Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1892-09-08
DON 7 SMOKE.
BY ROBERT j. BURDETTE.


her cunning-and think she still car
ries it on her person. have a distinct
impression as | catch the faint, not too
faint, perfume of your good strong
breath, that although you have cast
away the cigarette at my unexpected
approach, the scent of the rice paper
hangs round you still. Now, suppose
we sit down and talk this thing over
for, say five minutes or an hour. What?
This preaching about smoking makes
you tired Son, it doesl't make you
half so tired as your first cigarette did.
If you can truthfplly deny that state
ment I'll agree to buy all the tobacco
you can use during your natural life.
Another thing /; it doesn't make you
half 30 tired to hear me preach, as it
makes me to see you try to smoke when
you can only spit.
Now, | am not going to tell you how
you can get rich. l am not going to
tell you that if you will not smoke, but
will put your cigar money into the
bank every day, and get compound in
terest on it, and loan it out at exorbit-
ant rates on cut throat mortgages, and
shut down on a man like a bear trap
every time you get him into a corner,
in twenty five years you will be worth
a million dollars. Because if it would
make you that sort of a man to quit
smoking and save money, | had rather,
a thousand times told, that you would
keep on smoking, and smoke like a tar
kiln till you pulled yourself away. l
think the money argument is almost
always weak. I don'twant to hire you
to swear off; l don't want you to re-
form because there's money in it. I'm
less your motives are pure and honest
and manly, your reformation will be a
poor sort of thing. don't want your
good resolutions stamped on their face
with the dollar mark.
But Id rather you wouldn't smoke.
If | am mistaken about the odor of rice
paper, and you don't smoke, l am glad
of that. And if you do smoke, and
will quit, l will be just as glad. Be
sensible now. Can't you see, don t you
know-of course you do-that you are
going through a great deal of misery
TO do something you don't like to do /
You are enduring, with a patience
worthy of a much better cause, the
sufferings of a martyr, in order TO ac.
quire a habit that is distasteful to you
trying to cultivate a taste that makes
you sick. Why, if the teacher should
forcibly put into your mouth, for q
punishment, something n half SC
nasty and repugnant to your palate
and stomach as tobacco, he would be
fined in the police court for assault and
would be dismissed from the school by
the board of education. If yourfather.
to punish you for some impertinence OF
bad language, had given you some dose
that would have made you as sick as
you deliberately made yourself with a
cigar last Saturday, you would be justi'
fled in running away to sea, and turn
ing pirate. You are a boy of spirit,
and you wouldn't stand such cruelty
from anybody.
Well, now; why should you treat
yourself SO meanly; when you would
not stand it a minute from other peoplet
Why should you try to be a fool when
God endowed you with a fair share OF
common sense at your birth ? When
you were only three weeks old you
wouldn't swallow anything you didnt
like after you tasted it. Haven't you
as much sense now as you had when
you were a baby? Sometimes, in some
matters, my boy, l am afraid you
haven't. Come, let us be frank with
each other, and tell the frank, manly
truth-there is no o~ther-about this
thing. You hate to smoke-I've watch.
ed you at it when you didn't know
what l was thinking. You spit a great
deal, but you don't smoke very much.
And you don't do what little smoking
you do because you enjoy it. never
saw you light cigar or cigarette unless
you thought somebody was looking al
you. You always do this with an all
of intense self consciousness. Every,
body, including yourself, knows thai
you are on exhibition. And it's such
a cheap show, too. All the pleasure
you get out of smoking is the burning
of a little loud smelling incense to your
W vanity, thinking that people are
admiring you, which they are not.
Smoking is a spectacle all too common
to occupy the minds of people who
have any we can see people smoking
any time we look out of a window OF
go upon the street. You think that as
people look at you they are impressed
with the idea that you are a IMAM
about town." which they are not. The
"rounder" is, thank heaven, quite a
different sort of a bird from yourself,
my boy even when you are smoking,
you resemble him merely as a tortoise
shell kitten resembles the tiger of the
jungle. And he isn't worth initiating
anyhow. If l were you, and felt that
had to initiate somebody, l wouldn t
think of building myself upon the
''rounder" model until all the other
men in the world were dead. Then
would go away to some place where he