Nicotine favours thankfully own her benign sway and be comforted. The placid oriental, when his wives rave, or affliction smites him, will stroke his beard—if he have one—and thank Allah for the good gift Which on the Moslem’s ottoman divides, His hours, and rivals opium and his brides. An old Persian legend, brought to light by Lieutenant Walpole, tells the story of a virtuous youth distraught at the loss of a loving wife. A holy man looks tenderly upon the disconsolate one, and tells him of a balm for his affliction. ‘Go to thy wife’s tomb, son of sorrow,’ says the anchorite, ‘and there thou wilt find a weed. Pluck it, place it in a reed, and put fire to it, then inhale the smoke thereof. This will be to thee wife and mother, father and brother, and, above all, will be a wise counsellor, and teach thy soul wisdom and thy spirit joy.’ The Homeric strain of this Eastern sage breathes of implicit faith in his native Shiraz tobacco. For doubtless he, a dweller in … the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime; Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melts into sorrow, now maddens to crime, had often experienced its influence on a wounded heart. Indeed, the history and associations of the plant, from its wild Indian home to the remotest East, are full of romance of more than ordinary interest. For, like most things transatlantic, whether products of the soil or of the brain, it rapidly became universal, spreading literally like wild-fire wherever man was to be found. Everywhere it was esteemed a close comfort, a priceless possession, and to its rare qualities were ascribed almost miraculous powers. The persistency with which men have stuck to the weed, after once experiencing its soothing effects, ranks among the most remarkable examples history affords of the rapid development of a new taste and the formation of a new habit; a habit that, after the lapse of three centuries and more, grows stronger day by day, keeping full pace with the increase of population, until now it is too deeply rooted ever to be extirpated, even by taxation, however weighty. Viewed in its political aspect, the career of the Indian weed presents a striking illustration of popular opinion ultimately triumphing over prejudice and power. Here let us take a cursory glance back to the heroic age when the marvellous weed which has almost revolutionised men’s habits all over the world, and created a new industry giving employment to millions of human beings, was first imported into these islands.