The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1885-01-13
Poisonous Cigarettes.
Kew the Material for Cheap Cigarettes is
Obtained.
IN. Y. Commercial Advertiser /,

IN. L. commercial AdVertiser)
An Office, of the Society for the Proven
ton of Cruelty to Children says: 81 have ey-
cry reason to believe that the cigar stump in
dustry is by no means stopped. Little Ital-
ian boolblacks are mostly responsible for the
cheapness and vileness of cigarettes. AL
though the police are directed to arrest any
person seen picking up cigar stump, they
always manage TO be blind just about the
time of the offense and to let the little beg
CARS go. They fad it disheartening TO
march one Of the little vagranis to the police
station and thence to the court, only to have
a nominal penalty imposed, or, in most in
stances, no penalty at all. These offenders
live in Mott and Crosby streets, and come
every night with their pockets full of stumps
which they have picked up about the streets
In the lower portion of the city. They tear
the stumps apart, unrayel them, aud, after
asserting the tobacco in different coors, sell
it to few interruptions cigarette manufac-
tueres, who are willing to do anything to
make living, and who cat 1t into those
abominable paper packages of disease that
retail at l cent each. Men who smoke these
things ars poisoned; but have no sympa-
thy for them; they should know better, Il
Is the children that we are looking after.
Physicians in the hospitals will tell YOU that
cases OF cancer in the mouth in boys of IA
and 10 years OF age have been multiplied
within the last eight years. The evil can be
rapidly traced to its source. A man with a
cancer in bis mouth smokes a cigar and
throws away the stump. This ia picked up
by the assiduous gatherer, and parts of it
are used in thirty or forty cigarettes. Can
| Ger is one OF the most infectious of diseases,
and when in the mouth is one of the most
fearful OF It's varieties, and yet any lad who
may be induced 10 smoke a cigarette in a
| spirit of mischievousness may come home TO
his parents with the germs of fatal dis
| ease.
Stop stump gathering? We have tried to
| do so in every way. We have called the at
| tention of the Board of Health to it and
have been promised the assistance of the po-
| lice, and what has it all resulted in? Just
this, that we have succeeded in accomplish
ing little more than slight improvement.
The gathering Of these stunps has not been
| stopped, and low cigarette manufacturers
manage TO turn out hundreds of thousands
| OF their vile bundles every year, as though
there was no restriction to the privilege to
poison the entire human race, If they felt so
disposed. The retail tobacco dealer, not
outstanding that be knows the quality of
| cigarettes he buys, usually does not hesitate.
| There is demand for cheap cigarettes. and
his place and profit depend on his supplying
his customers with them. There is a law
which prohibits the selling of liquor to mi
nors under severe penalty; why not make
the provisions of that law wide enough to
embrace the sale Of tobacco? The evil done
to small boys by cigarette smoking in this
city is incalculable. Their health is ruined
and their growth is stopped even by the
smoke of good cigarettes; but when the dan
ger from all sorts of rasty diseases is added
| to the two other evils have mentioned, |
think that the most inyeterate smoker will
agree with me that the sale of cigarettes to
children should be prevented. The children
manage to evade the care of their parents in
this matter, so that there is no effectual way
OF stopping the evil except by legislation,
and imposing severe punishment on the
person who violates the law