Have I, Tabitha Tompkins, a right to my share of fresh air uncontaminated? or have I not? I ask the question with my arms akimbo. I might as well say what I’ve got to say, popgun fashion, as to tiptoe round my subject, mincing and curtesying when I’m all ablaze with indignation. I ask again: Have I a right to my share of fresh air uncontaminated? or have I not? Do I go out for a walk? Every man I meet is a locomotive chimney. Smoke--smoke--smoke--smoke:--great, long tails of it following in their wake, while I dodge, and twist, and choke, trying to escape the coils of the stifling anaconda, till I’m black in the face. I, Tabitha Tompkins, whose grandfather was one of the “signers” of the Declaration of Independence! I feel seventy-six-y! I have borne it about as long as I can without damage to hooks and eyes. If I try to escape it, by getting into an omnibus, there it is again! If it does not originate inside, some “gentleman” on the box or top, wafts it into the windows. If I take refuge in a ferry boat, I find “gentlemen requested not to smoke,” (as usual) a dead letter,--no more regarded than is the law against gaming, or the Sunday liquor traffic. Do I go to a concert at Castle Garden, and step out on the balcony between the performances for a breath of fresh air?--myriads of lighted Havannas send me dizzy and staggering back into the concert room. Does a gentleman call to see me of an evening?--the instant he shakes his “ambrosial curls,” and gives “a nod,” I have to run for my vinaigrette. Do I advertise for lodgings; and after much inspection of rooms, and wear and tear of patience and gaiter boots, make a final selection? Do I emigrate with big trunk, and little trunk, and a whole nest of bandboxes? Do I get my rocking-chair, and work-table, and writing-desk, and pretty little lamp, all safely transported and longitudinized to my fancy? Do I, in a paradisaical state of mind, (attendant upon said successful emigration,) go to my closet, some fine morning, and take down a pet dress?--asafœtida and onions, what an odor! All the “pachouli” and “new mown hay” in New York wouldn’t sweeten it. Six young men the other side of that closet, and all smokers!!! Betty, you may have that dress;--I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs. Do I lend a masculine friend my copy of Alexander Smith’s Poems?--can I ever touch it again till it has been through quarantine? Does he, by mistake, carry home my tippet in his pocket after a concert?--can I compute the hours it must hang dangling on the clothes line, before it can be allowed to resume its place round my neck?