Life — October 28, 1897 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Hattos ORK, rina, fous, ‘LIFE: Some Delusions About Cigarette Smoking. LL delusions are harmful, and many an anxiety and alarm would have been spared to nervous people had they known a few simple truths about cigarettes. What fol- lows may prick a bubble or two of popular superstition, THE POISONOUS’ PAPER DELUSION, THE most primitive of delusions concerning cigarettes is that about the poisonous effects of the paper. The paper used in cigarettes has to be absolutely pure fibre. If it con- tained anything but the fibre which is necessary to hold it together, it would be thick and unpleasant to the smoker, If it contained arsenic or any other poisonous substance it would leave a very perceptible ash. Burn a cigarette paper and see what it leaves behind. THE ‘WHY DON'T YOU SMOKE CIGARS?" DELUSION. IGNORANT people think that all tobacco smokers have the same habit. They might as well believe that be- cause a man is fond of paté de foie gras he must also like corned beef and cabbage. There is a refinement of taste in smoking as well as in eat- ing. One man likes strong drink, another wines with a bouquet, One smoker likes a pipe or cigar; another the dainty cigarette, All smoking is not the same, and there can be no dispute about tastes. De gustibus non disputandum, THE ‘‘SNIPE” TOBACCO DELUSION, Many people believe that cigarettes are made of refuse tobacco, of cigar ends, stubs, stems, cheap growths, and other things too unpleasant to mention. The statistics of the to- bacco trade show that the very best growths of American tobacco are bought by the cigarette manufac- turers. The dissection of any cigar- ette made by reputable concerns will show that it contains nothing but straight, clean tobacco, THE OPIUM DELUSION, Opium is one of the most expen- sive drugs in the market. To have the slightest effect it must be con- sumed in appreciable quantities, as every physician knows. Standard cigarettes of American make retail at considerably less than a cent each. Taking off the jobber’s profit and the retailer's profit, does it stand to reason that the manufacturer can use even the mildest solution of opium ? THE NICOTINE DELUSION, BLowInG cigarette smoke through a handkerchief is often taken as an evidence of the tremendous quantity of nicotine taken into the system through smoking cigarettes. Did anyone ever try the same test with smoke from a pipe or a cigar? The result might be startling. The fact is that the brown deposit is not nico- tine at all, but a combination of sub- stances no more harmful than char- coal or vaseline. Any number of official analyses made by leading chemists show that the amount of nicotine to which the cigarette smoker is exposed in his daily con- sumption of cigarettes is far less than that to which the pipe smoker or cigar smoker subjects himself. THE CIGARETTE FIEND DELUSION, OccasionaL mention is found inthe sensational prints of persons who have become insane or have committed suicide through excessive smoking of cigarettes. The usual tale is that the victim was accustomed to smoke a certain number of packages of cigarettes a day. To most of these stories an arithmetical computation of the number of cigarettes in a pack- age and the number of minutes ina day gives the lie at-once. None of them are confirmed by the records of coroners’ offices or insane asylums, or by cases reported in the medical journals, OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION, UNDER date of October 12th, a Chicago despatch to the New York papers announces the result of an official investigation by the Health Department of that city into the purity of cigarettes on sale there. Fourteen brands were purchased in the open market. No impurities were found in any of them by the depart- ment experts, Dr. Gehrmann and Professor Kennicott. Exhaustive analyses were made of every brand of cigarette found for sale in the city. All were found to be entirely free from opium, morphine, jimpsom weed, belladonna, atropine, hyasya- mine or other substances foreign to pure tobacco, Neither was there any lead or arsenic found in the paper wrappers, Tue prince of a small German State, whose ambition it was to be grand, if only on a small scale, had invited a number of gentlemen to goon a deer-stalking expedi- tion, Everything promised well. The weather was superb and the whole company was in the best of spirits, when the head forester approached the petty monarch and, lifting his green cap, said, in faltering tones: “* Your Highness, there can be no hunting to-day." ““Why not ?" came the stern rejoinder. “Alas, your Highness, one of the stags took fright at the sight of so many people and has escaped into the adjoining territory, and the other stag has been ill since yester- day. But your Highness must not be angry —it is most likely nothing worse than a bad cold, We have given it some herb tea and hope to get it on its legs again in a few days."—Zilaner Morgenzeitung, THERE is a young skeptic in one of the public schools of Cincinnati, according to The Engutrer, of that city. “Cold,” said the teacher, with as much empressement as if he had just made the discovery, ‘ cold contracts and heat expands.” ‘‘ Then,” asked the new boy, ‘‘what is the reason them Alaska fortunes shrink so the further south they git?” Is some parts of Devonshire the people live to be very old. An old man of ninety, living quite a distance from the nearest town, requiring some family groceries, sent hisson, aman of seventy-odd years ofage. When the son failed to show up with the provisions in time, bis grandfather, a centenarian of one hundred and eight, said peevishly: That's what comes from sending a kid."—77t-Bits, comicbooks.com