The Funny Side of Physic Part 84

PURE SOCIETY.--HOW A YOUNG MAN WAS "TOOK IN."

When a young man is about to be "taken into society," the question naturally arises, Is the young man, or the society, to be benefited by the accession? As the young man seems anxious to make his _debut_ there, we presume _he_ is to be benefited by the initiation into pure society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXAMINATION OF THE SMOKER.]

Since nine tenths of the young men are tobacco-users, we will presume safely enough that this young man is one of them. He has used it from five to seven years,--sufficient time to admit of its becoming part and parcel of him.

The young man--"John" is his name--is before the examining committee, who, not being blind or obtuse from the use of the weed themselves, and knowing no young man is fit to enter pure society who uses, or has used, tobacco, without being purified, they submit him to the test, with the following results:--

"His clothes are impregnated with tobacco," the examiner reports.

"Let them be removed and purified," is the command.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PURIFYING HIS BLOOD.]

They are soaked in alkalies, and soap, and water. They are washed, and boiled, dried, aired, and pressed and p.r.o.nounced clean, and fit for society.

The committee next examine John's skin. "It is full of nicotine. It must be cleansed." So John is taken to the Turkish bath, the most likely place to remove the filth permeating his every pore. Dr. Dio Diogenes puts him through; he is "sweated," and the great room is scented throughout by the tobacco aroma arising from the ten thousand before clogged-up pores of his skin. He is all but parboiled, then soaped and scrubbed, rubbed, and then goes into the plunge bath. The fishes are instantly killed. The canary bird in the next room is suffocated by the effluvia penetrating to his cage. The young man is wiped again, dried, and cooled.

Again the committee smell. John is not yet pure. The nicotine is "in his blood," says Dr. Chemistry. A faucet is introduced into John's aorta, and his blood drawn off into a bucket for the chemist to a.n.a.lyze and purify of tobacco. Still the flesh is full of nicotine, and it must be removed and purified. It is too late for John to object, and the fact cannot be denied that the poison _is_ in his muscle; so he is stripped of the integuments to his framework.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEANSING HIS BONES.]

The committee now examine the bony structure.

In Germany they have recently dug up the bones of tobacco-users who have been dead years, and found nicotine (tobacco principle) in them. May not this man's bones be full of nicotine, which will come out through, if we replace the integuments, blood, and garments?

"The bones must be subjected to purification," said the judge.

They are soaked in alkalies, boiled in acids, and sufficient nicotine is extracted to kill five men not hardened in the tobacco service.

Thus, and only thus, could John have been purified from his vile habit and its results, and fitted for decent male society, female society, and Christian society. There is said to be one other place where John can possibly have the nicotine of seven years' deposit taken out of him. It is a very warm place, and the princ.i.p.al chemical ingredient used is said to be sulphuric, and kept up to a boiling point by means of infernal great fires.

DELICIOUS MORSELS.

Nicotine is the active principle of tobacco, expressed chemically thus: C10 H8 N. One fourth of a drop will kill a rabbit, one drop will kill a large dog. It is a virulent poison, the intoxicating principle of _prepared_ tobacco. It is not in the natural leaf. _It results from fermentation._ Two little boys were overheard discussing tobacco merits and demerits. One was in favor of tobacco, the other "anti." "Why," said anti, "it's so poisonous that a drop of the oil, put on a dog's tail, will kill a man in a minute." It is the opium in the best Havanas which enslaves the smokers more than the tobacco. Those cigars, also American manufactured cigars, are dipped in a solution of opium. It is said that twenty thousand dollars' worth of opium is used annually in one cigar manufactory in Havana.

THE STREET NUISANCE.

"I knew, by the smoke that so lazily curled From his lips, 'twas a loafer I happened to meet; And I said, "If a nuisance there be in the world, 'Tis the smoke of cigars on a frequented street."

"It was night, and the ladies were gliding around, And in many an eye shone the glittering tear; But the loafer puffed on, and I heard not a sound, Save the sharp, barking cough of each smoke-stricken dear."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SMOKER.]

Here is a "blow" from Horace Greeley. "I do not say that every chewer or smoker is a blackguard; but show me a blackguard who is not a lover of tobacco, and I will show you two white blackbirds." Good enough for Horace.

