But then the whole world smokes, and what the whole world does must surely have some show of justification. It is estimated that two thousand millions of pounds weight are consumed every year, and that its money value far exceeds five hundred million pounds sterling; its production finds remunerative employment for countless thousands of families. In America alone the tobacco plantations cover an area of 400,000 acres, and in the labour of cultivation 40,000 persons win their daily bread. And what of the million of money wantonly thrown into the gutter every year? The smoker may well pause over his pipe and consider what this may really mean. One million pounds divided among forty million people would give sixpence to each. That every man, woman, and child should in this manner waste sixpence a year is doubtless much to be deplored; in the eyes of our excellent guardian of the public purse it is reprehensible. But is the whole of this money or money’s worth really lost past recovery? Investigations made at the instance of the Board of Inland Revenue concerning the fate that befalls cigar ends have been the means of revealing a curious aspect of our complex social system. Amid the crowd, the bustle and din of struggling humanity, glimpses may be caught of a quiet fellow-being plodding along the highways and byways of the great metropolis, with a bag slung over his shoulder, and his eyes fixed on the gutters intent upon picking up these unconsidered trifles, or wending his way to the side door of some hotel or hall where convivial souls do congregate of an evening, and there doing a little private business with the janitor, who pours into his bag these spoils of the night’s revelry. And so it comes about that out of the gutters and waste places of the earth there ultimately return to the manufacturer the sorry remains of the once-treasured Indian weed. Many a young hopeful of slender purse hugs with pride his penny or twopenny cigar clad in a new coat, little dreaming of its having in a former existence shone, glow-worm like, in another sphere. Then there are ‘fancy mixtures’ made up for the pipe, enticingly scented with an odour unknown to the weed, and which, as if ashamed of the connection, vanishes in the burning, leaving not a trace behind, save wonder at what can have become of it, for the smoker gets none. And have we not always in view the lowly wayfarer along life’s by-paths, whose feet have trodden thorny places and stumbled, maybe? He sees in the castaway an emblem of himself, and fraternally picks out of the gutter a little consolation for the buffets of the day; for tobacco has been aptly called the poor man’s anodyne. And so life is rounded off with a smoke. Possibly thoughts such as these mingle with the smoker’s reflections on the subject of waste to the consideration of which Sir Michael invited their attention. But the economic phase the question presents may be safely left to settle itself; for, after all, the cost of