than ever convinced that his master's view of the case was the only right one. smoke all over the house? Last night poor Mrs. G- was up till one o'clock-so sick and weary! It was sultry and hot so that we could not shut the windows, and there was not a place in the house where she could escape the fumes, for some one was smoking half the night. Those young fellows ought to be ad This same sensibility to noise made no little merriment one evening among the dogs at our tea-table. A dark thunder-cloud had surrounded us with solemn gloom, and as the muttering thunder began, the dogs showed their disapproval of commencing solemnities by sup-monished." pressed growls. Suddenly a sharp flash was "They have been," said energetic Susie; followed by a tremendous discharge of aerial artillery. Whereupon Sprite and his squadron rushed out into the yard, and setting their noses toward the bellowing cloud, they barked and yelped and howled till, seemingly satisfied that they had thoroughly done up the job, they returned quite self-complacent, and apparently perfectly confident that no thunder-cloud ever would venture here again, at least while they guarded the premises. We have grand good times in this hot weather up in these cool mountains. We walk through deep gorges and climb the Dome to watch the setting sun and gorgeous sunset clouds. We gaze on white thunder-caps and the ever-varying cloud shadows that glide over the mountains. We ride to Bashbish, which traveled ladies say equals Switzerland in all but snow-clad summits. We gather strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, that line our path in all directions. We rejoice over the farm-house abundance of milk, cream, fresh butter, and the nicest of bread and cakes. We dress as we please, and live an easy outdoor life. In the cool of the day we play croquet, and in the evening we sit on the piazzas by moonlight and listen to young voices and a fine guitar that discourse sweet music. But all earthly pleasures have their alloy, and the honest historian is obliged to chronicle some of these, or fail in the prime virtue of truthfulness. Listen, then, to some young maidens in the chit-chat of their chambers: "Girls," says kind-hearted Bessie, "'tis too What shall we do with this tobacco bad! DEFYING THUNDER. "I spoke to the landlord, and he told them that smoking around the house, and especially in the piazzas, sent the smoke into all the windows and troubled the ladies. The youths were very sorry-would not do it any more; smoked in the grove two or three days; one after another forgot; some new ones came, and now, from morning to midnight, we are perfumed with tobacco in parlor, chambers, halls, and piazzas." And "It was just so at Saratoga last year," said earnest Mary. "Mother suffers dreadfully from the fumes of tobacco, and I tried to get a rule enforced by the landlord that the smoking should be confined to the gentlemen's side of the piazzas. But there was no use in trying. The smoking was kept up night and day all around the house, in the halls and in the chambers, and so mother had to leave. And last winter, when we moved into the city on purpose for her to ride daily in the horse cars, the men and boys would smoke at both ends outside, so that it poured in at doors and windows, and there was no stopping it. So poor mother had to give up riding or pay enormous prices, which we could ill afford. And when we journey the smokers in the smoking car fill hair, mouth, and clothes with the vile odor, and then come and sit in front of us, so we have no escape but to put heads out of the window. then the conductor comes and tells us we shall have our brains knocked out. Something ought to be done to stop such abuses." "Dear soul," says jolly Julia, "there is no use in trying. The men will smoke, say and do all you can. I have seen it tried thoroughly at Uncle Smith's, and am convinced that there is no help for it, and we women may as well submit and make the best of it. Uncle Smith once raved and preached, and reasoned and entreated, till he drove all the young men from his premises. You know how fond aunt is of her sisters' children, especially those that are the worst smokers. She grieved greatly over their departure, and uncle loves her so much he can not be comfortable to see her disturbed. So he drew in his horns and helped her to coax them back, though he knows how sensitive she is to tobacco. But he submits in such a droll way as keeps me in a constant giggle." 