At first we were inclined to look at prohibition with tolerance, because it meant a release from all the books which described what would happen to a guinea pig if he were inoculated with Bronx cocktails. The relief was temporary, for we find that it takes just as much time to read the heartrending accounts of the effect of one drop of nicotine placed on the tongue of a dog. In _Habits That Handicap_, by Charles B. Towns, we find the following ailments attributed directly or indirectly to the use of tobacco: Bright's disease, apoplexy, chronic catarrh, headache, heart disease, lassitude, dizziness, low scholarship, small lung capacity, predisposition to alcoholic excesses, hardening of the arteries, paralysis of the optic nerve, blindness, acid dyspepsia, insomnia, epilepsy, muscular paralysis, cancer, lack of appetite, insanity and loss of moral tone. Mumps, measles and beri-beri are slighted in the present edition. "There is nothing to be said in its favor," writes Mr. Towns, "save that it gives pleasure." "It seems," he adds in another portion of the book, "to give one companionship when one has none--something to do when one is bored--keeps one from feeling hungry when one is hungry and blunts the edge of hardship and worry." Suppose, then, that every ailment which Mr. Towns has traced to tobacco actually lies at its door--even then is the case for the prohibition of smoking persuasive? Of course, low scholarship is a fearful and humiliating thing, but we wonder whether it is more devastating than loneliness. It is better, we think, to have a little lassitude now and then, or even a touch of acid dyspepsia, than to be without the weed which gives "one companionship when one has none." And consider the tremendous testimonial in favor of tobacco which Mr. Towns has written when he says that it gives "something to do when one is bored." Although we haven't the statistics for last year yet, we venture the guess that about 63 per cent of all the people who die in any one year cease living because they are bored. Boredom is the cause of 85 per cent of all actions for divorce. It fills our jails. Nations make war because of it. Social unrest, bedroom farces, tardiness, rudeness, blasphemy, crime, lies and yawning in the presence of company all rise because of it. And so we are disposed to sit defiantly shoulder to shoulder with other smokers and to cry out against the foe who creeps ever closer through the haze, "Bring on your 'lack of appetite.'" It may be true, as Mr. Towns says, that smoking causes a loss of moral tone, but if the smoker will save his coupons religiously at the end of a few months he will be able to exchange them for a book on character building. * * *