Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1913-10-08
WHICH is IT?
Which is Doing the Most
Damage to the Youth of
Our Land, Drinking or
Smoking.

While much has been said and
written in regard to the liquor traf-
fc, and its awful consequences,
it seems that both the pulpit
and the press have been silent in re-
gard to cigarette smoking, which I
believe is doing more real damage
to the body and minds of the men
and boys of to-day than any other
one thing. I admit that the
liquor traffic has been the direct
cause of more blood-shed, murder
and violence than any other one
thing. Liquor dethrones reason
and makes man wreck. 1t breaks
the law of God and man, it desc
crates the holy sabbath, it amples
under foot the tenderest feeling of
humanity, it is moral pestilence
that blights the very atmosphere of
town and country. The liquor
traffic is a stain upon honesty. a
blur upon purity, a clog upon
progress, check upon the noble
impulses. We 90 farther and say,
this liquor traffic is one incentive to
falsehood, deceit, and crime. 1t has
bred drunkards and thieves, muir
der.rs and towards, and is curse
to any people or nation. 1t blights
homes, and damns souls. 1t cor
rupts the ballot box, bribes legisla-
tion and tampers with the courts of
justice. 1t says to the political
party, you straddle thus question
and stab it, or I'll kill you politi-
cally, and the angle-back straddles
and stabs. And if we will take
the trouble to look up the records,
we can see what are the fruits of
this great evil. Behold them in the
mad-house, where tbs maniac
hoWls I'M i rage. on the gal
lows, " here life ends at least Its!
ill-famed career.
The cigarette habit we admit
does not produce orain-storm, does
not have the effect upon the mind
and body as the whiskey. But at
the same time it does produce a
deadening effect upon the whole
body of man. 1t dries up his
blood, the fountain of life, it fills
up the cells of the lungs with poison
nicotine, it clouds the vision, it
dulls the brain, it numbs the men,
tai faculties, it weakens your vitali-
ty, it kills out your patriotism and
courage, it blunts your manhood,
it takes the youthful healthy color
from your face, the brilliant luster
from your eyes, makes your face
swarthy and sallow, the eyes hollow
and sluggish, it also makes you
careless. And as sure as truth
is truth, smoking cigarettes will
shorten ones life. The Book"
says be sure your sins will find you
out. 1t does not matter wha. sort
of sins we commit, nature will
write it in our face, or upon our
bodies.
Cigarette smoking is confined a.
most entirely to the youth Of the
south. On my trip to Gettysburg,
Baltimore and Washington in July,
l did not see single young man or
boy with a cigarette in his mouth,
and you could tell it in the color of
their faces and the brightness of
their eyes. If there is single read
er of these lines who doubts what |
say about this habit, / ask you to
90 down the Horse-Creek Valley
where all the young men and boys
are addicted to the habit, and come
back and tell me what your verdict
is. I asked a gentleman the other
day if he thought smoking ciga-
rettes was hurting him. Yes he said,
am satisfied of that fact, and wish
that l could cut it out. / then
asked him if be was going to let a
cigarette control his will power that
God hadlgiven him. That being the
case, his manhood was entirely gone.
I am of The opinion that man who
has been slave to this habit long,
would not make good soldier on a
battlefield. The strain would be more
than he could stand.
There was a time in my life,
when it was considered al act of
impoliteness for a gentleman to
smoke in ladies company. Not so
now. But of course there have
been many changes in nature, but
not in grace.