‘Fumer, c’est obtenir une trêve à la tristesse, aux préoccupations irritantes, aux petites misères de la vie, aux chagrins domestiques, aux tracasseries d’un ménage mal assorti; c’est aussi, en matiere de travaux intellectuels et artistiques, se procurer, au moyen d’une surexcitation légere, un développement, une clairvoyance d’idées qui souvent vous fuient, c’est un refuge contre ce qui blesse ou choque, contre le mécontentement de soi-meme ou d’autres; c’est dans les professions manuelles, une diminution des sensations de fatigue, d’ennui, de découragement; c’est aussi, une annihilation du mal qui cause une atmosphere froide, humide, malsaine, c’est enfin une jouissance émanant d’une faible congestion au cerveau, un étourdissement passager, une sorte d’ivresse légere qui caresse les idées et les empeche de vagabonder. ‘En résumé, après tout ce qui s’est dit et écrit pour ou contre le tabac, l’usage de cette plante est aujourd’hui général; il constitue de nos jours une branche très importante de culture, d’industrie et de commerce, et une source de revenus considérable pour les Etats.’ The voice of Fairholt, of rare tobacco fame, claims attention. ‘Let us get out of the region of captious criticism and come to the solid ground of fact. For is it not surpassing strange that man still exists on earth if there be death in the pipe? Is his life shorter, his morals worse, his intellect weaker, than in the days of, say, Henry VIII. before tobacco was known in Europe? For three hundred years the poisonous drug, if such it be, circulated in the veins of Europeans, and where is the degeneracy? They are at this day, the most active, energetic and intellectual beings that have ever peopled the planet. The learned doctor’s awful array of afflictions attested by experiments on small forms of animal life have no terrors for them; experiment and demonstrate as he may, experience is a better teacher. Is there any reason why men should apply to themselves the results of operations made upon creatures that perish of old age while human beings are still in their infancy?’ ‘No, surely not,’ responds Inglis of Indian frontier fame. ‘Often did I regale my weary body and brain with a pipe after a hard day’s sport with rifle and hound on the track of the beasts of the jungle, or after a fierce bout with the courageous wild boar, whose splendid fighting qualities are little known out of India. It happens occasionally that the huntsman finds himself far out on a desolate track when The night-cloud has lowered And the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.