that grand engine of animality— sensation. Amongst smokers some relish the immediate impression, and enjoy it instinctively like the very air they breathe. Others meditate their sensations. They find in them a source of contentment which lifts them up to the hope or the remembrance of bliss. The periodic action of embracing the cigar with their lips, and expiring its vapour in puffs, rocks their minds to rest. Such being the case, it may be contended that tobacco rises to the rank of a moral modificator, and that thus it must be appreciated-no longer in accordance with its mere chemical constituents, however injurious, or the principles of physiology, demonstrating its adverse physical action-but in the light of moral reactions, which play so important a part in the human hygiene. Wretches who have not eaten bread for a long time beg alms to buy tobacco. A sailor, deprived of his plug for three days, puts into his mouth a ball of tarred oakum, and thanks, with tears in his eyes, the kind surgeon who shares with him a bit of his tobacco. If tobacco has its drawbacks, it has, therefore, its sweets also. To many a man it is the remedy of that discase of civilization which we call ennui. Even the very illusions and erroneous ideas that men entertain concerning tobacco deserve to be respected by the physician. One man attributes to tobacco the facility of his intellectual labour; another cannot digest his food without smoking. All this may provoke a smile, but we must remember that the craving for tobacco is positively the last appetite which leaves those who are in a state of disease, and who have been accustomed to tobacco under one form or another; and that the renewal of this appetite is a favourable prognostic of recovery, as acknowledged and attested by observant physicians, and as every smoker knows by his own experience. To all this, in favour of the practice of smoking, we might add largely quotations from medical men, poets, philosophers, and occasional writers; for the praises of this precious stinke,' as King James called it in

his 'Counterblast,' would fill a stout volume; but still it is a question whether the evil of smoking, in all its bearings, be not far greater than the special good it may have subserved in certain cases. In other words, do not the woes of tobaccosmoking exceed its joys?

At its introduction tobacco was vaunted as a universal remedy for all diseases; soon, however, it was denounced as the cause of almost all the ills that flesh is heir to; and both on the best medical authority of the day. As time wore on the practice of smoking increased with the increase of population, and from time to time the medical profession directed public attention to the growing evil, as they represented it, and not without substantial argument. The last great controversy on smoking occurred in the year 1857, filling the pages of the Lancet' week after week with learned dissertations, capable, it might be thought, to settle the question for ever against the practice, but with no apparent result. The increase of the duty on tobacco, proving its increased consumption progressively, since 1856 amounts to 1,471,8627. There exists also an anti-tobacco society, doing its best to abolish the practice both by writing and the eloquent lectures of its director, offering premiums for the best treatise on the consequence of smoking, but all, apparently, to no effect. There seems no probability that this great aid to the national revenue will ever be diminished, excepting under the sheer inability of obtaining the luxury, as during the last year of commercial crisis. Certainly this would be much more consolatory, in the financial point of view, if there were no well-founded misgivings as to the effect of smoking on the health of the community.

The primary objection to smoking, as early announced, is that 'it deprives the stomach of its salivary juice, most essential for digestion: thus smokers must drink a great deal to supply its place, and consequently tobacco in camps compensates for the scanty rations of the wretched soldiers.' It might be inferred from this that he who smokes

dines,' and therefore a supply of tobacco to the troops might be confidently recommended to all governments, especially when their armies are not in the enemy's territory. A beautiful Parisian lady, apparently with this object, sent thousands of cigars to the French army during the siege of Sebastopol. Doubtless the reader will smile at this important financial and commissariat discovery, but we can assure him that it is really no joke.' The suggestion is positively supported by one of the most distinguished chemical philosophers of the present day, the celebrated Liebig. It would seem, according to this opinion, that tobacco, when smoked, subserves in the human system a function similar to that of salt in preserving meat from decay, or rather like any other 'smoking' by which hams and bacon are rendered safe from putrefaction. Liebig positively says that tobacco prevents the waste of the tissues' or the flesh, and so a smoker can do more work with less waste, and consequently less requirement of food, than those who do not avail themselves of this admirable substitute for endless mastication, digestion, and in-digestion, all which we must go through to keep body and soul together, adding immensely to the toils of poor humanity. Liebig instances the fact that the smoking North American Indian can go several days without food; and it is on record that shipwrecked sailors on their forlorn raft have outlived their horrors for a week, chewing tobacco. Modern Yankees also go two or three days without eating, when 'hard up,' or 'clean broke,' as they call this dilemma, chewing' tobacco all the while. Doubtless these facts will be consolatory and encouraging to the advocates of tobacco, but they merely prove the adaptation of the human body to bear the privation of food with the aid of some factitious excitement; and we may remark that starvation has been borne for long periods of time without the aid of tobacco in any shape. Besides, the principle involved is unsound in physiology. If the formation of healthy blood be an absolute necessity for health

