Show 1 A USELESS LAW The Connecticut senate has lately passed a law forbidding boys under age to use tobacco under penalty of arrest and fine We believe with WILLIAM BLACK that the churches are pleased to meddle with small matters when they would tell a woman what she shall wear and order a maiden to give up a fingerring or a bit of lace on peril of losing her soul These be marvelously small deer tobe hunted and stormed about with bell book and candle So too when the state stoops to meddle with such things as enacting laws for the arrest of boys for smoking a cigarette she is hunting remarkably re-markably small deer with thesleuthhounds of the law The fewer laws enacted in a state the better after the security of society is provided for It is proverbial that you cannot make a people moral by legislative enactment neither can you stop the use of tobacco among boys by making its use a statutory offense However desirable it may be to stop the use of tobacco among the youth of our land such efforts as that made in Connecticut are simply as ridiculous ridicu-lous as they will be impotent If the influence influ-ence and authority of parents and teachers cannot prevent the evil the state may not hope to succeed An element of strength in a state is to enact no law that cannot be enforced |