The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-09

is it not time to teach them how tc
 protect themselves, to create a senti
 ment against the evil, to prove to then
 that self-interest alone furnishes {
 sufficient motive for abstaining from
 smoking, or for breaking off the habi
 if it be already formed?
 The leader of the Anti-Cigarette Cru
 sade in New York state is School Com.
 missioner Charles B. Hubbell He be-
 came convinced of the greatness of the | evil through conversations with leading | physicians who assured him that the l boy who at the age of ten is a confirmed | cigarette smoker may be reasonably sure of i'll health and shortened life. The vilest and worst of these body and brain poisoners are bought by school boys. Were there only very high priced cigarettes to be bought the evil would be vastly diminished, but when many large concerns derive a considerable share of their profits from three-for-a- cent rolls of utter abomination 1t is useless to expect them to give up the manufacture and sale of them.
 writer in the New York World says that "the cigarette-smoking boy uses the instrument of destruction in the deadliest possible manner. He takes quick, hard puffs inhaling the smoke until 1t reaches his lungs. There it leaves deposit of nicotine, volatile oil of tobacco, and oil of paper. The de- posit, after doing injury to the lungs, is taken up by the circulation and dis tributed through the system. Then it invariably befouls the blood, weakens the circulation, impairs the digestion, stunts the growth, and brings on a con dltion of general ill-health. The mind is injured as greatly as the body by this process. The school teacher ob- serves that the cigarette-smoking boy is not only in ill-health, but is unable to do his lessons. He Is listless and in- attentive and really incapable of mental exertion. The death of number of school boys in New York has been traced by doctors directly to cigarette smoking. The chief medical examiner of an important insurance company has declared that he would not accept as risk any applicant who had been a cigarette-smoker between the ages of eight and eighteen" It is also affirmed that penologists Ghat is, those who make study of punishment as affect ing both the criminal and the public) has become convinced that the increase of crime in children can be traced to the | demoralizing effects of the cigarette | habit.
 It is simple matter to form branch | If the League. Of 5000 boys whom | Commissioner Hubbell asked, in one week, to join the League, only 200 re- fused. Many of them are grateful for the help it gives them in breaking off the habit; others are as grateful for an opportunity to take 8 decided stand | against it. An appeal from teacher in whom the boys have confidence, a short, | spirited, earnest presentation of facts, lrouses the enthusiasm of the boys; they -ake strong interest in the organiza- ion of a branch society; they enjoy slecting their officers and conducting heir business meetings, and they wear with pride the badge of membership. | And their influence upon each other Is yery strong, more potent than all the ldviee and reproofs and entreaties of parents and friends.
 Have the educators of New Haven ,outh taken any steps toward forming uch League? If not, will they not Iindly turn mental search-light upon he matter? We ought not to De very ar in the rear when such a movement IS this is in progress. Of what use will ,e the military drill seriously advocat- d as an essential part of school train ng, to boys of dwarfed figures, weak lngs and feeble hearts? The only boys Torth drilling are the bright-eyed, alert Joking fellows who are not blowing heir lives out through a paper tube. And If legislators, even those who are ow wrestling with that portentious ubject, the all-obscuring "big hat" ould enforce strict compliance with the , rovisions of the. Anti-1obacco law, as now stands they would be very hon . ably employed. Possibly their reward :, light be found in the salvation of their !, wn children. Big hats, which, by the [ 'ay, are almost as much of nuisance | church as at the theater, might be : ut down without legislation. Let the lea once become firmly fixed in the lind of man that the woman who | ,reens the stage or platform from his ,rtured vision wears her big hat be- use she has not and cannot afford ny other, the same hat going Ito mill, market, and to meeting" Let him this as his, opinion at all mes and In all places, and soon shall e see that "top-knot come down" with 1t the aid of laws and bylaws, and and committees.
 N B.-The fact that this idea may be correct places no obstacle in the way
 it's being adopted by Man.
 But the well-being of the boys not of is generation alone but of the next, i'd the next-ahl that's different mat r. Isn't it worth working for?
 HILARY.