and vigour, it is evident that this can only be supplied by wholesome food in sufficient quantity, and therefore it is a delusion to believe that the use of tobacco can enable us to dispense with food without detriment to health. Moreover, the very specific action of smoking thus claimed in the above argument seems actually to uphold the opinion that it causes heart disease of a most formidable nature. In the last Report of the Army Medical Department, we read that the surgeon of the 18th Hussars, in India, attributes the large number of cases of heart disease in the various corps to 'the inordinate use of tobacco amongst the men, who appear to be regularly saturated with nicotine.' This is a dismal judgment against smoking; but we submit that saturated with nicotine' is too strong a phrase, and unscientific.*

The deadly energy of nicotine is scarcely inferior to that of strychnine, and surely no medical man will talk of people being saturated with strychnine and yet alive! However, there is the fact; and there can be no doubt that smoking is indulged in to an enormous extent in India by our troops and other countrymen, owing to the cheapness of tobacco in that country.

If saturation with nicotine be improbable, it seems possible that the tissues of chewers of tobacco may become saturated with the juice of the weed. Some years ago a British ship was wrecked on the coast of an island in the Pacific, and when the coast was subsequently visited by another vessel the captain was informed by a native that all the crew excepting one was eaten; and on being asked why the one was excepted, he exclaimed-'Him taste too much of bakkee.' Whilst this fact may prove the effect of chewing tobacco on the system, it may be consolatory to know that it will prevent the body of a Christian from being interred in the unhallowed stomach of a cannibal. Since the last onslaught against tobacco smoking in England, in 1857, the subject has been at rest, with the exception of the comparatively obscure efforts of the Anti-tobacco

Society, before alluded to; but within the last year or two it has seriously occupied the attention of French physicians, the results being published by Dr. Jolly, one of the members of the Academy of Medicine, before which the facts were detailed.* It appears that diseases of the nervous centres have increased at a frightful rate among the French; that insanity, general and progressive paralysis, softening of the brain and spinal marrow, cancerous diseases of the lips and the tongue, appear to have increased hand-in-hand with the revenues derived from the tax on tobacco; in addition to these terrible announcements, it is even inferred that the decrease of the French population, among its other causes, is due to the increased consumption of tobacco by the population. We may observe, en passant, that precisely the same accusations were brought against tobacco by the earliest writers on the subject, some two hundred years ago. However, the investigations of modern times are more precise and comprehensive than those put forth in the old books on our shelves, and considering the authority with which the statements are made, we are bound to accept them at least as warnings from those who profess to be the sufferers from their consequences. According to the statistics of Dr. Rubio, the number of lunatics is much greater in northern countries, where the consumption of spirituous liquors and the use of tobacco are much greater than in southern countries, where the people are very sober, and small smokers; and M. Moreau says that not a single case of general paralysis is seen in Asia Minor, where there is no abuse of alcoholic liquors, and where they smoke a kind of tobacco which is almost free from nicotine, or the peculiar poison in tobacco. On the other hand insanity is frightfully increasing in Europe, just in proportion to the increase in the use of tobacco, as is stated.

To explain these facts, with respect to France we are told that the

*As reported in the Année Scientifique for 1866."

revenues on tobacco from 1830 to 1862 rose from 1,250,000l. to 8,333,333. With this increase in the consumption of tobacco in France there appears to have been an augmentation in the number of lunatics from 8000 to 44,000, or rather 60,000, if we take into account other lunatics besides those in the public asylums. Other diseases of the nervous system are referred to the same cause, which raise the sum total to 100,000 persons who in France alone suffer from the poisonous effects of tobacco.

