only a year on these things, then would the annual outlay to the consumer mount up to the grand total of £32,554,108. Again the writer has to acknowledge his indebtedness to the statistical branch of the Customs for the interesting information that the quantity of wheat consumed in this kingdom in 1895 was about 27,500,000 quarters—770,000,000 lbs.—and that the average value was 24s. a quarter, making a total value of £33,000,000. Thus we see how nearly the sum expended upon tobacco-smoking approaches to the sum spent upon wheat. Comparing the quantities of the two commodities we can only say, so much the better for the consumer of wheat, who obtains in weight about fifteen times more of bread than he could purchase of tobacco for the same sum—bearing in mind that wheat requires 45 per cent. of water for its conversion into bread. And herein lies the secret of the large consumption of tobacco: bread is so cheap, the poor man can afford to indulge in a little more of his comforter than he could formerly. Commenting upon the vast increase in the consumption of tobacco, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so mindful of the public interest as to give expression to his matured conviction that ‘Everything spent on tobacco by those who have enough to eat is waste.’ Acknowledging himself to be a non-smoker, and perhaps prejudiced, he would only appeal to smokers whether this was not waste: ‘It is calculated,’ said Sir Michael, ‘by the Customs authorities that no less a value than £1,000,000 is literally thrown into the gutter in the shape of the ends of cigarettes and cigars. It is all the better for the revenue, but I think it may be a subject of consideration for smokers.’ Looked at broadly, all such considerations are relative—relative to the numbers who smoke and to their ability to spend. Naturally we turn to our neighbours across the silver streak and ask what they are doing; are they more frugal than we are in the use of the weed? Germany, always to the fore where painstaking and close attention to minutiæ is required, tells us that Holland uses the leaf at the rate of a trifle over 7 lbs. per head of her population; Austria, 3.8 lbs.; Denmark, 3.7 lbs.; Switzerland, 3.3 lbs.; Belgium, 3.2 lbs.; Germany, 3 lbs.; Sweden and Norway, each 2.3 lbs.; France, 2.1 lbs.; Italy, Russia, Spain may be classed together with a consumption of 1¼ lb.; while the United States rises in the scale to 4½ lbs. for each inhabitant. There is much virtue in figures; they give us the comforting assurance that after all we are not so bad as our neighbours by a pound or more, taking the average consumption of the leading nations of the world. So we may be permitted a little longer to smoke our pipe in peace undeterred by fearful forebodings of evil to come.