omatic and elastic substance
is masticated, while the tobacco never is, and that the mastication leads
to nothing except more mastication. The task is one that can never be
finished. The amount of energy expended in this process if capitalized or
conserved would produce great results. Of course the individual does
little, but if the power evolved by the practice in a district school
could be utilized, it would suffice to run the kindergarten department.
The writer has seen a railway car--say in the West--filled with young
women, nearly every one of whose jaws and pretty mouths was engaged in
this pleasing occupation; and so much power was generated that it would,
if applied, have kept the car in motion if the steam had been shut
off--at least it would have furnished the motive for illuminating the car
by electricity.

This national industry is the subject of constant detraction, satire, and
ridicule by the newspaper press. This is because it is not understood,
and it may be because it is mainly a female accomplishment: the few men
who chew gum may be supposed to do so by reason of gallantry. There might
be no more sympathy with it in the press if the real reason for the
practice were understood, but it would be treated more respectfully. Some
have said that the practice arises from nervousness--the idle desire to
be busy without doing anything--and because it fills up the pauses of
vacuity in conversation. But this would not fully account for the
practice of it in solitude. Some have regarded it as in obedience to the
feminine instinct for the cultivation of patience and self-denial
--patience in a fruitless activity, and self-denial in the eternal act of
mastication without swallowing. It is no more related to these virtues
than it is to the habit of the reflective cow in chewing her cud. The cow
would never chew gum. The explanation is a more philosophical one, and
relates to a great modern social movement. It is to strengthen and
develop and make more masculine the lower jaw. The critic who says that
this is needless, that the inclination in women to talk would adequately
develop this, misses the point altogether. Even if it could be proved
that women are greater chatterers than men, the critic would gain
nothing. Women have talked freely since creation, but it remains true
that a heavy, strong lower jaw is a distinctively masculine
characteristic. It is remarked that if a woman has a strong lower jaw she
is like a m