The Penn's Grove record., 1889-02-02
Hi HABIT.

The tobacco habit Of the people of
the United States is a large one. 1t
is so gigantic that it requires every
| State and Territory in the Union, save
Colorado. Wyoming, Montana. and
Utah, to support it. 1t exhausts, as
no other harvest, 500. 900 acres of
land, and in New York, alone, COM
mands 10000 persons.
The product of tobacco in the United
States is greater than that Of any coun-
try in the world, 1t is safe to say that
the United states furnishes one-half
the tobacco that enters into general
commerce. According to an estimate
made some years ago, the annual pro-
duct was two billion pounds. This is
a sum no one can comprehend; but
place this tobacco out in sight and
look at it, 1t is a roll two inches in
diameter, reaching around the world
thirty times.
According to a later estimate, the
annual cost of tobacco is $500, 0OO, 900.
What is this sum- 1t would build a
railroad, bonded at $25. 900 a mile,
around the world; it would buy all the
bread stuffs manufactured in the coun-
try in a year. 1t would pay for all the
meat and wooden goods produced in
the country in twelve months. 1t is
six times all hat is spent annually in
the country for public instruction. 1t
is millions more than all that vas paid
to all the wage receivers in the country
in 1880. 1t is enough to build and equip
20,000 miles of railroad, and give
to every idle man in the country, en-
ployment for every working day in the
year, and wages enough to support his
family, 1t is enough to give every
third head of a family in the country a
homestead of one hundred acres, paid
for and free from debt; it is enough
to build and equip 5000 colleges every
year; it is enough to build $500
homes for orphans, indigent, and poor,
and endow them every year; it is
enough to send 800, 900 missionaries
abroad and throughout u land every
year; it is enough to give every man,
woman, and child in the land two and
a half barrels of extra fine flour and
stop the cry for bread. This is the
sum spent annually for the tobacco
habit.
But to divide this sum to see how it
bears on individuals. The great sum
is no less han an average OF ten dol
lars to every man, woman, ana chlld
in the country. But not all the women
and children, nor all the men. use to-
bacco. If half the people in the eoun-
try used it, the average cost would be
seventy dollars. Suppose young me-
chanic spends for tobacco five cents a
day, 1882 5 %year-this is a supposition
far below the average COST at the
end of ten years with compound inter-
est. the cost becomes $240.54 at the
end of twenty, $617. 80; at the end OF
thirty, 81. 442.7 This man may pity
his neighbor whose roof is burned over
his head, but he has slowly burned up
. house himself. He thinks 1t al
wrong and cruel that some friend has
no home for himself in old age; he has
destroyed one for himself, and perhaps
in addition, suffered some OF n phys
ical consequences of this vice.
How much is the burden OF tobacco
on villages? A Methodist minister
states that his whole society spent a
year, for the support of its own church
privileges and missions, $841, and six
ty-seven church members spent $S4S
for tobacco. A Western town ex'
pended g., ZIP for schools and churches
and at the same time $4.098 for tobac-
co. A correspondent for a Southern
paper afiirms that in any Southern
State where the negroes compose hall
the population, 1.-The snuff which is sold
amounts to more than the cost OF all
the farming implements Of all kinds
including cotton-gins, encompasses
steam-engines for farm use, horse,
powers, and all sorts Of mechanical
TOOLS" and ends: 81 stand prepared
with Chalmers challenge, tive me
your pinch of snuff, and / will support
the church Give me your tobacco
cigars, and snuff, and l will support
the whole Southern Church, and dc II
handsomely"
1t is well that good people feel al
much ~interest,in this vice as they 10
may they take much more. Let tn
young man that is hesitating about tn,
vice consider well, and save himself
from its slavery. Let all unite TO re
lease this land, the poor, h hungry
the homeless, from the enormous our
den of this tobacco habit tHts ~
Leland. IN The Golden Rute.