Evening star., 1902-08-22
THE CIGARETTE HABIT.
Growing Feeling Against Juvenile
Smoking-Evils of Practice.

From the st. James Gazette.
The fight against the cigarette for boys,
which has been taken up by the local au-
thorities Of Edinburgh, has been growing
in force during the last few years. There
is little doubt that one Of these days some
thing will have to be done at Westminster,
such as is now being done by educational
authorities and employers of labor in
smaller ways all over England. The Plym-
outh school board has lately circularized
the parents of the children under it's care,
calling their attention to the growth Of
cigarette smoking among boys; and at
Leeds the school board has sought the as
sistance of eminent medical authorities in
its efforts to put down the pernicious habit.
The school management committee of the
Liverpool school board has declared in a
special report on the subject that cigarette
smoking affects the system generally, and
arrests the physical development, and the
chairman of the Glasgow school board as
serts that the boy who smokes Is not men
tally or physically able to study"
From schoolmasters and school boards
everywhere comes the same testimony. In
nine cases out OF ten, says the head master
OF Portsmouth Grammar School, the unsat-
isfactory boy is smoker. Mentally and
morally. according to their teachers, boys
sufrer from the cigarette haolt. The boy
who smokes at school Is not only worse
student in consequence, but too often be-
comes a sneak. Juvenile smoking" says
the chairman of the school board of West
Ham. leads to loafing and deterioration
generally; in my opinion, both mental and
moral"
More and more the habit is telling in the
workshop, IL we are to believe the teSti-
mony of those, who should know best. A
newspaper advertisement the other day for
sharp, obliging, intelligent lad warned
all boy smokers that they need not apply,
and such advertisements are by no means
n5or fv, how,
Sir James Reckitt declared the other day
that he would certainly not choose smok-
ing boy to do any work for him IL he could
get a non-smoker, and Sir Thomas Upton
has set himself strongly against the prac-
tice as an employer. The experience of
Sir Christopher FurneSs has been that jul
Venile smoking mot fonly causes deteriora-
ton of physique,i1 but tends to develop
Unghs habits win Lhe j. sus snaa ene
tiouslyi done. and Ihe is lacking in sprightli-
ness and alertnesss"Esr
The doeter,, 1t goes without saying, is the
ably the acsioa Of the local authorities in
Edinburgh owes something to the influence
OF Sir Henry Littlejohn. the city's medical
officer, whods one of the oldest public off,
cials in Scotland. Sir Henry issued not
long ago a statement of the evils Of juve-
nile smoking which startled a good many
people. 1t Isl not quite clear what, II any
thing, can be donH to check the growth OF
d hdpil WnlGh IS SERIOUSLY dheetihs Inc us
ing generation. There are parliaments
which have Thought 1t well to prohibit the
sale of cigafeftesTto boys and to punish boy
smokers with a heavy hand; but such
course seems outc of the question at pres
ent in England. Years ago the minister of
public Instruction In FRANCE issued circu-
lar to all directors of colleges and schools
forbidding smoking because 1t checked the
development of mind and body. The rem
edy may not be perfect, but 1t Is better, at
any rate, than inaction, and 1t does not
seem too soon for NJ. P.'s to begin to think
about the peril of the cigarette