To prove that tobacco, rightly used, is harmless, is to prove that it does pay to smoke. Every smoker, who has not vitiated his nervous system by raw excess, knows that there is no physical pleasure in the long run comparable with that which is afforded by tobacco. If such pleasure is to be obtained without detriment to the organism, who but the grimmest ascetic can say that here is not a gain? But, if, as we have every reason to believe, the stimulant action of tobacco upon the human system is not only harmless but very decidedly beneficial, then it is doubly proved that _it does pay to smoke_. II. THE COMING MAN WILL DRINK WINE. Mr. Parton treats alcohol much more respectfully than he treats tobacco. Though equally hostile to it, he apparently considers it a more formidable enemy. Instead of taking for granted from the outset that which it is his business to prove, he now condescends to employ something which to the unpractised eye may look like scientific argument. He has taken pains to collect such evidence as may be made to support his view of the case. And he frequently endeavours to assume an attitude of apparent impartiality by alluding to himself as a drinker of "these seductive liquids,"--although, in point of fact, his whole essay is conceived in the narrowest spirit of radical teetotalism. As for tobacco, it does not seem to occur to him that any one can be found, so obstinate or so deluded as seriously to maintain that there is any good in it; and he therefore writes upon that subject with all the exaggeration of unterrified confidence. But in dealing with alcohol, his violence of statement is evidently due to an uneasy consciousness that there is a vast body of current opinion and of scientific doctrine which may be arrayed in the lists against him. He brushes away, with a contemptuous sneer, (p. 56) the opinions of the medical profession; but he is, nevertheless, unable wholly to ignore them. Propositions of the sort which he formerly alluded to as if no one could think of doubting them, he now thinks it necessary to state at length. The poisonous nature of tobacco could be taken for granted in a subordinate clause; but the poisonous nature of alcohol needs to be asserted in an independent sentence. "Pure alcohol, though a product of highly nutritive substances, is a mere poison,--an absolute poison,--the mortal foe of life in every one of its forms, animal and vegetable." (p. 64.)