The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1911-02-23
The Cigarette Smoking Boy

F. One of the greatest menaces to our
moral and intellectual we'll to-
day is the fact that cigarette smoking
is becoming popular fad among
boys and young men, while the use
OF strong pipe is close second in
favor. Go where you will in this
broad land of ours, and the pale faces,
blear eyes, trembling fingers and the
foul stencil Of cigarette fumes tell the
same pathetic story. This most SER
ious blight upon the bloom and beau
ty OF our American boyhood is charge
able to paternal ignorance and care
lessness. For the past eight years
| have been tracing out the cigarette
boys biography, and l have found
that in practically all cases the lad
began his smoking habit clandes-
timely, at an early age, and with
little or no thought of it's seriousness.
while the fond parents perhaps be-
lieved that their boy was too good
to engage in such a practice.
MANY GOOD MEN SMOKE.
1t is not the purpose of this paper
to make an attack upon smoking in
general. A majority of the best and
ablest men of the country are smok-
ers, and they unquestionably get
great deal of satisfaction out of their
cigars and pipes. After man has
fully acquired the habit, smoking
tends to drive away depression and
to make him better satisfied with his
lot and a more agreeable companion
OF men and women. By, this I do
not mean that the smoker has these
advantages over he non-smoker.
but rather that the former, through
the re-indulgence of his habit. gets
these results over and above what
he has when he goes without his
usual cigar. Out of one hundred
such men whom interviewed nine
LYNNE frankly admitted that smok-
ing tends to injure the health and
that they wouldn't advise any young
man to begin the habit. This prac-
tice is very offensive to many deli
cate natures, is somewhat filthy at
it's best. and disgustingly filthy at
it's worst, as the ordinary smoking
car will bear witness. Often, in
public places, even refined women
are forced to breathe the sikening
fumes coming directly from the
nostrils OF some coarse, brutal cigar
cite smoker. Smoking is a practice
entirely unnecessary to the develop
ment and refinement of the race.
and it will in time doubtless 90 the
way of the liquor drinking habit.
MOST HURTFUL IN CASE OF BOYS.
But the serious nature, and even
the cruelty, of this smoking habit
among men is at once apparent when
we consider it's influence and affects
upon boys. | have tabulated reports
of tn e condition of nearly $500
cigarette smoking school boys, and
in describing them physically, my
informants have repeatedly resorted
to the use of such epithets as sal
low, "sore-eyed, y" puny,"" squeaky-
voiced" "sickly." short-winded,"
and extremely nervous" In my
tabulated reports it is shown that,
out of group Of twenty-five cases
of young college students, smokers,
whose average age of beginning was
thirteen, according to their own adj
missions they had suffered as follows:
Sore throat, four; weak eyes, ten;
pain in chest, eight; short wind,''
stomach trouble, ten;
pain in heart, nine. Ten of them
to be very sickly. The
younger the boy, the worse the
hurts him in every way,
.or these lads almost invariably in
lale the fumes; and that is the most
injurious part of the practice. Ac-
,ording to DR.. Sims Woodhead, pro-
lessor of pathology in Cambridge
University, cigarette smoking in the
Ease of boys partly paralyzes the
nerve cells at the base of the brain
md thus interferes with the breath
ng and the heart action. And yet,
III this debility and more, as will be
hown later, is brought upon thou