66 'Why," said Bessie, "they do not come and smoke in her parlor when they know how it troubles her, do they?" "No, but they smoke at home till they are drenched, and then they smoke all the way coming; so that as soon as they enter the room it is instantly filled with putrid tobacco-smoke and their still more fetid breaths." "Yes," said Julia, "their breath is the worst of it, and I have to contrive all manner of devices to keep out of range. When unele sees any of them coming he instantly begins his comic performances, slips windows down at top, opens doors, and if it is winter, brings the stove almost to white heat, meantime keeping us in a gale of merriment. Then when they enter he is so cordial, and so jolly, and so abundant in welcomes, that the poor fellows imagine themselves special favorites. Then he is constantly slipping in remarks with a double sense, and making droll quotations that we understand one way and the youths another. Oh, it is better than the best comedy to hear him. One day he declared, as he saw some of them coming, that the animal, carrying such a perfume that even its name can not be spoken in refined society, was a rose and a pink in comparison with the approaching company. One time when he called out this objectionable name my aunt remonstrated, 'Well, well,' said he, 'I won't say the whole word; but I can say s and k with a dash between, for this is allowed in the best bred prints.' So afterward he would talk of the 'sk' even before the unconscious youths, and in such a droll way that aunt is amazed and half vexed while I enjoy the fun." "Yes," says another, “I have some of the same experience at Aunt Hannah's. She is very sensitive to tobacco, and yet she is so fond of her nephews that she conceals her dislike of their habits. So when I am there we take turns, each sitting smiling and apparently delighted with our sweet-scented visitors till flesh begins to fail, when, making some plausible excuse, one goes out for fresh air and the other takes her turn. And when they are out of hearing we set open doors and windows to air the house and have a good laugh." the good mother and son are convicted of bad manners. To say No is a falsehood; and so one must hunt up some subterfuge to escape the dilemma." "I tell you how I manage in such cases," says Julia. "Though the dead smoke in hair and clothes and the still worse breath are loathsome, I really like the fresh perfume of a good cigar. So when I find myself in this dilemma, I say 'I like the perfume of a good cigar,' and so make my escape.' "But," says honest Nelly, "you practice an injurious deception. You make the impression that you are satisfied with what you detest, and what is also really wrong. One reason the young men are so free and easy in thus violating the rules of good-breeding is, that they are deceived by such methods." "Well," said Clara, "I can get along tolerably with the smoking, but the chewing is perfectly hideous; and I do not see how any gentleman could practice it, after journeying in our railroad cars-such sights of mouths, all stained and twisted with the cud-the constrained and nauseous spitting, and the slippery puddles of saliva! And I have, many a time, found my dress and hose all stained before I perceived what was under my feet. And, again and again, I have had a nice traveling dress actually spit on by some of the clownish fellows that frequent our dépôts. I could endure a smoker, at least till his breath became intolerable, but I do not understand how any woman could marry a man that chews." "You seem to think, Clara, that gentlemen chew just like the clowns you meet in the cars. I assure you there is a gentlemanly way of using tobacco. My brother uses it some; but I do not suppose any one but the family know it. His breath is always sweet except when he has tobacco in his mouth." "Well," said Clara, "I would encourage him in this decent way of doing a vulgar thing, if you can not persuade him, as I should try to do, to give it up altogether, as both an ungentlemanly and sinful practice." "Yes," said another, "and I believe it is more unhealthful than smoking." 66 'No, it is not," said Julia; "for Uncle Smith, while he was fighting, and scolding, and arguing, used to read the opinions of physicians to us, and they say smoking, by its action on the brain, through the nostrils as well as through the lungs, is far more injurious than any other form of tobacco." Here timid Anna, who has been searching her port-folio, finds a paper, and after some hesitation begins: "Yes," says conscientious Clara, "that is the worst of it. We are almost forced to play hypocrite by false pretenses. The other day I called on kind Mrs. L Her son is just from the army, and 'dear Dick' must have and do every thing his heart desires. And so he smokes all over the house. They were sitting in worse than Egyptian fog. The youth had the grace to stop as we passed the ordinary compliments, holding the smoking cigar in his fingers. I sat smiling in my agonies till I "Oh, girls! I feel so sad and so consciencethought a crisis was coming, and then rushed smitten every time I think about this. Father into a shut-up parlor with a sudden enthusiasm says the young boys of our country are fast about a picture. It was 'dear Dick's favorite,' going to ruin by this dreadful practice, and that and so he and mother follow and stand so close we young ladies ought to use our influence to that the smoking cigar is under my nose. Sud- save the poor fellows. Some of them our own denly bethinking himself, dear Dick inquires brothers. He gave me this paper and told me if tobacco is disagreeable? Now if I say Yes, to read it, as addressed by him to the young men who visit us, and to get other young ladies | writer, in an article read to the British Medical to do so too. But I have not had courage to Association at Bath, said: do any thing about it. I want to read it to you and see what you think we ought to do." So a