it can be obtained at the apothecary’s, an impression has got abroad that it is medicinal.  This is not true.  The medical profession do not use it, and what distinguishes it from drugs-that they also do not use—­is the fact that they do not prescribe it.  It is neither a narcotic nor a stimulant.  It cannot strictly be said to soothe or to excite.  The habit of using it differs totally from that of the chewing of tobacco or the dipping of snuff.  It might, by a purely mechanical operation, keep a person awake, but no one could go to sleep chewing gum.  It is in itself neither tonic nor sedative.  It is to be noticed also that the gum habit differs from the tobacco habit in that the aromatic and elastic substance is masticated, while the tobacco never is, and that the mastication leads to nothing except more mastication.  The task is one that can never be finished.  The amount of energy expended in this process if capitalized or conserved would produce great results.  Of course the individual does little, but if the power evolved by the practice in a district school could be utilized, it would suffice to run the kindergarten department.  The writer has seen a railway car—­say in the West—­filled with young women, nearly every one of whose jaws and pretty mouths was engaged in this pleasing occupation; and so much power was generated that it would, if applied, have kept the car in motion if the steam had been shut off—­at least it would have furnished the motive for illuminating the car by electricity.

This national industry is the subject of constant detraction, satire, and ridicule by the newspaper press.  This is because it is not understood, and it may be because it is mainly a female accomplishment:  the few men who chew gum may be supposed to do so by reason of gallantry.  There might be no more sympathy with it in the press if the real reason for the practice were understood, but it would be treated more respectfully.  Some have said that the practice arises from nervousness—­the idle desire to be busy without doing anything—­and because it fills up the pauses of vacuity in conversation.  But this would not fully account for the practice of it in solitude.  Some have regarded it as in obedience to the feminine instinct for the cultivation of patience and self-denial —­patience in a fruitless activity, and self-denial in the eternal act of mastication without swallowing.  It is no more related to these virtues than it is to the habit of the reflective cow in chewing her cud.  The cow would never chew gum.  The explanation is a more philosophical one, and relates to a great modern social movement.  It is to strengthen and develop and make more masculine the lower jaw.  The critic who says that this is needless, that the inclination in women to talk would adequately develop this, misses the point altogether.  Even if it could be proved that women are greater chatterers than men, the critic would gain nothing.  Women have talked freely since creation, but it remains true