‘But as to smoking in colleges and among youths generally, I am firmly convinced that the practice is bad in every way. No youth under the age of sixteen should be permitted to take tobacco in any form, under pain of physical chastisement or public prosecution.’ Prince Bismarck having thus delivered himself, the honour of France demanded that the Grand Nation should not remain silent in the halls of the immortals. An animated chatter among the spectral throng ensues, and mutterings which mark dissension are audible above the general hum. ‘Indulgence in tobacco and alcohol are leading directly to the total annihilation of conscience … the moral sense is blunted, and degeneracy is spreading throughout Christendom. Count Tolstoy is perfectly certain of it, according to communications which have reached me through a medium of highly purified spiritual affinities.’ ‘After dinner nothing ever was so good as a pipe, taken with a glass or two of brandy—not that I cared for alcohol, O dear no! but this I do say, that the more I smoked the better I worked.’ ‘The depopulation of France is directly involved in the use of the pernicious plant called tobacco, as was proved by my experiments on cocks and rabbits (Dr. Depierris). The manufacture and sale of tobacco are, very properly, entirely in the hands of the government; it can, therefore, regulate the output, increase or diminish the quantity, or cut off the supply altogether, if either one or the other course be deemed advisable in the public interest. My argument was, in the first place, based upon experiments on animal organisms conducted under my own eyes, and in the second place, on reports furnished by Prefects of Departments. Those reports demonstrated the alarming fact that in ten departments where each inhabitant smoked on an average 1490 grammes of tobacco in the year, the families having seven children and upwards were in the proportion of sixty-eight in every 100,000 of the population; while in ten other departments where the average consumption of tobacco was only 451 grammes per head, the proportion of families of seven children for every 100,000 inhabitants rose to eighty-one; the still-born children numbered only 156, against 1124 in the former case. Hence the significant inference that the use of tobacco led directly to degeneracy of the human race.’ ‘But tobacco may be used in moderation without injury, if men would but keep away from the little glasses of brandy, absinthe, and other similar liqueurs.’ ‘Tobacco produces sluggishness and loss of will power.’ ‘On dit, et c’est passé en proverbe; Le tabac c’est l’ami de l’homme, il le console de la femme.’