The following report of a meeting for the discussion of the great tobacco question is published for the benefit of those who, from a variety of circumstances, are precluded the benefit of public meetings on this important subject / British Anti-Tobacco Society.

Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The following report of a meeting for the discussion of the great tobacco question is published for the benefit of those who, from a variety of circumstances, are precluded the benefit of public meetings on this important subject / British Anti-Tobacco Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consumed eight lialf-ounces of tobacco a-week—seven lie smoked and. one he chewed—this he had done for about thirty years. He had scarcely a tooth left in liis head. How fearfully are the creatures of God marred by indulgence in vicious habits of life! An enslaved snuff-taker once heard me say, that next to dying an unpardoned transgressor, I should shrink from the idea of being laid in my coffin with my nostrils charged with snuff. From that time he abandoned the habit to which, for twenty-eight years, he had been addicted, and he is now become a comely and comparatively healthy looking person. It is difficult to convince the young of the dangerous tendency of bad habits, but for their sake, I must mention one case with which I became acquainted a few days ago. A Manchester tradesman, whose countenance indicated considerable disease, entered a room in which I was sitting. I elicited from him, that at the age of fifteen his father advised him to smoke for tooth-ache. After smoking he went to bed drunk, and as the pain returned day after day, he sought relief from the pipe, and with the same result. Notwitstanding this he continued to smoke. He is now in the forty-sixth year of his age. About four years ago his sight began to fail, and lie took to snuff, hoping to improve his sight, and to make snuff a substitute for his pipe. In this he was disappointed. He could not get on without tobacco. His nervous system is now so weak that whenever he smokes a dry pipe he is so overpowered that he is obliged to lie down, and sometimes has recourse to brandy and water to counteract the effects of tobacco. Loss of memory, the frequent consequence of smoking, prevents his even remembering the text when he attends a place of worship, and he says that it is no use for him to read as he cannot recollect one sentence after another.* What a fearful penalty to pay ! It is affecting to think of the alarming extent to which the young addict themselves to this habit. Sunday school teachers and Sunday school scholars are alike involved in it. To my astonishment last Sunday afternoon I saw a Sunday school teacher, who went to pay a religious visit to a sick and dying man, smoking a pipe in the sick room ! Reformatories and ragged schools are filled with Sunday school deserters. Out of fifteen boys at Blackley Reformatory twelve have smoked, eight have chewed, and ten say they stole money with which to buy tobacco ! Fathers take care! They are nearly all the sons of smokers. Tobacco is emphatically a thirst creator. It induces the use of drink in three ways. It occasions thirst by its influence on the mouth and throat— it creates an uneasy sensation in the stomach, by that portion of the saliva which must necessarily be swallowed, and which is impregnated with the poisonous properties of tobacco—and the prostration which it produces can only be relieved by the counteraction of a stimulating beverage. Should there be temperance reformers present, permit me to say, that all your efforts to suppress intemperance will assuredly prove abortive unless smoking be suppressed. (To this sentiment a simultaneous shout of hear ! hear ! reverberated through the room.) * The advice given to this Tobacco victim was to ask help of God to enable aim to overcome the habit of smoking. To keep a basin of water by his side, with a snonge in it, and frequently to apply it suddenly to the scalp of bis bead—to wash from head to foot with cold water every morning, and to well rub himself with a rough towel. He now says, “7 am quite another man. My appetite is improved, my hand is become steady, and I can note write my name, which I had not done for a long time before, without having my hand guided.” Smokers! surely such results from less than a month’s abstinence from tobacco fumes, although that abstinence may be attended with inconvenience, will induce many of you to follow his example.