Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-10-18
NOTES AND QUERIES.


are changed just as all men in their course of
life have been changed and the garrulous
grandfathers of Shakspeares time found as
much fault with everything young and new
as the grannies of both sexes do to-day. This
Notary feels himself impelled to write some
thing lecture-like and severe on the vice of
smoking by little boys. To be sure there
come up certain self-accusations which modify
the severity of the tone to be adopted and
even cause some doubts to arise as to the
utility of such sermonizings. There is an ex-
perience inseparable from the early life of
many man now moral-gr and susceptible
to the sights and shocks of depravity. 1t is the
experience of his first real smoke. Nobody who
is rightly constructed but recollects the first
time that he smoked stem of rattan, bravely
taking the risk of "drying up his blood by
so doing. Every ambitious boy chewed pre-
pared hcquorice with a swagger, cheating
himself and his horror stricken but yet admir-
ing sisters into the delusion that he was chew
ing tobacco. But these puerile weaknesses
antedate, as immemorials, the solemn epoch
when the lad first ventures, with the
a hero and the stealthy step of smuggler to
puff his first long nine" The dramatis per-
sone ar a tough customer of Teller who has
already learned to smoke a smaller and less
tough Teller who is well over his first lessons,
and is correspondingly proud and consequent
tial; and yourself, the aspiring novitiate,
~ 70 no i+ob
of wicked hardihood to cut loose, by one des
perate effort from so much of the maternal
apron strings as hold you from making the
experiment in public. The scene is laid in
the deserted backyard of the school house.
Time, the cleaning of Saturday. Bolivar
Hardhead, the accomplished smoker aforesaid
has already got his cigar lighted and is putting
it with great energy, and explaining, he
knocks off the long protuberance of black and
gray ashes at the fire. end how one can tell
good cigar from bad one, also that the ashes
are good for certain disorders of the stomach
and viscera. The promising student afore
mentioned is rewarded for his proficiency and
patience with the gift of a well proportional
stub; and more than tempted, even fascinated
by the enjoyment before him, contraband tho
it be, you produce at length the requisite sub
sidiary coins wherewith can be purchased as
many as three fresh cigars from the tobacco
mist. The lesser smoker performs the errand
and the three cigars are soon alight. At this
late day of your variegated life, oh sympa-
thetic reader, you call to mind (and stomach)
the experience of that eventful twilight.
There was the excitement of the clandestine
meeting there was the swelling pride of bud
ding youth and the ambition to be free and
and there was the final plunge
into the forbidden pool of delightsome sin.
You see yourself there in that old school
house yard, seated on the turf, your back
against the bricks, and your voice in whis
per as you talk with your guilty companions.
Your cigar is lighted. You have taken
dozen puffs. You feel new and grateful
stimulation. Your timidity has all gone and
you are courageous as never before. You be-
gin to share the feeling of contempt with
which Bolivar Hardhead speaks of poor little
Tommy Whiteface when he got SO sick from
his first smoke. Very soon you begin to ex-
perience desire to be more qaiet. Somehow /
the hilarity of the hour begins to pail upon
you. You continue to smoke your cigar and
to seem to enjoy it, Oh you wicked, wicked
hypocrite how you are shamming How you
are lying to yourself and trying to deceive ,
Bolivar and his loyal student How you wish
you were at home and how you dread to 60
there You are wretched beyond all express
sion; sick unto death. Death! Death is a
sweet and balmy rest compared with this
hopeless agony. And then when you have
sought the relief of the pump and the cooler J
air and the reproving grass, and the stars have {
come out and the hour is come when you [
must be in doors, how your poor sick heart s
lies away within you! "Oh mother! but
we draw the curtain we dismiss the audience; q
we disband the shadowy company of the &C
tors of the Past. And shall any man, even +
his Notary, with these confessions on his lips,
essay scolding of the lads who are even now
undergoing these inevitable experiences
There is big Teddy Nc Shaughnuessey who d
zones to school when he likes, land who not only I
an smoke without getting sick but chews to-
,acco with persistence and freedom wor- IL
by of nobler cause. Don't you know my "
lear Madame that your tender little boy with