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Show THE CITIZEN 4 than $1,000, or confinement in the county jail not more than one year, or both, in the discretion of the court, etc. There are also provisions for forfeiting franchises and voiding any contract or agreement iii violation of the foregoing provisions. Moreover, Section 1761 contains this drastic provision: In case any person or persons shall do, cause to be done, or permit to be done, any act, matter or thing in this title prohibited or declared unlawful such person or persons shall be liable to the person or persons injured thereby FOR TREBLE 1HE AMOUNT of the damages sustained in consequence of any such violation. The Citizen docs not wish to pay treble damages to the entire community for permitting the laundry trust to violate the law. Nor docs it like the idea of paying treble damages to the laundry trust on every article of wearing apparel which the octopus washes in its inky waters. A Of course, an octopus will continue to keep its strangle hold on the public until the public bestirs itself. Only by means of public sentiment can trust laws be enforced. law was in existence before For years the Sherman anti-truit was discovered that it had teeth. In the first encounter with corporations the government was defeated and for some years thereafter prosecutions were not attempted. But at length a decision - favorable to the government was rendered and other such decisions followed rapidly. The government had learned how to operate the f st law. We have apparently adequate laws to reach such combinations as the laundry trust and the market trust, but no action will be taken enforceby the proper officials until a public demand arises for the ment of the law. FEW PUFFS ON TOBACCO LEGISLA TION If some of our reformers who are looking for new worlds to conquer have their way with the laws we may soon be reading in the papers an item like this : South State street last night the anti-vic- e In a raid at 522-3-- 4 squad arrested the proprietor of a bootleg tobacco den and seized a large quantity of moonshine cigarettes. Or an item of this kind: Mrs. F. X. Broun, bearing many marks of violence on her face, testified in police court yesterday that her husband had beaten her while under the influence of cigarettes. She declared that her husband was in the habit of spending his entire weeks wages over the bootleg cigar counters and then reeling home in a savage temper to beat her and the children. Of course, we never have read anything like that up to date, but our virtuous neighbors probably will say that there is a conspiracy of silence to hide the evils of cigarettes and other forms of g tobacco. No doubt the time is coming when all of us will be expected to get fighting mad over this issue. Just at present, however, we can maintain our serenity and discuss various phases of the problem with a noble calm. What it is that makes the laws against drugs more easily enforceable than the laws against intoxicating liquor? It is the general opinion that opium and cocaine are more deleterious to the user and destructive to the community than alcohol. Laws are enforceable in more or less exact proportion to the amount of public opinion back of them. There is a sort of law of supUnless public sentiment is ply and demand in law enforcement. overwhelmingly in favor of a law that law will not be strictly enforced. It is important to keep these principles in mind when considerlegislation. Even those of us who do not smoke ing can sense the folly of passing laws which are supported only by a vigorous and influential minority. laws are not new. They were introduced into some of the states thirty and more years ago. It will be remembered that the laws were strictly observed on railway trains. You could not buy a box of cigarettes while crossing the great state of Nebraska, but if you climbed oil the train you could make the desired purchase at any street corner or perhaps in the passenger station. Soon the laws sank into desuetude and were forgotten, except, perhaps, insofar as they applied to minors. . How can public sentiment be arrayed on the side of legislation? The advocate of such laws must emphasize the harmful effects of tobacco. He must talk of smokers heart, of money better spent for the family than for the satisfaction of a selfish appetite. The reformer may become even more convincing when lie tells of the increase of smoking among women. But lie will be unable to picture for so to picture would be absurd a husband and death-dealin- anti-tobac- co Anti-cigaret- te anti-tobac- co father, ruined by tobacco, clinging in a stupor to the cigar counter while a little girl in tatters begs him to come home to his starving wife. Robert Louis Stevenson, himself fond of cigarettes, has said, smokers make the best husbands and fathers. Most of our leading citizens smoke and many of them smoke cigarettes. They are supposed to possess the virtues that make for success. They went to the top of the ladder because of their ability, energy, economy, industry and will power. And while they climbed they puffed snappily at cigarettes or more leisurely' at big, fat cigars, or even stopped for a moment to bite off a chew. e men probably' would assert, to Some of these proud, the extreme horror of the antis, that they forged to the front because in moments of stress, they were able to tranquilize their spirits with smoke. When I have found intense pain relieved, said the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, a weary' brain soothed, and calm Refreshing sleep obtained by' a cigar, I have felt grateful to God, and blessed him for it. We quote' the reverend gentleman, not by way of proving that tobacco is a benefit, but simply to show that opinion even among clergymen is not unanimous. And now just see what a renowned observer of mankind hail to sayr about us He who doth not smoke, said Bulwer Lytton, hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself the softest consolation next to that which comes from heaven. It is almost as bitter an indictment as Shakespeares comment on the one who hath not the love of music in his soul. The author ui the Last Days of Pompeii comes very near saying that we are fit for treason, strategem and spoils. self-mad- non-smoke- rs: The defenders of tobacco, we may' be sure, will die in the last ditch. They are so fanatical that they will have us believe that tobacco was a divine gift to man, that it is beneficial to health, an aid to genius, balm of hurt mind, the diplomats defense, the poets inspiration, the warriors consolation. On the other hand the fanatical foes of tobacco will say that it is a poison, a narcotic that impairs the mental powers and drugs it the higher moral intuitions; that it is a drug, that balefully lights the path of unwise virgins to their ruin and that, because it weakens moral tone, it is a cause of crime. Medical science, however, will not back up cither set of contenders. Certainly' science has found few instances in which tobacco is beneficial and perhaps no evidence at all that it leads to crime. Burdette G. Lewis, New York Commissioner of Corrections, saysI have not found anybody who actually can show that cigarette com smoking by boys has led to crime, but I have been informed by W petent medical authority' that excessive cigarette smoking tends I would rathtf undermine the health of growing boys. habit-formi- ng - oH |