The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-19

Raw Oatmeal and Generally In
suIting Their DigestiOns and
Nerve CenterS.
Small vices are greatly on the in
crease among women At least the tall
girl, with skates on her arm, said so
and she didn't call them small vices,
either, but downright bad habits. Just
notice around among your friends, she
went on, land perhaps its the extra
nervous tension of our modern life. but
you'll find that seven at least out of
every ten women encourage themselves
in some particular and injuriously NOR
bid tastes.
1t began a few years ago, innocently
enough, in the first use of tobacco. Lots
of us thought it piquant and pretty to
puff little smoke rings from little
Turkish cigarette and now, nothing is
more astonishing to observe than the
numbers of girls, right in their de-
butante season, and matrons with
many other delightful occupations and
fancies to busy lips and fingers, who
are confirmed cigarette f1ends.
THE MANICUREs TESTIMONY.
The little roll of tobacco, no bigger
than on oat straw, has given place 10
what is vastly more injurious than the
biting Virginia weed men smoke, the
big opium tinctured oriental cigarette.
The gentle smokers allow themselves
six and eight of these a day, enjoying
the soothing sensation they impart and
deeply inhaling every mouthful they
draw. The extent to which the habit
has grown did not impress me until
my manicure mentioned how many of
her patrons once q week came to have
the inside points of the thumb and in
deX fingers bleached from nicotine
stains.
STRAIN ON THE NERVES.
Now the worst phase of the-cigarette
habit is that the insidious tobacco is
not of SO much injury to wOmen's lungs
as it is to their nerves. This is an
entirely different effect from that pro-
Guced on the masculine system.
Men don't feel the nervous shock be-
cause they lead more active lives than
their sisters, but it was the calm ex-
PLANTATION of a little person 1 found
collapsed and trembling among her di-
van pillows, that she guessed she had
been smoking too hard. Anyone would
have agreed with her at the sight of
her pallid cheeks and overnight eyes
set in ominously dark rings. Never
theless she insisted in spite of her doc
tors admonitions that nervous pros
tration in its worst form might over
take her, she needed and would con-
tinue to delight in the exilaration her
cigarettes supplied.
ABUSING THE CUP THAT CHEERS.
The desire for mental stimulus. for
excitement that prompts women into
these curious eXtravagances and the
surest victims are those whose mental
ity is we'll above the ordinary.
Next after the cigarette habit the in
ordinate tea drinking INDUCED in is
enough to make one Shudder for the
nerves and digestive appliances of the
future generation. There really doesn't
appear to be a more harmless taste and
it's all right enough until it grows in
to dissipation. Then it is far more
insidious than regular beer drinking
and as ultimately destructive as
whisky.
Any physician will agree that be-
tween tea and coffee the former con-
tairs the most deleterious elements.
but no woman ever stops to consider
the results that must arrive from pour
ing six cups of this deadly stringent lin
one afternoon down that most sensi-
tive piece of human mechanism, the
alimentary canal. She taxes six cups
incidentally on her calling rounds and
at her breakfast and luncheon helps
herself to more of so powerful a bev-
erage.
These genuine hard drinkers require
their tea stronger and more frequent
ly as time goes on. On the brain, tea
has an effect that is inspiring; it
soothes and relaXes the muscles, but
Withers the digestive organs. From
tea drinking to tea eating is a step too
frequently made now among women
to excite surprise. Handsful of dry
leaves are munched with as much rel
ish as sailed almonds, and with an ef-
feet on the complexion and liver very
like that of morphine.
RAW CEREALS.
Whether the last generation of moth
ers left a legacy all around of peculiar
ly weak nervous systems to their
daughters or whether the complicated
questions of the hour are too distract
ing to the female mind 1 can't say,
but moderation in tastes seems to be
disregarded. Haven't you noticed the
number of women who keep their bon
bonieres full of soda mint tablets or
potash pellets, enjoying them as
though they were bonbons?
Not very long ago, in Paris, the
fashion for pallid cheeks induced a
few absurd creatures to eat raw bar
ley, wheat or oats in hopes of an I'M
wholesome flesh coloring. Ever so
many otherwise sane American women
have tried it, and from a trial have
fallen into the shocking habit of eat
ing cupsful of these raw cereals,
husks and all. that hitherto we thought
only ponderous millstones could cope
with.
THE USE OF PERFUMES.
But the barley eaters are not a whit
worse than their stupid sisters who
have an end of the century craze for
perfumes Drinking cologne, few
drops at time on lump of sugar, is
the mildest form of the vice. Over IN
Paris some reprehensible perfumers
showed their dissipated patrons how
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