The natives express their contempt for white teeth in the remark, "Any dog can have white teeth." The local dentists keep in stock complete sets of black false teeth, so that when a naturally black tooth is removed, an artificially coloured one can at once take its place and so prevent any break in the uniform coal-like aspect of the mouth. Saliva is produced in copious quantities during mastication, and is of a blood red colour. As it is never swallowed, spittoons must always accompany the betel-box. If the saliva is allowed to fall upon wood or stone it produces brick-red stains which are not easily removable. Such stains are exceedingly common in the streets and houses. The black deposit formed upon the teeth is said to exercise a preserving influence upon them. Smoking is to some extent gradually replacing betel-nut chewing, especially with the children, who now take to the weed when they are about five or six years old. The native tobacco is very strong, and when smoked as a cigarette wrapped in dried banana-leaf, it is decidedly unpalatable to the European. Light cigarette tobaccos of foreign manufacture are now much in vogue. Those who can afford it, roll up the tobacco in lotus leaf. For this purpose the petals of the lotus flowers are taken, dried in the sun, flattened with a hot iron, and then cut into rectangular pieces of the same size as ordinary cigarette paper. Pipes are rarely seen. The natives are not addicted either to strong drink or to opium. Those who drink beer and spirits have learnt the habit from their Western friends. The opium monopoly is farmed, and is at present in the hands of a Chinaman who is the king's head cook. The late king feared that his subjects might take to the drug, and he issued a decree forbidding all of them under heavy penalties to buy or smoke it, but the law has become inoperative. The bedroom, the third necessary room of every Siamese dwelling, cannot be held up as a model of cleanliness. Frequently it is the lumber-room where everything old and unnecessary is stowed away. The altar and the idols are placed therein, especially if the sick or dying are lying there. On retiring for the night, the doors and windows are closed, and the atmosphere soon becomes hot and unhealthy. Owing to the presence of innumerable mosquitoes whose buzzing and stinging are effective preventatives of somnolescence, every one must sleep inside a mosquito net. In the majority of cases the net is so dirty, and its meshes are so clogged with deposits of dust accumulated through many days, that neither air nor mosquitoes can penetrate its folds. People sleep on the bare boards, on mats or skins, and on mattresses stuffed with tree cotton. Pillows are not in common use, except amongst those who have borrowed the Chinese form of this luxury--namely, a hard, hollow, semi-cylindrical frame of bamboo.