| Show TOBACCO AS A KILLER OF CON SCIENCE RECENTLY count tolstoi presented io in a leading magazine an article on wine drinking and tobacco smoking this eminent russian ought to be an authority upon this subject there are few men who have indulged more ex ten in both practices than he be his views on this theme being the result of experience and observation ought to carry weight and be of some interest he says faye people drink and smoke not merely for want of something better to do to while away the time or to raise their spirits not because of the pleasure they receive but simply and solely in order to drown the he warning voice of co conscience ns clence 11 he asks this thia question to what extent can smoking stifle the voice of conscience we have no need to sleek seek for the materials for a solution of this question in exceptional cases of crime and remorse it is amply to observe the behavior of the ordinary one might almost say of any smoker every smoker abandoning himself to his passion loses sight of or rides roughshod over certain of the most elementary rules of social life the oser ok servance vance of which he demands from others and which he himself respects in all other cases whenever his conscience is not completely silenced by tobacco every person of moderately good breeding in our social sphere holds holda it to be unseemly ill mannered churlish merely for his own pleasure to interfere with the peace and comfort of others s and a fortkort forti ort to 0 in injure hu r e their health no one would w d take the liberty to flood with water a room in which people were sitting to scream and yell in it to turn on hot cold or foatie foetid air or to perform any other act tending to disturb or injure others and yet out of a thousand smokers scarcely one will hesitate to fill with noxious fumes fames a room atmosphere the thel of which is beins being breathed by women and children who do not smoke the count insists that the smoker is not only a nuisance to his bis neighbors I 1 but that the indulgence is derogatory to his own spiritual and intellectual capacity he expresses himself on this point thus I 1 tor for the more a man ihan fies himself with these stimulants and narcotics the more stolid quiescent and stagnant he becomes intellectually and morally 11 |
