"Not long since a father told me that some years ago one of his boys began to smoke, and he kindly tried to persuade him to give it up. The boy replied, 'Father, our minister

smokes; the deacons smoke; the Sunday School superintendent smokes; my teacher smokes, and why not I?' So he continued smoking, and now, having ruined his constitution, his father is obliged to care for him.

"Another father recently wrote me, saying, "My little boy of nine came home last Sunday from school and said, 'Father, there is to be a sale at our school and the teacher asked us little boys to bring some cigarettes and make a parcel to sell.' Such cases make our work very difficult.

"After more than thirty years of temperance work with the young, I can call to mind but one boy that took to smoking who did not afterwards take to drinking. This question should be very prominent with temperance and Sunday School workers, for nothing robs them of their powers so much as tobacco. Their inconsistency is, in my opinion, the cause of their limited success. Yet in spite of all these obstacles, we are, without doubt, making progress in some directions."

"My conviction of the unmingled benefits accruing to the graduates of the Military Academy by the prohibition of tobacco is absolute. The character and amount of work has gained steadily and the number of non-smokers among the graduate officers of the army is surprisingly large, if the percentage among those serving at this institution is a fair criterion."

"Every person who shall smoke, or have in his or her possession any lighted pipe or cigar in any street, lane, or passage-way, or on any wharf, in said city, shall forfeit and pay, for each and every offence, the sum of two dollars."

"And, further, if any person shall have in his or her possession, in any ropewalk, or barn, or stable,

any fire, lighted pipe or cigar, the person so offending shall forfeit and pay, for each offence, a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, nor less than twenty dollars."

There are clergymen that have had experience in this line who feel that the time a minister spends in a tobacco-region is virtually wasted.

"The raising of tobacco has cursed our fair valley. Hatfield, for instance, some twenty years ago the richest town in the State according to its population, early entered into the craze for gain through tobacco-raising. As a result nearly everyone has failed financially. But far worse,—our farmers, who once declared, 'I would cut off my right hand rather than engage in such business,' seeing their neighbors—at the outset—growing rich, gradually choked conscience and became absorbed in the traffic. This has demoralized the people and paralyzed the church. The spiritual death resting upon our valley may to a great extent be traced to this cause."

"While my old homestead in Hadley, Mass., lies on the Connecticut River, where the alluvial soil is particularly favorable for profitable tobacco crops, I have never allowed a plant of it to be raised on the farm. There is an extraordinary fact connected with the culture there, which is attested by intelligent residents of the town. Since 1855 enormous harvests of tobacco have been raised and carried off every year,—hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet, by the working of some mysterious law, not one dollar can be found to show for it in all the property investments or scenery of the entire population."

"My statement was, I believe, literally and indisputably true, that the farmers of Old Hadley have, for a quarter of a century, been planting, raiding, and gathering tobacco as the principal crop of the soil; yet that there is in the whole town not one visible sign of improvement, enrichment, thrift, or prosperity to show for it. In all these respects the town, from end to end and side to side, has lost rather than gained. It is not strange that you are perplexed by a fact so paradoxical. So am I. The mystery has sometimes struck me as containing a silent judgment of God on the abuse of his ground."

"Take the land, the sunshine, the rain which God gives vou, and set them all at work to grow tobacco; throw this, as your product, into the world's market; buy with it bread, clothing, and shelter, books for yourselves, instruction for your children, consideration in the community, and perchance the gospel of grace; pay ever and everywhere, for the good you get, tobacco, only tobacco—tobacco, that nourishes no man, clothes no man, instructs no man, purifies no man, blesses no man; tobacco,

"that begets inordinate and loathsome appetite and disease and degradation, that impoverishes and debases thousands and adds incalculably to the burden of evil the world bears; but call not this exchange honest trade, or this gnawing at the root of social well-being getting an honest livelihood. Think of God's justice, the honesty he requires, and cover not your sin with a lie. Turn not His earth and air, given to minister to the sustenance and joy of man, into a narcotic, deadening life and poisoning its current, and then traffic with this for your own good."

quickens the respiration, and excites the muscular system; but its ultimate effect is general exhaustion. As administered in even the minutest doses, the results are alarming and in a larger quantity will occasion a man's death in from two to five minutes."

"I have cited thus fully from Taylor on Poisons, because he is a recognized authority in courts, and no one can charge him with being a temperance fanatic. The principles he has gathered and discussed in his book are constantly referred to, and are largely the guide of our judges in passing upon the questions of the liberty, life, and death of our citizens."