circle was formed, and Anna read as follows: "Every physician knows that the agreeable sensations that tempt to tobacco are caused by nicotine, which is a rank poison, as much so as prussic acid or arsenic. When smoked this poison passes to the brain through the nostrils, and to the blood as it passes through the lungs. When chewed the nicotine passes into the blood through the mouth and stomach. In both cases the brain and whole nervous system are thrown into an abnormal excitement to expel the poison, and it is this excitement that causes the agreeable sensations. Nicotine is a medical agent like arsenic, mercury, and other poisons, which in disease sometimes is a remedy. But tobacco has no element that nourishes the body as do food and drink. On the contrary, every nerve and fibre rejects it as a mortal enemy. The excitement thus caused is invaria bly followed by a diminution of nervous power in exact proportion to the preceding stimulation. Some nerves are much more sensitive than others to this agent, and after repeated doses they become debilitated, and crave an increase of stimulation to relieve the fainting system. And the more is taken the more the aching nerves demand increasing doses. "Persons of certain temperaments can bear large and continuous portions of such poisons as opium, hasheesh, and tobacco apparently uninjured. Others speedily become victims to very small doses. The phlegmatic German can take doses that would kill the excitable Frenchman or American. The following extracts from standard medical authors sustain these statements: "Dr. John C. Warren, the celebrated physician of Boston, writes thus: "The lining membrane of the lungs has a wonderfully absorbent action, by which they suck in the air destined to vivify the blood. If this air is impregnated with the fumes of tobacco, even in a weak degree, the noxious fluid is entangled in the minute spongy air-cells, and has time to exert its influence on the blood, not in vivifying but in vitiating it. The blood, having imbibed the narcotic principle, circulates it through the whole system, and produces a febrile action in most individuals-especially those of a delicate habit."" Here one listener exclaimed: "Now we see how it is we poor women are made to suffer. Most of us are of delicate habit-at least we have the credit of it-and the more delicate we are the more we are injured by inhaling tobacco-smoke. The Bible says, 'We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.' I think those who use tobacco read this reversed (if read at all): We that are weak ought to bear the infirmities of the strong, and let them please themselves." Anna continues thus: "Smoking unquestionably is very injurious to the animal functions. The blood is made too fluid, the biliary secretion is arrested, and the digestion is constantly deranged. On the heart the effect is very marked. The great effect of tobacco is to arrest all the functional processes on which growth and development depend. Το growing youth smoking is especially deleterious,"" Here another listener remarks: "That is the reason, I suppose, that Cousin Joe and Cousin Will both have dyspepsia and constant headaches. They of course will not believe it, or, if they do, it will make no difference." Says another: "Dr. B-, of the H Asylum, told father that heart-diseases among young men, especially in schools and colleges, were becoming more and more prevalent from the habit of smoking." Says a third: "I wonder if Cousin George is so short and stunted from his smoking-Dr. Richardson says the chief effect of tobacco is to arrest growth." Says a fourth: "How many of the students in college have sallow skins! I suppose smoking is the cause, for this doctor says that it affects the biliary system." Anna proceeds again: "Sir John Forbes (the Queen of England's late medical adviser) said of the following remarks of Dr. Copeland, 'Every medical man knows this is all true:' "Smoking weakens the digestive and assimilating functions, impairs the due elaboration of the chyle and blood, and prevents a healthy nutrition of the seversi structures of the body. Hence results low stature, a pallid and sallow hue of the skin, unhealthy blood, and weakened bodily powers. Smoking generates thirst and vital depression, and, to remove these, stimulating liquor is resorted to. Thus these two debasing habits shorten the Hife of the individual and injure or ruin his offspring. Smoking tobacco weakens the nervous powers, favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state, produces indole ce, and sinks its votary into maudlin inactivity and selfish enjoyment of his vice.'" Here a listener remarks: "So it seems that smoking tends not only to make men of small size, but to transmit this blessing to their children. I think we are in a fair way to become a nation of pigmies." "It seems too," says another, "that the mind is diminished as well as the body. I know two or three young fellows that were very bright at school that are turning out lazy, stupid drones, spending half their time in sleeping or smoking. Poor Cousin Will is one!" Anna reads again : "Dr. Jolly read an article on this subject to the French Academy at Paris, in which he attributes the increase