oison in a handful of
tobacco to kill a boy who is not in the habit of using it.

=Why Men can use Tobacco without becoming Sick.=--Experiments upon
animals have shown that the body can learn to use a poison and not
become sick from it. The poison of a rattlesnake is deadly to most
animals; but if a tiny bit of the poison is put under the skin of the
rabbit one day and then on each succeeding day a little larger dose of
the poison is given the rabbit for a long time, the animal will become
so accustomed to the poison that the bite of a rattlesnake will not
harm it. It is the same way with tobacco. Little by little the body
learns to overcome the effects of the poison, but much use of tobacco
is likely to hurt certain parts of the body.

=Tobacco is Harmful to the Young.=--A dose of poison which will kill a
child may do but little harm to a man. Tobacco is certain to hurt boys
more than it does men. The poison makes the body grow slower.

[Illustration: FIG. 42.--There is more poison in the one on the right
than in the one on the left.]

A large number of measurements made by Doctor Seaver showed that the
boys who did not use tobacco gained in four years one twentieth more
in weight and one fourth more in girth and height than the users of
tobacco. These boys were between sixteen and twenty-two years of age.
It is likely that tobacco will have a more harmful effect on younger
boys.

=Laws to keep the Young Healthy.=--Boys ought to be wise and brave
enough to let alone what keeps their bodies from growing and hurts
their health, but some will not do it. For this reason some countries
are trying to save the health of their boys by making laws against the
use of tobacco.

The Germans a few years ago passed a law in their land forbidding all
boys and girls under sixteen years of age to use tobacco in any form.
Seeing the good results of this law in Germany and the harm that
tobacco was doing the boys in the United States, the Emperor of Japan
on the 6th of March, 1900, proclaimed this law: "The smoking of
tobacco by minors under the age of twenty is prohibited."

In our own country several states have passed laws against the use of
cigarettes by boys. One country after another is learning that if they
want strong men, to fight, to work, and to win, tobacco must not be
allowed to weaken the bodies of the young.

=How the White Man becomes a Slave.=--Before the Civil War the black
men of the South were slaves. They c