Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-08-16
Careless Smoker
Should Be Educated,
Saws COm'r. Spencer

Hon. Wilbur D. Spencer of Ber-
WICK, state insurance commissioner,
in an interview Wednesday, de-
clared that it is impossible to trav-
erSe any public street or follow the
line of any steam or electric rail-
road into any section of the State
without finding the trail of the care
less smoker.
Last week the stub of a cigar
cite flung carelessly by a bell boy
from an inside window upon an
outside combustible roof destroyed
property worth $750,000, and only
through the intervention of Provi-
dence was there no loss of life"
continued Commissioner Spencer.
During that same week losses in
the United States from the same
hazard may be computed conserva-
lively at $7,5O0,0O0.
| This sum may seem small when
! compared with a national debt of
$4,000, 100000. but it might have
furnished a $1,000 bonus for every
one of 1900 World War veterans.
1T does not matter what anyone
may think to the contrary. there
are substantial evidences that the
world is already tired of the whole
business, but it is obliged to hang
on to it as if it were an electric cur
, rent.
although it is not the distinct
privilege of the insurance depart
ment of Maine to regulate the use
| of tobacco and paper stocks for
fuel, nor to initiate legislation to
prevent their abuse for such pur.
pose. it cannot afford to show any
quarter in this great modern fire
hazard. no matter how much others
may minimize it's dangers.
The State law already provides
that cigarettes may not be sold to
minors, but dealers ignore the law
and the public condones it's contra
vention.
There is no necessity for visible
proof that children are more care
less than their elders in the disposal
of dangerous elements, for the COM
posite experience OF ages shows
them. as a class, to be more indif-
ferent, or less considerate, in ali
ordinary transactions of life.
Everyone knows that the fav-
orite resort of the youthful novia-
tiate is in or behind some unoccu-
pied building, where he will escape
his first communion with a life
long divinity.
"As for adults, familiarity breeds
contempt. even as in the handling
of explosives.
Some of both sexes cannot re-
tire at night without the composing
influence of the customary book and
cigarette.
In restaurants. it is now merely
bonton for the chef and the waiter
TO doubly season soups with the de-
ratured product Of the habitual
cigar.
Many are inclined to over-esti-
mate the sentiment in favor of
smoking. -
Even a majority Of those who
have nursed the habit through its
preliminary stages and become
bound would be pleased to be freed
from 1t. Like those who were for.
merly addicted to the regular use
of intoxicatants. and voted for pro-
hibition Notwithstanding. this ma
jority would willingly vote to fore
go its imperialism without a qualm.
MANY of them realize that while
they may be discreet themselves.
the habit furnishes a pretext for the
criminal and Indifferent to obtain
and conceal proven implements of
destruction.
THE only remedy for the pres
ent condition Of the hazard is edu-
cational. If laws were imperative
in the present instance, constraint
may aggravate the tendency to-
wards lawlessness.
'The effect of education upon this
subject in the public schools might
be retroactive in the homes. At
any rate, since one extreme still fol-
lows another, 1t Is to be expected
that the world is vet to produce
some more conservative generations
than the present one.
apparently all that the insur-
ance department can do for the
present and immediate future is to
sound an occasional warning to call
the attention of pre-occupied
public to the cigarettes importance
as great destructive factor in the
! TO-