of insanity in France and other countries to the excessive use of tobacco. He says that debility of the brain and spinal cord is the consequence of this practice, and such debility leads to insanity." Here another listener exclaims: "Yes, indeed, it must be so, for Dr. B—, of the Lunatic Asylum, told father the other day that "Dr. Richardson, a leading British medical he was constantly receiving cases of young men led to insanity by tobacco, and that they were among the most difficult cases to cure. How dreadful to think so many young boys are getting into this fatal practice!" Next Anna reads the following: Anna then says, "The worst is yet to come, and yet there is some consolation in it too." She reads thus: "In Boston there is an institution expressly designed for persons who have ruined health Henry Ward Beecher, in one of his printed by the use of such stimulants as opium, tosermons, says: "I do not deny that there are many temperaments that use tobacco all their lives with little inconvenience to themselves (though not to others). But we are a nervous people. Every thing in our society tends to develop brain and nerve unduly. Among such a people smoking is apt to lead to thirst and drinking. The cigar and the cup are well acquainted with each other. The use of tobacco always tends to waste the nerve force and the brain force, and you do not know but you are the one in five that will be prematurely poisoned and destroyed. Not one single element of health does it give you, and the pleasure you derive from its use is, in the main, illusive pleasure. And such is the effect of it as a poison, on many constitutions, that the struggle to break away is next only to the struggle of breaking away from the cup. And it has led many and many a youth to the cup. On grounds of simple common-sense I ask, is it well to spend your means to keep a habit that incommodes others, annoys those about you, will probably injure your health, and possibly injure your morals? The young often acquire this habit because they feel that it will be a distinction. No-unfortunately, smoking is so common that it is not a distinction. If you wish to have a distinction refrain from smoking. That will make you remarkable.'" This last extract was followed by exclamations -"Good!" "Excellent!" "First-rate!" "I wish all ministers would preach so!" with various other commendations. "But," says one, "this asking ministers to stop using tobacco and to preach against it, the grand difficulty is that, when conscientious people do what is wrong, they contrive, somehow, to make it seem right. I was talking with my minister a while ago about it, and he says his physician advised him to smoke a cigar every day after dinner to aid weak digestion." bacco, hasheesh, and alcohol. It bears the name of the 'Washington Home,' and is conducted by Dr. Albert Day, 887 Washington Street. In his last Annual Report Dr. Day speaks of a species of insanity frequently induced by the use of tobacco as well as alcoholic drinks. The name given to this kind of insanity is Oino-mania. "Dr. Carpenter, a leading medical writer of Great Britain, indorses the following statement from Dr. Hutchinson of the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum. In speaking of disease caused by the use of stimulants, he says: "The worst and most common result is the chronic form of Oino-mania. This is by far the most incurable form of the malady. The patient is incessantly under the most overwhelming desire for stimulants, and is perfectly incapable of self-control. While the paroxysm is on him he is regardless of his health, his life, and all that can make life dear. He will sacrifice comfort and reputation, withstand the claims of affection, consign his family to misery and disgrace, and deny himself the common necessaries of life to gratify this insane propensity. This is the fearful state portrayed [and experienced] by Charles Lamb. The only chance of cure or alleviation is from attention to the health and total abstinence [from the destroying stimulants']. "Dr. Day, in this Report, says: "A mistaken idea prevails that the victim becomes and continues so because he has no desire and makes no effort to reform. No error can be more complete. To shake off the shackles of this slavery is the dream by day and night of the unfortunate sufferer; and how to accomplish it is the question he eagerly asks, and for whose answer he waits with the most intense desire. Most touching in stances occur of heroic self-denial in persons abandoned as hopeless by their dearest friends, and thought to be indifferent to their own reform.' "Yes," says another, "and you may be sure that physician is a slave to tobacco. I wonder if he would advise us young ladies to take a "One case is narrated in this Report of a cigar after dinner daily. I am sure women man without money or friends who had heard have weak nerves, and suffer from indigestion of this Washington Home. Having no means as much as men. I should like to ask that of transportation, he walked forty miles, travdoctor a few questions as to women's smoking.eling much of the way in the night, with feeble If it is such a delightful thing and good for the health, and battling with the phantoms of dehealth, why should we be denied the enjoy-lirium. He reached the Home, was cured, ment? I put this question to a famous General the other day. 