Oh, the vile cigarette!  What smell can be worse and more poisonous?  I feel outraged at being compelled to smell this poison on the street.  I have the right to take cigars and cigarettes from men’s mouths in self-defense, and they ought not to be allowed to injure themselves.  “Liberty is the largest privilege to do that which is right, and the smallest to do that which is wrong.”  Governments are organized to take care of the governed.  I believe it ought to be a crime to manufacture, barter, sell or give away cigars, cigarettes and tobacco in any form.

Oh, for the success of the Prohibition Party that will bring in reforms along these lines—­and this is the only party that will do it!  Tobacco degenerates body and mind.  Physical and mental culture demand its discontinuance.

Dr. Jay W. Seaver, associated physical director of Yale University, says:  “Among college students, the gain of growth, in general, is 12 per cent. greater among those who do not use tobacco than those who smoke.  It has also proven by tests in the laboratory that the nicotine in a fairly mild cigar will reduce a man’s muscular power from 25 to 40 per cent.”

Were it not for the tobacco habit, we would need no smoking car.  Suppose women had a vice that required them a separate apartment from the men when they travel.  Even in the cars where the women travel there are rooms fixed up in luxuriant style while poor mothers with their babies have to sit upright and smell this rank and poisonous odor.  But of course women have no redress, or are made to think they have none.  Shame to you men, a decent dog will not bite a female, while men the impulse of protecting their females they are lower than a decent beast.

While I was in New York City last week April the 2nd a Mr. Thomas McGuire, treasurer of the Fourteenth Ave., Theatre had his tongue cut out to prevent tobacco cancer from spreading.  This was from smoking cigars.  General Grants’ tongue rotted from the same cause.

This is one of the best poems on the vice I ever read.  Author unknown.

          Hesmokes. 
     “In the office, in the parlor;
     On the sidewalk, on the street;
     In the faces of the passers,
     In the eyes of those he meets,
     In the vestibule, the depot,
     At the theatre or ball;
     E’en at funerals and weddings,
     And at christenings and all.

     “Signs may threaten, men may warn him;
     Babies cry and women coax;
     But he cares not one iota,
     For he calmly smokes and smokes. 
     Oh, he cares not whom he strangles,
     Vexes, puts to flight, provokes;
     And although they squirm and fidget,
     He just smokes and smokes and smokes.

     “Not a place is sacred to him;
     Churchyards, where the flowers bloom;
     Gardens, drives, in fact the world is
     Just one mighty smoking room,
     And when once he quits this mundane sphere,
     And takes his outward flight,
     From the world he made a hades,
     Day he’s turned to murky night.