THE INFLUENCE UPON YOUTH.--Here, too, science utters no doubtful voice. Experience asserts only one conviction. _Tobacco retards the development of mind and body._ [Footnote: Cigarettes are especially injurious from the irritating smoke of the paper covering, taken into the lungs, and also because the poison fumes of the tobacco are more directly inhaled. In case of the cheap cigarettes often smoked by boys the ingredients used are harmful, while one revolts at the thought of the filthy materials, refuse cigar stumps, etc., employed in their manufacture.] The law of nature is that of steady growth. It can not admit of a daily, even though it be merely a functional, disturbance that weakens the digestion, that causes the heart to labor excessively, that prevents the perfect oxidation of the blood, that interferes with the assimilation, and that deranges the nervous system. [Footnote: There is one influence of tobacco that every young man should understand. In many cases, like alcohol, it seems to blunt the sensibilities, and to make its user careless of the rights and feelings of others. This is often noticed in common life. We meet everywhere "devotees of the weed," who, ignoring the fact that tobacco is disagreeable to many persons, think only of the gratification of their selfish appetite. They smoke or chew in any place or company. They permit the cigar fumes to blow into the faces of passers-by. They sit where the wind carries the smoke of their pipes so that others must inhale it. They expectorate upon the floor of cars, hotels, and even private homes. They take no pains to remove the odor that lingers about their person and clothing. They force all who happen to be near, their companions, their fellow-travelers, to inhale the nauseating odor of tobacco. Everything must be sacrificed to the one primal necessity of such persons--a smoke. Now, a young man just beginning life, with his fortune to make, and his success to achieve, can not afford to burden himself with a habit that is costly, that will make his presence offensive to many persons, and that may perhaps render him less sensitive to the best influences and perceptions of manhood.] No one has a right thus to check and disturb continually the regular processes of his physical and mental progress. Hence, the young man (especially if he be of a nervous, sensitive organization) who uses tobacco deliberately diminishes the possible energy with which he might commence the work of life; [Footnote: In the Polytechnic School at Paris, the pupils were divided into two classes--the smokers, and the non-smokers. The latter not only excelled on the entrance examinations, but during the entire course of study. Dr. Decaisne examined thirty-eight boys who smoked, and found twenty-seven of them diseased from nicotine poisoning. So long ago as 1868, in consequence of these results, the Minister of Public Instruction forbade the use of tobacco by the pupils.