'Oh,' said he, we want ladies to be neat and refined in every thing.' 'Indeed,' said I, 'and we wish gentlemen to be neat and refined. Why should they become filthy and vulgar any more than women?'" "No, no; they all know better," said Julia, "they know it is wrong. None of them would advise their young sons to use tobacco. I know several gentlemen who have relinquished the practice lest their sons should be led to imitate. One of the most noted physicians said to me, 'I gave it up for the sake of my boys.'" "The fact is," said Nelly, "men who are sensible and conscientious and yet continue this guilty practice, are as truly slaves, and often more miserable slaves, than the race that many smokers have been fighting to deliver." VOL. XXXIII.-No. 198.-3 C and is now a healthy, happy man." During the reading of this part two of the listeners were in tears, and at its close one had rushed out of the room in an agony of weeping. A long silence followed, and then one of the circle exclaimed, "How dreadful! when so many of our little brothers are beginning to smoke!" "Yes," said another; "and how few know what distress comes into families in this That is what sent poor Mary out in such distress. Her oldest brother, whom she almost worshiped, I do believe was one who had this Oino-mania; for he was affected exactly as the doctor describes. He was a noble fellow, and as true and honorable in his words as in all his ordinary actions. But when he first went into the army he learned to smoke, and after two or three years it seemed impossible for him to break off. He would give it up for a few weeks, and then it seemed as if he was as crazy as any maniac till he began to smoke again. And so it went on till he began to drink, and that ended his life. And now his young brother Jimmy has begun to smoke, and his mother and sisters have just found it out, and they are in dreadful state of excitement. And Jimmy says that almost all the boys at school smoke, and some of them are beginning to drink too, and their parents do not even suspect it. The boys think smoking and drinking is the way to become gentlemen, which, you know, is their chief aim. Oh, what will become of us if things go on in this way?" "I tell you what we can do," said another: "let us ask our ministers to preach as Mr. Beecher did." "I can not do that," said a third, "for our rector smokes, and so does his assistant, and so does the bishop. No minister who smokes can be asked to preach against it as a vice and sin. And so long as our governors, judges, clergymen, warriors, and most honored citizens set the example the young boys will follow it. I do not see as we can do any thing but mourn." At last one of the circle exclaims, "Let us ask some of the lady writers in Harper's Magazine and the Atlantic to prepare a piece that we can give our brothers and friends to read." This proposal met with an unanimous ap Says Julia: "I believe a great part of habit-proval, and this article comes as the result. ual smokers are the victims of this dreadful Oino-mania. "Then," said Nelly, "they ought to go to Dr. Day and be cured. In New York State there is, at Binghamton, an institution to cure inebriates, and a law has been passed by which an intemperate man, on complaint of his family, can be tried by a jury, and if proved to be a drunkard, he may be taken by force and confined in this institution till he is cured. Such a law and such institutions ought to be in every State, and the victims of tobacco, too, ought to be shut up there till they are cured. I think this Oino-mania is far worse than the other kinds of mania, because its victims are suffered to go at large and tempt young men and boys into such dangers." "Well, well," says one, "if all smokers and chewers of tobacco were sent to hospitals there would be few left to keep the world moving." "What can we do, girls ?" says Clara. "Our brothers, most of them, are in this dreadful habit; but it does no good to talk, they only either laugh at us or go off in a pet." The preceding is a true exhibition of facts with only a change of names, place, and time in certain portions. Having introduced some of the darker shades in our sojourn at Mount Washington a few of the lighter will form our finis. At first all the gentlemen around us were smokers. But ere long two arrived whose fair complexion, pure breath, and fine voices showed that tobacco had never debased either mind or manhood. By one a fine guitar was deftly touched and mingled with a cultivated, manly voice. The other and his wife were welltrained amateur singers. Among our young ladies were unusually sweet-toned, cultivated voices. Ere long a youth came from college who, to please his mother, had resisted all the tobacco temptations which few there do resist, and he also added another to our choir. So by the soft moonlight, in cool piazzas, we passed many a charming hour. To complete our enjoyment some of the dogs and all the smokers went off together in a style which we all hope is emblematic of our future at Mount Washington and all over our land. |