Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1862-09-06
Ghe polplresiall.
IProm the Auckland N. T., Southern Cross.'l
Do Men Deteriorafe i'm Mental Bodily Vigor
by Usimg Tobacco.

has long engaged the attention of parents and
guardians, and great medical authorities have
blown blasts and counter blasts for and against to-
baceo without much affecting the public taste in
this matter. A young gentleman who has turned
the ripe age of fifteen without assuming the manly
short pipe is rarity not commonly to be met with
Ii we were asked for a definition of Young En-
gland, we should say above all things that g. it
smokes" In this it initiates the example of its
elders. On every line of railway there is a smok-
ing carriage in every club in London there is
smoking room the great national club of the
United Kingdom has rooms set apart for this
soothing pastime. The army and navy smoke
the pensioners of Chelsea and Greenwich smoke
the Commander-in-Ch Chief of the army smokes his
matutinal cigar every day on his way down to the
War Office. The Judges smoke; the Cabinet
| Ministers smoke and the model of Young En-
gland the heir apparent to the throne, sets an
ample to the youth of the country in ventilating
| the fragrant weed. On the other hand, both the
| Admiralty and Horse Guards have been taking
vigorous measures to put down the practice amongst
the young men in both services (; and within q few
DAYS an order has been issued by the former, for
bidding it altogether to young men under eighteen
years of age. What has been done at WoOlwich
on this subject all know. Young men Of eight
cen, twenty, and even twenty-five, have been
punished for smoking, by confinement in black
hole for forty-eight hours. without fire, light,
| bedding. Are these regulations wiset Is mode
rate indulgence in tobacco so fragrant an offence
in ITSELF that it should be reprobated and punished
with such severity!
| There is much to be said on both sides of this
tobacco question, and, unfortunately medical evil
dence is so equally divided upon it, that turn to
this OF authority in vain for what is i'm
portant when pipes and cigars concerned,
namely, light" Their conflicting testimony has
left in total darkness to the virtue and vice
of smoking, and We must founder our way out of
the difficulty as well can. The first question
to be asked is Have the effects of the practice
been prejudicia upon the population at large 1t
has been on the increase for many years amongst
all classes. Have any of them deteriOrated in
mental or bodily vigor under its influence! Are
our morals worse than they fifty years ago,
when the use of tobacco was comparatively uncom-
mon! To both these questions we think We can
safely answer in the negative. Our labOrers are
as able-bodied, our soldiers and sailors as brave
and capable of giving good account of an enemy
as they were under Wellington and Nelson. Our
artizans are more highly skilled than their fathers
were, and their minds have been developed by edu-
cation, in spite of tobacco, to degree which would
astound those elderly gentlemen could they 90 re-
visit the glimpses of the moon." Their habits have
undergone quite as remarkable improvement.
TIE savage sports which survived into the present
century have disappeared. Prize-fghting, for
moment digni6ed by the contest between Sayers
and Heenan, has for years been on the decline IN
popularity and respectability. DOg-hghtlng, cock
| fighting, and bull-bating are almost extinct-the
last wholly So Instead Of these we have mechanics
institutes, benefit societies, cooperative companies
and annual festivals of rational enjoyment, which
the husband shares with his wife and children, and
the unmarried with their sweethearts. 1t Is not
necessary to show that tobacco has had any share
in efecting this reformation. But Is 1t important
to observe that it has been effected while the use
of tobacco has been yearly on the increase. And
believe that if the practice of smoking depended
on the wives of our artiZans and laborers there
would be o hundred voices to one against Its pro-
| hibition.
If We turn from the lower to the upper strata of
society, shall find results not dissimilar. The
three-bOttle men of the Georgian have gone out
Gentlemen in our day no longer reel intoxicated
into the ladies' drawing room. Cabinet Ministers
do not take their seats in the House of Commons
with more port than they can carry, as was ire
quently the of the heaven-born Minister, Pitt
Fox xhunters of the Victorian era are content with
an amount of stimulant after a days run which
| their predecessors would have considered the al
lowance Of q miksop. Neither do the leaders OF
circuit meet their clients in consultation men,
tally Obfuscated that they unable to give an
opinion. Clergymen don't follow the hounds or
join in the after revels. Noblemen don't publicly
patronize puglsts, though a titled COrinthian may
occasionally be seen on the sly at a prizefght.
| Throughout the middle and upper classes there is
u
and the last generation great if several ages
| had elapsed between them. Tobacco may not have
produced it, may not even have helped to produce
| it. But the improvement has been concurrent with
the increase of smoking and when people i'm
prove under any national habit, we bound at
least to conclude that that habit has not been in
| imical to their improvement. We think 1t even
probable that moderate use of tobacco may ope-
rate to counterac the desire for stimulant. But if
we further contrast the present generation with
that which preceded it, and test the effects of
smoking by the mental energy of the Victorian in
J comparison with the Georgian era, the result is
even more striking. We a thousand to one
more reading and writing people than our fathers.
We have performed in the way of invention things
which to them would have appeared impossibili-
\ ties. Machinery, steam, telegraph, have grown
up with tObacco-not its results not in the least
degree owing anything to its influence, but at least
not retarded by it. Equally great is the advance
which art and music have made but many of our
| academieians smoke, their destined successors
smoke, and nine out of ten of our composers smoke
And though may not have poets to match
against the giants of the Georgian era, have at
least who is fit to take his place beside them
TennysOn yet he smokes-nOt a mere namby-
pamby cigarette, but an unmitgated clay.
On the other hand, returning to the anxieties of
parents and guardians, it is, we think to be de-
| pored that our boys will not wait till they
men, before adopting the habits of maturity. What
may be innoxious and perhaps beneficial for the
matured body. may be, and, in very young men
before the down has strengthened into NOUS
tache-is, a vicious and reprehensible practice.
We are not speaking of Woolwich cadets, old and
ripe enough to do service before enemy. To clap
| them into a black-hole for smoking q cigar is
| tyrannOus absurdity. But when we walk along
the streets, or look into a railway smoking car
riage, and see striplings who have but lately cast
off the boys jacket for the manly toga with short
| pipes in their mouths we think that these young
gentlemen are a little in advance of their years,
and that weak chests and debilitated frames will
\ probably be the result of their premature indul-
eence Even for their elders the harmlessness Of