The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-10-14
Tobacco W. ChiValry.
BY DOMINO

Tobacco w. ChivaIry.
By DOMINO.
Tobacco has a big party-General Gran
smokes the weed, the Prince of Wales smokes
King Kalakaua smokes, no doubt a majority OF
the leading men of the world sm oke. Yet the
emineuce. or number of the worshippers, does
not prove the truth of the worship. Tobacco
takes hold OF the coarse side of great natures,
and has destroyed the fine sentiment of the
chivalry of the past. Now, chivalry as q bust
ness was nonsense, and aptly burlesQued by
running down windmills but the ruling senti-
ment of chivalrs, a delicate self-sacrifeing de
votion to the welfare and honor of good women.
should glow in the souls of men, and animals
them more and more. But tobacco has largely
helped TO destroy this sentiment.
Tobacco absorbs a good deal of the man, and
nourishes masculine club associations. along
together. Tobac o creates a thirst for bitters
and beer. Behold a man chewing q lonely quid,
and erewhile you viii find him taking a sly nip
of grog. Tobacco and grog are partners. One
helps the other on. Tender young stomachs
that would revolt at raw rum, have the way pre-
pared with a mild cigarette, and then when the
cigar is in full blast the cocktail follows.
L know that heroes smoke, but / feel assured
that a tine-mlnded hero, a preux cheyalier, one
who reverenced the society of good women,
could not smoke. 1t Is true that fair ladies often
give permission 70 gentlemen to smoke even in
their parlors bat L should feel critical about the
QualllN OF i gentleman who would smoke In q
Iadys parlor or bOudoiT even with her permission.
We must not 40 all we are permitted to do.
Would you accept a permission TO place your
heels upon a ladys centre table -? Good nature
and graciousness grant aud even proffer a good
deal that a noble nature would not accept.
A man has lost the thrill and inspiration of
his finer sensibilities when he is q slave to a bad
habit of appetite. Such a man wants stimulat-
ing drink to give him confidence to speak in
public, or to WOO women. Such a man wants
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ment. But to nourish generous, tender. fine
sensibilities towards women, without any such
bad habit, is always to have wine in your soul,
and courage for any occasion.
But tobacco and the attendant spirits disturb
the disposition for refined feminine associations,
lead to masculine moodiness and bachelorism,
and establish the club. And what is the club,
but tobacco, spirits, and cards ?
And the use of tobacco blunts a mans sensi-
bilities to the rights of others. suppose q man
woman If she loves him to a bad breath that
would otherwise be a disgust. But what an
imposition such a habit is upon love? And
where there Is no love, what a strain it is upon
good nature and politeness to have TO stand in
the street, to leeward of a breath mixed with
tobacco, rum, and beer. Aud if such q breath
reposes upon the same pillow alongside a sweet
breath, think of the imposition and the outrage.
Of course there is a woman to be found to
tolerate every sort of a man-but what are men
that are only tolerable to women, when they should
inspire, elevate, and delight them. And what
inspiration, elevation, and delight can there be
to a fine-fibred woman, who has to kiss after o
quid orcigar stump, perhaps accentuated with
grog
am not thinking about the effect of tobacco
upon the health, but only upon the manners,
and 1 feel that tobacco, chiefly as smoked is the
great public nuisance of modern times. In q
great thoroughfare there is a constant invasion
of the rights of others, by a cloud of offensive
smoke being pulled into somebody's face-and
if you happen to drive out with n smoker, and
he sits in front, you will not only get his smoke,
but the ashes from his sinking cigar in your
face.
Men who practice such invasions or intrusions
on others, cannot, one would suppose. think
grandly or nObly. But they do, in some re-
speets-Napoleon snuffed and Grant smokes,
and l know of a President of the United States
that chewed a plug of tobacco in a day-and
these men had great thoughts and purposes.
Yet 1 can imagine a larger addition to their no
bility and grandeur of soul, if they had not
known tobacco. 1t was possible for a great
man that snuffed. to divorce a loving wife but he
would not have been so liable to be led by brutal
policy if he had not been enslaved by a bad
habit. But when an ordinary cad takes to to-
bacco, it takes him-for him, all nobility of be-
ing is illustrated by chew and smoke, and drink,
that sodden still more a brain, that was sodden
at the start
1 would not mind a cigarette of tobacco, any
more than a cigarette of cubebs, if taken as a
pose, or the quiet puff in the study of such men as
Carlyle aud Canon Kingsley. But when the cigar
or cigarette is everlastingly between the teeth or
between the fingers when it follows the meal
and prayers, when it goes into the nursery and
parlor, and when it invades the highways by
sea and land, in a thousand intrusive ways,
then l say that tobacco use and abuse is the
great public nuisance of the nineteenth century,
the destroyer of the fine sentiment of true
chivalry and this opinion is not affected, by
the fact that lots of great men, and all my
friends use tobacco.