Now, admitting that there are gentlemen who smoke and chew on the streets, how are ladies, or the people, to know that they are such, since the loafer, the blackguard, the thief, the pickpocket, the profaners of G.o.d's name (all), the blackleg, the murderers bear the same insignia of their profession? At one time, every man incarcerated in the Connecticut state prison was a tobacco-user; nearly all, also, at the Maine, Vermont, and Ma.s.sachusetts prisons.

It is quite lamentable to see how liable tobacco-using is to convert a thorough gentleman into a selfish, dirty blackguard, who will promenade the streets, chatting with some boon companion, while the pair go recklessly along, blowing their offensive smoke directly into ladies'

faces, their ashes into their beautiful eyes, and spitting their filthy saliva directly or indirectly over costly dresses, thinking only of self!

THE MAN WHO CHEWS.

Behold the picture of the man who chews!

A human squirt-gun on the world let loose.

A foe to neatness, see him in the streets, His surcharged mouth endangering all he meets.

The dark saliva, drizzling from his chin, Betrays the nature of the flood within.

Where, then, O where, shall Neatness hope to hide From this o'erwhelming of the blackened tide?

Shall she seek shelter in the house of prayer?

A hundred squirting mouths await her there.

The same foul scene she's witnessed oft before,-- A _solemn cud_ is laid at every door!

The vile spittoon finds place in many a pew, As if one part of wors.h.i.+p were to _chew_!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHEWER.]

ANOTHER STREET NUISANCE.

Speaking of President Grant and his cigar, a writer says,--

"Not only do smoky editors take advantage of this weakness of our president, but tobacconists, greedy of gain, are subjecting it to their sordid purposes. Hitherto these gentlemen have insulted the public taste by posting at their shop doors some savage, some filthy squaw, or some unearthly image, to invite attention to their cigars and 'negro head tobacco.' And all this seemed appropriate. But cupidity is audacious, and they now insult American pride by installing at their doors a full, life-like, wooden bust of General Grant offering to pa.s.sing travellers a cigar. Emblems of majesty are not rare. We have Jupiter with his thunderbolt, Hercules with his club, Ahasuerus with his sceptre, Was.h.i.+ngton with his Declaration of Independence, Lincoln with his Proclamation of Liberty to four millions, and now, in this year of our Lord, we have President Grant and his cigar!

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIGN OF THE TIMES.]

IT BEGETS LAZINESS AND NATIONAL RUIN.

Sir Benjamin Brodie, a distinguished physician of London, says, "A large proportion of habitual smokers are rendered lazy and listless, indisposed to bodily and incapable of much mental exertion. Others suffer from depression of the spirits, amounting to hypochondriasis, which smoking relieves for the time, though it aggravates the evil afterwards....

"What will be the result, if this habit be continued by future generations?"

Tobacco is ruining our nation. Its tendency is to make the individual user idle, listless, and imbecile. Individuals make up the nation. Those nations using the most tobacco are the most rapidly deteriorating.

Once the s.h.i.+ps of Holland ploughed the waters with a broom at the mast-head, emblematic of her power to sweep the ocean. Behold her now!

"Her people self-satisfied, content with their pipes, and the glories once achieved by their grandfathers." Look at the Mexicans, and the lazzaroni of Italy. "Spain took the lead of civilized nations in the use of tobacco; but since its introduction into that country, the n.o.ble Castilian has become degenerated, his moral, intellectual, and physical energies weakened, paralyzed, and debased. The Turks, descendants of the warlike Saracens, are notoriously known as inveterate smokers. And to-day they are characterized as an enervated, lazy, worthless, degenerate people."

Go about the shops, and bar-rooms, and billiard-halls of our own community, and see _our_ lazzaroni. What cla.s.s do they princ.i.p.ally represent--the active and virtuous, or the idle and vicious?

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY LAZY SMOKING FRIEND.]

A young man greatly addicted to smoking, and who, to my knowledge, was exceedingly lazy, was seated by the writer's fireside, listless and idle, save barely drawing slowly in and out the tobacco smoke of an old pipe, when, after repeated requests of his sister that he should go out to the shed and bring in some wood to replenish the dying embers, she got out of patience with him, and exclaimed,--

"There, Ed, you're the laziest fellow I ever saw, sitting there and smoking till the fire has nearly gone out, on a cold day like this."

"Ugh!" he grunted, and slowly added, "I once heard tell of a lazier boy than I am, sister."