It is sometimes urged, that men occasionally live to an advanced age, who are habitual consumers of this article; true, and so do some men who habitually drink rum, and who occasionally get drunk; and does it thence follow that rum is harmless or promotes long life? All, that either fact proves, is, that the poisonous influence is longer or more effectually resisted, by some constitutions than by others. The man, who can live long under the use of tobacco and rum, can live longer without them. An opinion has prevailed in some communities, that the use of tobacco operates, as a preservative against infectious and epidemic diseases. This must be a mistake. Whatever tends to weaken or depress the powers of the nervous system predisposes it to be operated upon, by the causes of these diseases. If tobacco afford protection, in such cases, why does it not secure those who use it, against cholera? In no communities, perhaps, has that disease committed more frightful ravages, than where all classes of persons are addicted to the free use of this article. In Havana, in 1833, containing a stationary population of about _one hundred and twenty thousand_, cholera carried off, in a few weeks, if we may credit the public journals, _sixteen thousand_; and, in Matanzas, containing a population of about _twelve thousand_, it was announced that _fifteen hundred_ perished. This makes one-eighth of the population in both places; and if, as in most other cities, the number of deaths, as published in the journals, falls short of the truth, and a considerable deduction be made from the whole population on account of the great numbers who fled on the appearance of the disease, the mortality will be still greater. In Havana, after the announcement of the foregoing mortality, and after a subsidence of the epidemic, for some weeks, it returned, and destroyed such numbers as to bring back the public alarm. The degree, in which the practice of smoking prevails, may be judged of by a fact, stated by Dr. Abbot in his Letters from Cuba, namely, that, in 1828, it was then the common estimate, that, in Havana, there was an average consumption of _ten thousand dollars' worth of cigars in a day_. Dr. Moore, who resides in the province of Yucatan, in Mexico, assures me that the city of Campeachy, containing a population of _twenty thousand_, lost, by cholera, in about thirty days, commencing early in July, _four thousand three hundred and a fraction_, of its inhabitants. This is a little short of one-fourth of the population; although Dr. Moore says that the people of Campeachy make it as a common remark, "we have lost one in four of our number." With reference to the habits of the people in that part of Mexico, Dr. Moore says, "every body smokes cigars. I never saw an exception among the natives. It is a common thing to see a child of two years old learning to smoke."