Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-12-03
THE GUM POWER.
The Shocking Habit Which Is Dragging
American Women Down TO Destruction.

The Shocking Habit Which Is Dragging
American Women Down to Destruction.
The chewing-gum habit is indeed a
frightful curse. In this city it has
fastened itself upon one young woman
in every three. One of the others uses
gum occasionally, and is on the high
road to destruction. Six million dollars
are expended annually by the young
women of this city for gum. Think
how many pairs of shoes and stockings
this appalling sum would buy for bare
footed children, or how many hungry
mouths it would fill with food. Still
the habit grows, and every year sees
thousands of young women take to the
vice and begin the long. rhythmical
swing or short, jerky chop of the lower
jaw on the deadly gum
Six million dollars is large sum to
be expended on gum. We doubt if the
amount put into bread or tobacco is
much greater. More interesting figures
can doubtless be evolved with these as
a foundation. Gum, if we mistake not,
comes at the rate of one cent a cake, a
cake being enough for one chew. This
gives us 600, 900, 600 ''cuds'' of gum used
by the young women of New York in a
year. We do not know how many
women have the gum habit, but say
100, 0O0-there can not be more than
this This gives each young woman adj
dlcted to the habit 6, 600 cuds each year,
or over sixteen day. These are prob
ably the most appalling figures ever set
before thinking public, especially
when we remember that cud of gum
can be, and usually is, chewed several
times, it being deity deposited, when
not IN use, beneath the piano, show
case, typewriter or elsewhere. Start
ling and bewildering as these figures
are, no one can dispute them. 1t is
more probable that there are not above
so, 600 habitual young women gum
chewers in this city, which gives each
of them thirty-three cakes per day.
But more interesting consideration
is the fact that at last the women have
come out and confessed the whole ter
rible state of affairs. For years they
have claimed that it is tobacco that is
sapping the vitality of the American
nation, when all the time it appears
that it was gum. Tobacco is now uni
versally acknowledged by physicians to
be generally harmless and often bene-
fetal. It aids digestion. A man died
in this city last week at the age of a
hundred and one who had used tobacco
since he was boy, averaging for the
last seventy or eighty years upward
of a dozen strong cigars day.
Three wives preceded him, cut down,
it is fair TO presume, by gum. 1t is ex-
asperating to realize that the women
have known all the while that tobacco
was harmless and gum injurious. 1t is
more provoking to think that some men
have been weak enough to give up to-
baeco, under a steady fire of female
elouuence which should have been
directed against gum within the agita-
tors own ranks. But happily these
men can return to their tobacco. Now
the thing to be done is for every one to
turn his or her attention to the sup
preston of the gum habit. The best
way to proceed would seem to be to
strike at the root of the evil. Let the
manufacture or sale of gum be pro-
hibited. Let US invoke our old friend,
the Strong Arm of the Law. To this
end there should be q third political
party formed Immediately. Let its
motto be this: Pulverize the gum power.
| IN. Y. Tribune.