smoking or chewing tobacco.
Business men dislike to receive tobacco-scented messengers. Cars and
elevators contain signs prohibiting lighted cigars or cigarettes.
Insurance companies reject men who show signs of excessive use of
tobacco. Why? Because they are apt to die before their time. The
Interborough Rapid Transit Company of New York City rejects applicants
for motormen and conductors "for excessive or long-continued use of
tobacco." Why? Because, other things being equal, such men are more
apt to lose their nerve in an emergency and to fail to read signals or
instructions correctly.

Armed with these weapons against tobacco, parents and teachers can
effectively introduce physiological arguments against excessive use,
against use by those who suffer from nervous or heart trouble, and
against any use whatever by those who have not reached physical
maturity. By avoiding physiological arguments that children will
not--cannot--believe contrary to their own eyes, parents and teachers
are able to speak dogmatically of that which children will
believe,--injuries to children, evils of excess, restrictions as to
time and place, and offensiveness to nonsmokers. But even here it is
wrong, as it is inexpedient, to leave the physical strength of the next
generation to the persuasive power of parents and teachers or to the
faith and knowledge of minors. Society should protect all minors
against their own ignorance, their own desires, the ignorance of
parents and associates, and against the economic motive of tobacco
sellers by machinery that enforces the law.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE PATENT-MEDICINE EVIL

"Dhrugs," says Dock O'Leary, "are a little iv a pizen that a
little more iv wud kill ye. Ye can't stop people fr'm takin'
dhrugs, an' ye might as well give thim somethin' that will look
important enough to be inthrojuced to their important and fatal
cold in th' head. If ye don't, they'll leap f'r th' patent
medicines. Mind ye, I haven't got annything to say agin' patent
medicines. If a man wud rather take them thin dhrink at a bar or
go down to Hop Lung's f'r a long dhraw, he's within his rights.
Manny a man have I known who was a victim iv th' tortures iv a
cigareet cough who is now livin' comfortable an' happy as an opeem
fiend be takin' Dr. Wheezo's Consumption Cure." The Dock says th'
more he practices medicine th' more he becomes a janitor with a
knowledge iv cookin'. He says if people w