A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco: and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire ReformationFowler, Orin
Science
A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco: and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation
Fowler, Orin
Tobacco use
A writer in the Genius of Temperance, says that his practice of smoking
and chewing the filthy weed, "produced a continual thirst for
stimulating drinks; and this tormenting thirst [says he] led me into the
habit of drinking ale, porter, brandy, and other kinds of spirit, even
to the extent, at times, of partial intoxication." He adds, "I reformed;
and after I had subdued this appetite for tobacco, I lost all desire for
stimulating drinks."
Now the fact that some chew, and smoke, and snuff without becoming sots,
proves nothing against the general principle, that it is the natural
tendency of using tobacco to promote intoxication. Probably _one tenth_,
at least, of all the drunkards annually made in the nation, and
throughout the world, are made drunkards through the use of tobacco. If
thirty thousand drunkards are made annually in the United States, three
thousand must be charged to the use of tobacco. If thirty thousand
drunkards die annually, in the United States, three thousand of these
deaths must be charged to the use of tobacco. If twenty thousand
criminals are sentenced to our penitentiaries in twenty years, through
the influence of strong drink, two thousand must be charged to the use
of tobacco. If fifty-six millions of gallons of ardent spirits have been
annually consumed in this country, five and a half millions must be
charged to the use of tobacco. And of all the Sabbath-breaking,
profanity, quarrelling, and crime of every description, caused by the
use of intoxicating drink; a tithe must be charged to the use of
tobacco. And what friend of good morals,--what friend of man,--what
friend of his country,--what friend of Christ and true religion,--and
especially, what friend of the temperance cause,--can look at these
results with the eye of candor and compassion for his fellow-men, and
then not deliberately resolve that he will never chew another quid, nor
smoke another whiff, nor snuff another pinch of the dirty weed?
I maintain my position,
V. From a consideration of the amazing _waste of property_, which the
use of tobacco involves. On this point I have been unable to obtain the
means for making out a perfectly accurate statistical result. I can only
approximate a definite calculation. This approximation, however, will
serve all the purposes of this argument.
We will examine _three items_: the _cost_ of the article,--the _time_
wasted by the use of it,--and the _pauperism_ it occasions. From a
statement lately furnished me from the Treasury department of our
National Government, exhibiting the quantity and value of cigars and
snuff, exported from and imported into the United States, annually, from
1st October, 1820 to 30th September, 1832, it appears that the value of
cigars imported into the United States in 1821, was $113,601. In 1827 it
was $174,931. In 1832 it was $473,134; while from the same document it
appears that the value of cigars exported, in each of those years, was
about one quarter the value of imports.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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