To smoke, or not to smoke――that is the question! Whether ’tis better to abjure the habit, And trust the warnings of a scribbling doctor, Or buy at once a box of best Havanas, And ten a day consume them? To smoke, to puff, Nay more, to waste the tender fabric of the lungs And risk consumption and its thousand ills The practice leads to――’tis a consummation Discreetly to be shunned. To smoke, to puff―― To puff, perhaps to doze――ay, there’s the rub; For in that dozing state we thirsty grow, And, having burned the tube up to a stump, We must have drink, and that’s one cause We modern youth are destined to short life; For who can bear to feel his mouth parched up, His throat like whalebone and his chest exhausted, His head turned giddy, and his nerves unstrung, When he himself might drench these ills away With wine or brandy? Who could live in smoke, And pine and sicken with a secret poison; But that the dread of breaking o’er a rule Prescribed by Fashion, whose controlling will None disobey, puzzles ambitious youth, And makes us rather bear the ills we feel Than others that the doctor warns us of. Thus custom does make spectres of us all, And thus the native hue of our complexion If sicklied o’er with a consumptive cast; The appetite, a loss of greater moment, Palled by the weed, and the digestive powers Lose all their action. JOHN W. FARRELL. _Rare Bits._ November 18, 1882. ――――:o:―――― A SONG, AFTER SHERIDAN. Here’s to the hookah with snake of five feet, Or the “portable” fix’d to one’s “topper”; Here’s to the meerschaum more naughty than neat, And here’s to all pipes that are proper. Fill them up tight, Give ’em a light; I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right. Here’s to the Warden’s twelve inches of stalk, Here’s to Jack Tar’s clay, with one, sir; To the pipes now with mountings so rich that they “walk,” And here’s to most pipes which have none, sir. Fill them up tight, &c. Here’s to the Milo just out of the shop, With mouthpiece as dry as pale sherry; Here’s to your veteran, wet as a mop, Black as a sloe or a cherry. Fill them up tight, &c. Let them be clumsy or let them be slim, Light or heavy, I care not a feather; So, fill them with ’Baccy right up to the rim, And let us all smoke them together. Fill them up tight, Give ’em a light; I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right. From _Cope’s Tobacco Plant_. February, 1875. ――――:o:―――― HAIL TO THE PLANT. (_A Parody of Sir Walter Scott._)