have sisters or cousins to kiss, from
tender age. You hope to have q sweet
heart or perhaps have already got one
Now if you dare to insult one of these
blessed creatures by kiss that is a com
pounl of nicotine, slobber and putrescent
exhalation you ought to be shot. Il is
the salute of a skunk. Do you know
that chewing tobacco is nasty, filthy,
disgusting habit, that its faithful descrip-
ton would exhaust all the filthy adjec
tives in the language and spoil the adjec-
tives themselves for all further use p
Yet you wiA get in the habit of chew
ing. You will chew, and squirt, and
ejacnlate those horrible quids, and make
yourself disgusting to all your acquain
fences. You will smoke cigars and pipes
until your bedroom or your shop cannot
be breathed in, and until your breath is
rank like the breath of foul beast, and
your clothes smell as if they had lain in
the sewer over night and hung in the
barn to dry. Some of you take snuff
cram the fiery weed up your nostrils to
irritate that subtle sense which rarest flow
ers were made to feed,-in all this wor-
king against God, abusing nature, per-
yerting sense, injuring health, planting
the seeds of disease, and insulting the de-
scencies of life and the noses of the whole
world. IL
So much for the nature of the habit,
and would stop here, but for the fact
that I am in earnest, and wish to present
every motive in my power to prevent
young men from forming the habit, or
persuade them to abandon it. The habit
of using tobacco is expensive. A clerk
on modest salary has no right to be
seen with cigar in his mouth. Three
cigars day, atfive cents abiece. amount
to more than fifty dollars wear. Can
/ you afford it? You know~you cannot
You know that to do this you have to run
in debt or steal Therefore I saw YOU
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