little weakened, whose dread of pain and flinching from danger are not more marked after twenty years spent under the influence of opium than when they first drove him to its use. Such cases are, of course, wholly exceptional; but their very existence is a danger to others, misleads them into the idea that they may dally with the tempter, may profit by its pleasure-giving and pain-quelling powers without falling under its yoke, or may fall under that yoke and find it a light one. I doubt, however, whether the most fortunate of its victims would encourage the latter idea; whether there be any opium-eater who would not give a limb never to have known what opium can do to spare suffering, to give strength for protracted exertion, if he had never known what slavery to its influence means. Dread of pain, dislike of excitement and worry, impatience of suffering and discomfort, of irritation, and sleeplessness, are all strong and increasingly-marked characteristics of our highly artificial life and perhaps almost overstrained civilization. Nature knows no influence that can relieve worry, mitigate pain, charm away restlessness, discomfort, and even sleeplessness, as opium can. Alcohol is at once too stupefying and too exciting for the tastes and temperaments that belong to cultivated natures and highly-developed brains. Beer suits the sluggish laborer, or the energetic navvy when his work is done, and his system, like that of a Scandinavian Viking or Scythian warrior in his hours of repose, craves first exhilaration and then stupid, thoughtless contentment. Wine suits less active and more passionate races, to whom excitement is an unmixed pleasure; brandy those who crave for stronger excitement to stimulate less susceptible nerves. But the physical stimulants of our fathers and grandfathers, as the moral excitements of remoter times, are far too violent for our generation. Champagne has succeeded port and sherry as the favorite wine of those who can afford it, being the lightest of all; and time was, not so long ago, when medical men were accused of recommending champagne with somewhat careless facility to those whose nerves, worn out by unhealthy pursuit of pleasure, by unnatural hours and unwholesome excitement, might have been effectually though more gradually restored by a change which to most of them at least was possible; by life in the country rather than in London, by the fresh air of the early morning instead of that of midnight in over-heated gas-lighted rooms and a poisoned atmosphere. There is a danger lest, as even champagne has proved too much of a stimulant and too little of a sedative, narcotics should take its place. The doctors will hardly recommend opium, but their patients, obliged for one reason or another to forego wine, might be driven upon it.