There is the poppy, and there is the opium pipe. Of course Mr. B. Broomhall knows all about opium smoking,--or the illustrations would not be there. Mr. Crummles, with his "splendid tub and real pump," could not have done better. As to Mr. B. Broomhall's remarks respecting my book I have very little to say; there is nothing in them. Like Mr. Storrs Turner, he has found it a poser, and has said very little respecting it. When your opponent gets the worst of an argument, if he does not honestly acknowledge his discomfiture, he generally follows one of two courses--either he loses his temper and takes to scolding, or he suddenly discovers something wonderfully funny in your arguments which no one else was able to detect. Mr. B. Broomhall eschews the former, but adopts the latter course. He selects a paragraph or two, and says, "That is ludicrous," but he never condescends to enlighten his readers as to where the fun lies, or in what the drollery consists. But, although Mr. B. Broomhall makes light of my book, he has thought proper to imitate its title. He evidently thought there was nothing ludicrous in _that_. This was very "smart," but smartness is a quality not much appreciated on this side of the Atlantic. As my book had dealt a heavy blow to the Anti-Opium Society, and a cheap edition might prove still more damaging, an opposition book, with a similar title, might so confuse the public as to be mistaken for mine. Imitation has been said to be the sincerest flattery, but I dislike adulation even when administered by the Anti-Opium Society. This gentleman and his compilation bring very forcibly to my mind the profound Mr. Pott, of the _Eatanswill Gazette_, who, having written a series of recondite articles on _Chinese Metaphysics_, brought his lucubrations to the notice of his friend, Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman ventured to remark that the subject seemed an abstruse one. "Very true," returned Mr. Pott, with a smile of intellectual superiority, "but I crammed for it--I read up the subject in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. I looked for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined the information." This seems to be the sort of process by which Mr. B. Broomhall has arrived at his knowledge on the opium question, and with similar results. I do not wish to be too hard upon this gentleman, who, after all, may have been only a cat's-paw in the matter--for it must not be forgotten that there is Mr. Storrs Turner in the background; but he himself, on reflection, must, I think, admit that it was going a little too far to introduce into his compilation a parody--which some might call a vulgar parody--on one of the verses of Bishop Heber's very beautiful and world-renowned Missionary Hymn. I will not give my readers the "elegant extract," but they can find it for themselves at page 117.