been learning about the poison alcohol, and what mischief is done
by it; we will now study about another poison which thousands of persons
are using every day. It is rolled in cigars and cigarettes, and hidden in
snuff and pieces of tobacco, and does more harm to children and young
people who use these things than to grown persons.

Perhaps you know how a person feels who takes tobacco or smokes a cigar for
the first time; if not, we will tell you. He begins to be dizzy, to
tremble, to become faint, and to vomit; his head aches, and he is so sick
for hours, often for several days, that he scarcely knows what to do. Why
is he so sick? Because tobacco poison has been taken into his lungs; also,
some has mixed with the saliva and gone down into his stomach; and each
part it has reached is striving to drive it out, and is saying, by the pain
it causes, "You have given me poison; do not give me any more." If he had
taken enough it would have killed him.

He recovers from this sickness and tries chewing or smoking again and
again, until he becomes accustomed to the poison and can chew or smoke and
it does not hurt him; so he thinks, but he is very much mistaken.

Tobacco is a poison, and hurts everybody who uses it every time they do so,
although it does its evil work very slowly, unless taken in large
quantities. To understand more about this we will try to learn how tobacco
is obtained, what poison is in it, and in what way it harms people.

* * * * *

THE STORY ABOUT TOBACCO.

_HOW IT CAME TO BE USED._--Tobacco is the leaves of the tobacco plant, a
native of America. It was used by the Indians of this country before
Columbus came here in 1492. Some of the Spaniards who were with him on his
second visit took some of it back with them to Portugal, and told the
people they had discovered a wonderful medicine. From Spain tobacco seed
was sent to France by Jean Nicot, in 1560. It is said that Sir Walter
Raleigh carried it to England in 1586, when Elizabeth was queen.

In a few years many civilized people were snuffing, chewing, and smoking
tobacco, like the wild Indians, although it cost them a great deal of money
to do so. King James does not seem to have liked it very much, for he said,
"It is a custome loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the
brain, and dangerous to the lungs." He called the smoke "stinking fumes."

_THE TOBACCO PLANT._ This plant belongs to the same fami