Dr. Jolly states that he visited all the asylums, and consulted the case-books of private practice, in order to throw more light on this important subject; and he concludes that among the men it is muscular or narcotic paralysis which predominates and makes the excess of the normal number of lunatics, whereas the other forms of madness disclose but slight variations in their number; and among the antecedents of the cases, he always found that they could be traced to tobacco. It is positively stated that general paralysis preferentially attacks persons who smoke tobacco more or less saturated with nicotine. Soldiers, and sailors especially, who smoke more than others of the population, figure foremost in the number of paralytic lunatics. Of course the French freely indulge in their favourite absinthe and cognac, and other spirituous liquors; but Dr. Jolly, without denying the influence of these liquors, believes he has demonstrated that excessive smoking must be considered the chief cause of the general paralysis of the insane; for he found paralytic madmen who had been water-drinkers, but immoderate smokers; and among the very numerous cases of paralysis coming under his notice, Dr. Maillot states that there were many patients who were remarkable for their sobriety as to the use of spirituous liquors, but immoderate smokers of the pipe or cigar. Lastly, in those parts of France were enormous quantities of brandy are consumed, but where there is very little smoking, general paralysis is almost unknown.

Nothing can be more deliberate than the document resulting from this French investigation on the influence of tobacco on the community; and having read every treatise on the subject, from the earliest printed, the writer of this article is compelled to admit that it is the most conclusive, both as to facts and reasonings, of any yet put forth against the weed! Finally, there is a kind of blindness, which, although occurring in non-smokers, is specially ascribed to the practice of smoking, through one of its consequences-namely, the impairment of nutrition, inducing a state of debility. It is for the last reason that smoking is strictly forbidden to those who are under training for boat-racing or the 'ring.'

Unlike the opponents of tobacco in this country, and indeed of all times, Dr. Jolly seems anxious to commiserate this propensity of our nature, and suggests that we should endeavour to avoid the strong tobaccos of commerce, and adopt those of Turkey, Greece, Arabia, and Havannah. Merciful man, indeed! This reminds us of Lord Lytton's advice, in the mouth of one of the speakers in his novels, that poor men, in order to escape gout, should drink champagne instead of ale.

Dr. Jolly, apparently still convinced of the impossibility of extinguishing the practice of smoking, further suggests that we should get the nicotine extracted from our tobacco! Plausible idea doubtless! How is this to be effected without adding to its cost, and no doubt altering its flavour and savour altogether? No; we believe that the smoker will always say, as other infatuated mortals to their mistress

'I know not, I ask not, if guilt is in that heart; I but know that I love whatever thou art.' There can be no doubt that in this, as in all other cases, the poison clings too closely to the 'sweet' to admit of a separation.

Another eminent French physician has recently investigated the effects of smoking on the young, having observed it in a great many subjects varying in age from twelve

to seventeen or eighteen; and he invariably discovered in such smokers a most serious alteration in the qualities of the blood, giving rise to specific diseases. It is indeed to the young that the evil of smoking is most likely to be disastrous. Whatever benefit may be derived from smoking in maturity and old age, it is obvious that the young cannot need the factitious aid of a narcotic. Parents should look to this, and prevent the most deplorable physical and moral consequences of the habit in their children. Many a youth may date the ruin of his health and character from the first whiff of tobacco which, by dint of nauseous practice, he was at length able to smoke, in the foolish imitation of manhood. That smoking must impair the digestion and derange the nervous system of the young, seems certain, and that it may lead to drunkenness or excess in drink is more than probable from the thirst which it necessarily occasions.

Such, then, is the present attestation to the woes of smoking; and it is doubtless sufficient to induce every smoker to 'consider his ways.' But if the argument induces our population to give up smoking, what will be the consequence to our revenue? Think of the fact, that it would be the abstraction of more than six millions and a half sterling, hitherto annually increasing, from the grand sum that makes up our national income. The revenue from tobacco is one of the largest, if not the largest of the items, as we have shown.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer the entire working of the machinery of government in this great country-the existence and efficiency of our army and fleet-largely depend upon the financial results of the consumption of tobacco by our truly patriotic smokers. Put a stop to smoking, and then the Chancellor of the Exchequer must 'go to pot'-if he knows where that is-to bring grist to his mill.' The smokers of England are the greatest supporters of constitutional government, paying literally seventy-five per cent. taxation on the commodity