jumps at once to the conclusion that every man should always and in all circumstances keep himself in training. Such was not the theory of the ancient Athenians: [Greek: mêdhen agan] was their principle of life,--the principle by virtue of which they made themselves competent to instruct mankind. Having thus said his say about muscular men, Mr. Parton goes on to declare that smoking is a barbarism. "There is something in the practice that allies a man with barbarians, and constantly tends to make him think and talk like a barbarian." We suppose Mr. Parton must _know_ this; for he does not attempt to prove it, unless indeed he considers a rather stupid anecdote to be proof. He tells us how he listened for an hour or so to half a dozen Yale students in one of the public rooms of a New-Haven hotel, talking with a stable-keeper about boat-racing. They swore horribly; and of course Mr. Parton believes that if they had not been smokers they would neither have used profane language nor have condescended to talk with stable-keepers. _Sancta simplicitas!_ "We must admit, too, I think, that smoking dulls a man's sense of the rights of others. Horace Greeley is accustomed to sum up his opinions upon this branch of the subject by saying: 'When a man begins to smoke, he immediately becomes a hog.'" Our keen enjoyment of Mr. Greeley's lightness of touch and refined delicacy of expression should not be allowed to blind us to the possible incompleteness of his generalization. What! Milton a hog? Locke, Addison, Scott, Thackeray, Robert Hall, Christopher North--hogs? And then smoking is an expensive habit. If a man smoke ten cigars daily, at twenty cents each, his smoking will cost him from seven to eight hundred dollars a year. This dark view of the case needs to be enlivened by a little contrast. "While at Cambridge the other day, looking about among the ancient barracks in which the students live, I had the curiosity to ask concerning the salaries of the professors in Harvard College." Probably he inquired of a _Goody_, or of one of the _Pocos_ who are to be found earning bread by the sweat of their brows in the neighbourhood of these venerable shanties, for it seems they told him that the professors were paid fifteen or eighteen hundred dollars a year. Had he taken the trouble to step into the steward's office, he might have learned that they are paid three thousand dollars a year. Such is the truly artistic way in which Mr. Parton makes contrasts--$1500 _per annum_ for a professor, $800 for cigars! Therefore, it does not pay to smoke.