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floors and carpets in company, as is now common among them " I do not allow that this charge can be said by any means to be more "commonly" applicable to the better portion of Americans than of Englishmen. Still I do believe the habit in question is more "common" among the plainer, classes of our citizens, than it is among the corresponding classes of any nation on earth, of equal culture, in other respects, with ourselves. And, truly, a habit so filthy, so peculiarly disgusting, and so calculated to give trouble to every neat house-keeper, may well be regarded as equally discreditable to the breeding and the benevolence of those who allow themselves to practise it.

I have known some persons who, in consequence of their habitually chewing tobacco or some other substance, or smoking, were under a necessity so constant and pressing of discharg ing saliva from their mouths, that they were really a trouble to themselves, as well as to every body else. They bespaltered the clothes and persons of all who were sitting in their immediate vicinity; defiled the floor or carpet beyond endurance; and thus rendered themselves a nuisance in every house which they entered. Indeed I have known a few tobacco-chewers, in whom this habit had reached such a degree of concentrated virulence, that they rendered their immediate neighbourhood intolerable;

formed puddles of tobacco spittle at their feet, in the parlour, or in the pew in church in which they were seated; and, in some instances, even compelled persons of delicate feelings, especially females, to leave the room, or the pew, and retire in haste, to avoid sickness of stomach.

To say that this filthiness is very indecent, is to speak but half its condemnation. It is unworthy of a gentleman and a christian: and he who, after being warned, continues to indulge it, ought to be banished, without scruple, from all decent society.

If it be asked, how those who spit much shall manage; I answer, if possible, let them instantly discontinue all those practises which lead to the secretion of an excess of saliva. This is, in every point of view, the best and most effectual method of removing all difficulty. But if this be not possible, then let such persons, when they go into company, make interest with their kind entertainers to furnish them with spittingboxes; or let them endeavour to sit near a window; or let them rise and withdraw from the apartment as often as it becomes necessary to discharge the contents of their mouths; or let them ta e care to have in their pockets extra handkerchiefs, which may be employed to receive the superfluous saliva;-or, if none of these safeguards, or auxiliaries can be had, let them even-stay at home, and thus be sure that

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they trespass on no premises excepting their Even there, indeed, they will annoy and disgust all who visit them but, then, this will be a penalty incurred voluntarily, and endured only as long as each individual can find a sufficient inducement to sustain it. For I have certainly known at least one tobacco-chewing clergyman of whom a respectable professor of religion declared, "that he would most cheerfully pay his board for a week or more, at a tavern, or at any other place, rather than endure his company at a single meal, or for one evening, in his own dwelling." How melancholy, that a minister of religion, instead of being a pattern of neatness and purity, and possessing such manners as to render his company attrac tive to all classes of peopie; should allow himself, by his personal habits, to drive all cleanly and delicate persons from his presence!

Imagine not, however, that it is merely against this miserable extreme of the filthy habit in question, that I protest. It is against every degree of it that I would warn you. Rather than once allow yourself, on any occasion, to spit on the floor in company, you ought to walk a hundred yards, or more, to find a door or window, or submit to almost any ordinary inconvenience. In fact, to go to the root of the evil, the habit of spitting much at all, is a bad habit; and any thing which tends to the

creation, and, of course, to the necessity of discharging, much saliva, ought to be, by all young persons, who are forming their manners, carefully avoided. And scarcely any thing, let me add, admits of being placed, and kept, more fully under the influence of the will, in ordinary circumstances, than this.

2. Another offensive habit, closely connected with the foregoing, against which I would warn you, is the EXCESSIVE USE OF TOBACCO, IN ANY FORM. I do not deny that chewing, smoking, and snuffing tobacco, within certain limits, may be considered as quite consistent with the habits of gentlemen; because many gentle. men practise them; and some who practise more than one, or all of them, even to a degree of excess, yet, from their great personal neatness, and constant attention to appearances, have still avoided becoming, in any considerable degree, offensive to those around them. Such instances, however, are rare. At any rate, nothing is more common than the reverse; and the cases are so numerous in which the consumers of this hateful weed become a source of inconvenience to all with whom they associate; that even the ordinary use of it ought to be regarded with apprehension, by those who would escape the excess to which others have become victims.

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You ought to be aware, my young friend, that no class of persons are more apt to fall into excess in the use of tobacco, in every way, than students; and no class of students, per haps, more remarkably than those who are devoted to the study of Theology. Whether their sedentary habits, and especially their habits of stated composition, form the peculiar temptation by which so many of them are unhappily beguiled, I know not; but it has fallen to my lot to know a very large number of ministers, young and old, who. by excessive smoking, chewing, or snuffing, have deranged the tone of their stomachs; have undermined their health; have seriously injured their voices; have had the fumes of tobacco so thoroughly inwrought in their persons and clothing, that it became impossible for many delicate people to sit near them with impunity; and have laid themselves, after a while, under so absolute a necessity of smoking, or chewing, incessantly, that they have been obliged to withdraw from company, or from the most urgent business, and even to break off in the midst of a meal, and retire to smoke, or else run the risk of a severe affection of the stomach.

In vain do you remind such people, when they are young, and when their habits are forming, that the use of tobacco is, in most cases, unhealthful, and in many, extremely so

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