Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1909-11-17


characteristic and beautiful f.i'
they are disposed to receive as g.s
pei Truth everything gained from
teacher and book and the reaction.
caused By detecting ,itier in an in
accurate statement. is Iik 'ly |,
make me dis :reult the Mnule stHenl,
Of i%nstructio'
Last sum n.r . var az" | attend
ell service a;oM; of the most intin-
entail county, churches III the low
Country. TIL .pastoresas an old col
lee" II an who fancicd that the learn
ing Of Il generation ago was as good
is any, and whose memory was
guilty of playing him most treacher-
ouSly. In the course of his sermon
which he doubtless considered very
scientific he said: I'VE think WI are
tie discoverers of new things, the
invention of new devices, but we
are vastly mistaken. We think gun
powder for instance a modern dis
cover but believe me that some
years ago when excavators were
digging in the ruins of ancient
Pompeii and Herculaneum they
.;ourd beside a city gate the re-
mains of a Roman soldier standing
with a muSket in his hands" Now
honestly what respect could any boy
or girl studying ancient history
have for such pscudo-scbolarship as
that?
Or what boy could he made to
believe that as a general rule most
cigarettes are made from the stumps
of cigars and other cigarettes scrap
ed from c%uspidors? Just the plain
bare facts of the evils of tobacco
and liquor are enough to win their
case. We need never bolster the
truth!
In like manner / should say we
ought to teach the essential facts.
Let us not insult even the intelli-
gence of children by hurting at them
arguments that arc beside the mark.
The reason for not smoking cigars
is not hat Pittsburg stogies are
made by .ubercular girls in tene-
ment sweat, shops. The reason is to
be found in the harmful nature of
the weed itself. Beer is not a curse
for no other reason than that it is
brcwed in unsanitary quarters. In
fact l am told that possibly the
neatest, cleanest place in St. Louis is
the Anheuser Busch Brewery, the
home of Budweiser beer. Beer is
harmful because of itself and not
because of where it is made. Give
children as we'll as grown people
credit for having sense enough to
see a point when it is made. Tobac-
co made in the cleanest factory is
unclean in itself and that is the
point. Beer and whiskey are of them
selves unsanitary no matter where
brewed or distilled.
Most teachers are familiar with
the leading facts about alcoholics.
They know and have only to i'm
press as forcibly as they a its
destructive effects on body and
brain. They know what alcohol will
do for a raw egg and it is an easy
inference as to what its effects must
be on the far more delicate cells of
the brain. They can test its effects
on flesh and can infer what its
ravages must be on the delicate mu-
cous membrane of throat and di-
g~estive organs and of heart and
liver and kidneys. If they know
that a bartender wears out more
shoes than any other man and that
simply because the beer in puddles
of which he is constantly standing
eats up the leather it is an easy
guess as to what alcohol will do for
the walls Of vein and artery. Beside
the atrophying the brain and per-
manently injuring and disintegrat-
ing the tissues of the body, alcohol
together with tobacco has the dead
ly characteristic of forming a habit,
of creating a craving and the awful
thing about that is that a bad habit
undermines the will and the char
acter. To undermine and disinte-
CRATE the brain and body is horri-
BILE enough but could anything COM
pare in horror with the undermining
and disintegration of mind and
character? Points like that can not
be overstretched.
And I presume that no n needs
to be told the facts about tobacco.
A few remarks however [ can not
refrain from. l have had occasion to
observe frequently in the case of
others and of myself that tobacco
smoking deadens and benumbs and
inhibits the proper functioning of
the brain. Before I quit tobacco 1
often noticed that with the first
three or four puffs of pipe or cigar
a kind of skim or film seemed to
come over my brain; and if 1 were
writing or reading, no matter how
intently, l would find myself COM