T

VIII

HABITS AND VICES

HE evils of alcoholism have been thrust

upon us so constantly that no sensible young man needs any serious warning against drink. Hardly a family escapes entirely the curse of alcohol, and many of the brightest intellects and most promising careers are blighted by this insidious vice.

America and Canada have gone "dry," not for sentimental reasons, but for the sake of industrial prosperity. Long before the United States accepted Prohibition the captains of industry were insisting on the strict sobriety of their work-people. No engine-driver would be engaged on some of the great trunk railways if he used alcohol as a beverage. Drinking even at meal-tables was frowned upon, and insobriety was a social offence. Because they wanted to keep their workers contented and efficient, American manufacturers were agreeing that it was a bad proposition to build factories in "wet" areas.

Alcohol, except in the rare cases where medical men still prescribe it, is the enemy of efficiency. Even in tiny doses its effects are deleterious, and the stimulus it supplies is inevitably succeeded by a depressive reaction.

A young man anxious to develop his best

potentialities ought sedulously to avoid alcohol. A teetotaler benefits in health, in business prospects, and in duration of life. So marked is total abstinence on longevity that after actuarial tests, spread over many years, several of the leading insurance offices offer either additional benefits, or reduced premiums, to teetotalers. A young man who declines wine, beer, or spirits to-day is not regarded as an oddity. Teetotalers are no longer exceptional people. They are an increasing quantity. Of nothing is it truer than of alcohol that

"in the field of destiny We reap as we have sown."

The most hardened smoker admits that a strong case can be made against smoking. He concedes that it is a dirty practice—and even if he denied it, his teeth would bear witness against him. He knows, too, that it is an extravagance. Without hesitation he allows that over-smoking injures digestion and impairs sleep, that it induces a mental and physical lethargy, and that he feels its injurious effects whenever he runs for a train. Yet he goes on smoking. In theory he knows he should not; in practice he declares that his moderate smoking-and what man ever admits that he is immoderate?-involves so little risk that he does not mind taking it. Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson's dictum that "smoking is a doubtful pleasure with a certain penalty" leaves him unmoved. A smoker's psychology is a thing incomprehensible.

In a book which came recently into my possession

an anonymous author, writing in the year 1885, and confessing that he had been a smoker for twentythree years, observed that "it is possible that in a few years' time, the cigar and the pipe may be as completely things of the past, as the snuff-box is now." Thirty-odd years have gone by since that opinion was avowed, and smoking has become so general that the proportion of non-smokers to smokers during the war was calculated at one to every hundred. The Y. M. C. A. became the largest retail tobacconist in the whole wide world. Moreover, during the war, women who had smoked in secret came out into the open, till a Bishop was led to rebuke them by saying that "one of the happy memories of childhood is my mother's 'good-night' kiss, and I confess I am thankful that I have not to associate it with the suggestion of tobacco."

To a young man there is this to be said with sincerity and emphasis: "You are better without smoking. If tobacco has a certain social value, and is conducive to real fellowship, that is the only case that can be made out for it. In any case let no one persuade you to smoke until you are eighteen, and be on your guard against the habit gaining a mastery over you. Make quite sure that you can give it up whenever you want. Otherwise you are not captain of your soul." Sir William Crookes, who lived to be eighty-six, attributed his longevity to enjoying all good things in moderation. If a young man smokes at all, he should bring his smoking under the disciplinary rule of "moderation in all things." Mr. Gladstone once said that the best maxim for a man was Burke's saying, that "early and provident fear

is the mother of safety." An early and provident fear of becoming a docile slave to any habit should be a young man's guiding principle.

Slang has worked its way so firmly into the warp and woof of our language, that to protest against it would be futility. Schoolboys have a vernacular of their own, and even if it is not exactly pleasant, it is rarely odious. The language of the drill-sergeant and the lingo of the barrack-room have unhappily become an obnoxious feature of "English as she is spoke." Lurid phrases, scarcely veiled obscenities, and rank blasphemy in common speech are a legacy of the war. Even girls are "not particular" now in their language. The habit of using loose language is one against which a young man needs to guard. Bad language is not altogether a question of mere wickedness: rather it is a question of low and vulgar taste—a first stage in depravity of mind and declension of character.

Professor Gilbert Murray sees evidence of decadence in the rapidity with which tobacco and bad language seem to be gaining on us. "Tobacco," he said, addressing the Moral Education League, "is a slight narcotic poison; the use of bad language, I take to be due to a slight nervous convulsion momentarily destroying self-control and releasing certain subconscious interests, such as extreme rage and love of filth, which are normally suppressed. I do not venture to pronounce whether the use of this slight narcotic and the management of this slight nervous convulsion are beneficial or otherwise, or whether, as some suggest, they should be confined to women and

people of sedentary habits; but I would call attention to what I think is the fact, that never in the history of the world has there been a society in which both men and women were so habitually under the influence of these two sedatives as at present."

Indolence may be temperamental, but it has to be fought down. Nothing is so fatal to a young man's prospects in life. An idle man has no place in a healthy community, and unless he has riches he soon finds this out. The habit of procrastinating-never doing anything to-day that can be deferred till tomorrow-has often been called "the thief of time." In business matters and even in the minor affairs of life, the habit should be learned of keeping fully abreast with one's work. Nothing that can be done one day should be thrown over until the next. I have heard men say of a colleague: " He is a capable man and conscientious, too; but he lets his work get on top of him." Work neglected or deferred accumulates at a frightful pace, and the opportunities for overtaking arrears never seem to come. Discouragement and a sense of bewildered helplessness are bred by postponing things that ought to be dealt with summarily. A good business man leaves no loose ends he is all too conscious of the perils they create.

When prostrated by Brazilian fever, complicated by a fistula and abscesses in his ears, Theodore Roosevelt lay on a couch in a New York hotel, dictating to his secretary. His face was grey, and his secretary, seeing the Colonel was tired, suggested leaving the rest of the letters until the next morning. "No; we'll finish up to-night," said Roosevelt.