Ladies, the natural enemies of tobacco, relented so far during the war
as to send tobacco and pipes to the soldiers, and worked with their own
fair hands many a pouch. Indeed, the pouch industry continues, though
we will do the ladies the justice to say that, as their pouches usually
have every excellent quality except fitness for the purpose intended,
few of them ever hold tobacco. Does the lady who presented General
Sheridan the other evening, in New York, with those superb and highly
decorated tobacco-pouches suppose the gallant General has had, or will
ever have, the heart to profane such beautiful objects with the noxious
weed? It is evident from these gracious concessions on the part of the
ladies, that they suppose the soldier is a man whose circumstances call
imperatively for the solace of smoke; and really, when the wearied men
after a long day's march gathered round the camp-fire for the evening
pipe, the most infuriate hater of the weed must have sometimes paused
and questioned the science which forbids the indulgence. But, reader,
did you ever travel in one of the forward cars of a train returning
from the seat of war, when the soldiers were coming home to re-enlist?
We need not attempt to describe the indescribable scene. Most readers
can imagine it. We allude to it merely as a set-off to the pleasant and
picturesque spectacle of the tired soldiers smoking round the
camp-fire.
In truth, the soldier is the last man in the world who should smoke;
for the simple reason, that while he, more than any other man, has need
of all his strength, smoking robs him of part of it. It is not science
alone which establishes this truth. The winning boat of Harvard
University, and the losing boat of Yale, were not rowed by smokers. One
of the first things demanded of a young man who is going into training
for a boat-race is, _Stop smoking!_ And he himself, long before his
body has reached its highest point of purity and development, will
become conscious of the lowering and disturbing effect of smoking one
inch of a mild cigar. No smoker who has ever trained severely for a
race, or a game, or a fight, needs to be told that smoking reduces the
tone of the system and diminishes all the forces of the body. He
_knows_ it. He has been as conscious of it as a boy is conscious of the
effects of his first cigar. Let the Harvard crew smoke during the last
two months of their training, and let the Yale men abstain, and there
is one individual prepared to risk a small sum upon Yale's winning back
her laurels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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