The daily sentinel., 1907-07-17

lent in currency one hundred and fif-.
ty times the sum burned up in fire
works. The vast fortune we swap
for the comfort OF smoking, chew
ing and snuning would build thirty
great structures like the nationali
capital at Washington,
Each year we smoke nearly S.000,l
600, 900 cigars, cheroots, stogies and
all tobacco cigarettes; $500, 900 600
cigarettes with paper wrappings and
consume 30O,000,0OO pounds of
smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco
and snuff.
Every day we smoke 22.OOO,O ,O00|
cigars and 100000 cigarettes, and
either smoke or chew 500 tons of
tobacco, all of which costs 100000.
Every minute of the sixteen hours n
day that we are awake we make our
selves poorer by $500 for $4,000 ci-
gars, 10000 cigarettes, and half a
ton of plug and fine cut.
1t is estimated that there are 49,
600, 900 devotees Of the weed, or
about as many smokers as voters.
This estimate is based on the assump-
tion that one person in each six of
our population is a puffer of smoke.
When the bill for 100000 is
divided among 13,OO0O00 smokers,
the smoking habit doesn't look so
purse-brealling, after all. For the
amount spent by each smoker is only
about S23 a year, or less than nifty
cents a week. And yet the yearly
sum lavished on this narcotic herb
by any one OF thousands of men
would build a comfortable country
house and support a bed in a hospital
besides.
Eight billion cigars year! Could
man smoke fifty cigars a day. he
would have to live more than 4OO,-
600 years to consume all the cigars
smoked by the nation in twelve
months.
In length, cigars average four and
a half inches. Laid end to end the
5000 100000 would make "A brown
streak little short of $4,000 miles.
| Cut in half and made into two per
| fectos or panatellas, the man of earth
could. from either of two cigars blow
smoke directly into the face of the
man in the moon. Placed end to end
| in 100 parallel rows they would toor
a bridge across the Atlantic from
New York to Liverpool, and floor 1t
tightly, TOO.
Imagine all these cigars packed in
boxes of fifty! There would be 160,-
| inches in length and three inches in
height. Laid end to end the boxes
would make line 20, 200 miles long
| and in seven parallel rows they would
reach across the continent from
Portland to Portland.
Piled one upon the other in l4O,-
| 600 piles of 200 boxes each they
would form a wall nearly eighteen
miles long and three hundred feet
high-fourteen feet higher than the
Flatiron building in New York.
What about 100000, 600 cigar
| cites? These paper-wrapped smokes
1 average three inches in length. Placed
\ end to end they would form a con
\ tnuous line almost 10000 miles
I long. which would nearly encircle the
earth seven times.
I Cigarettes did not come into gen
4 eral vogue in the United States unit
l1S76, and the output here of these
much-discussed smokes has increased
S 900 per cent in twenty-five years
4 Then. take the total weight of to-
bacco in all forms consumed here
last year 1000 pounds, OF
221,5OO tons. Here is weight equal
to that of the combined weight OF
eleven skyscrapers like the Flatiron
building. Five pounds is our per
i capita consumption, in which respect
we lead all nations except Belgium
where, math hematically, each inhabi'
tant reduces six pounds to ashes.
4 And snuff Those who believe
u SNUFF taking TO be an almost extinct
] habit will be surprised to learn that
i l22.OOO, 900 pounds of snuff were sold
here last year, an average of nearly
a quarter of a pound for each man
woman. and child. Each of the -four
1 largest snuff mills in this country
turns out an average of 100000
4 pounds. And the federal govern
ment derives internal revenue re-
4 ceipts of more than a million dollars
from snuff manufacture.
Nor Is chewing among bygOne hab-
Its. More than 100000 pounds OF
tobacco was chewed up last year
Some persons argue that to smoke
/ is to poison oneself with nicotine
! They assert that as virus Is hidden
4 I'm the Jaw of the cobra. so is nico-
| tine cuuniugly secreted in cigar.
Heart poison" say pathologists, al
L lludiug to nicotine. At the same
time chemists declare that so infini-
/ tesimal is the quantity of nicotine in
a cigar that in their analyses they
have tC hunt for the heart poison"
with infnite care"
/ grain of nicotine taken in one
| dose would kill a man. To commit
suicide by smoking, however man
/ would be obliged to consume the
| smoke of at least 500 of the strong
est cigars of the madura class. one
right after the other in quick sue
cession, ceasing not night nor day
/ Hu tne5OO lay in ashes, and the
smoker himself either dead or still
/ living. to prove that such nicotine
as is contained in cigars IS the slow
est poison known.
As fer cigarettes, an analysis was
made of a hve-cent package. The re-
port proclaimed that a smoker would
have to consume twenty-five pack
ages of even the cheapest cigarettes
before he would have taken as much
nicotine into his system as he would
| in smoking one good cigar. But II
| Is the paper on cigarettes to which
objection Is usually made.
I aVa1 fTaT