Slave
If men cannot maintain their energy and spirits without this stimulus, what martyrdom do women constantly practice in letting it alone! The very fact that women do live, and bear the heaviest burdens of mind and body without its aid, and that the best men conscientiously refrain from using it, is evidence that tobacco-using is a necessity to no one, but simply a habit which enslaves its victim in a terrible bondage.
God forbid that woman should degrade herself to the use of a filthy and besotting narcotic. How disgusting is the picture which one may draw in the mind, of a woman whose breath is poisoned by tobacco. One shudders to think of little children twining their arms about her neck, and pressing their fresh, pure lips to that mother's lips, stained and polluted by the offensive fluid and odor of tobacco. Yet the picture is only more revolting because the reality is more rare than that of the father, the lord of the household, defiling himself with the disgusting weed. No wonder we see children turn from the kiss of the father whom they love, and if they kiss him seek not his lips, but his cheek or forehead, where their pure lips will not be contaminated.
The Health Reformer
September 1, 1877