"''Ere y'are, sir--pipe-light, cigar-light, on'y 'ap'ny a box--'ave a light, sir.' Every smoker of the larger cities knows the cry. Every tender-hearted smoker is familiar with the appeal, by day and by night, and remembers pangs of regret he has felt when the want of ha'pence or the repletion of his match-box has prevented his much-besought response. There is no need now to enlarge upon the sufferings, the adventures, the dangers of these peripatetic juvenile trades folk, sparse of clothes and food, and full of the material which may make or mar a nation; for all this was done, and even overdone, by the graphic sensationalists of the London penny dailies when Chancellor Lowe proposed a tax on matches. We may, upon occasion, feel for the manufacturers and venders of 'lights,' but more generally we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the purchasers of such contrivances for the ignition of pipes and cigars. The smoking of tobacco is an art; an art which, in its proper exercise, requires much care, much prudence, and not a little skill. This is a proposition which must, from its very nature, be startling to non-smokers, and surprising to many smokers. The tobacco hater (invariably an illogical creature, who hates that which he knows not) will hold up hands in amazement, and sniff with the nose in contempt, to whom reply would be superfluous. "With the smoker the case is otherwise. A German writer recently said that the English were better smokers than the Germans; because, whereas the German smoked incessantly, without rule, system, or moderation, the English smoked with care, with slow and appreciative lovingness, and the determination not to overstep the bounds of rational enjoyment. Had he known more of English smokers, he would not have made so wild a statement; and had he known English women better, he would never have attributed to their sweet influence the fancied superiority he describes in English as compared with German smoking. In truth, the art of tobacco using is nowhere more ignored, nowhere more contemptuously neglected than in these 'favored isles.' For one man who smokes with a reason, for a purpose, or by system, you shall find a thousand who smoke without either; and the result is that those who smoke have little defense, in the general way, for their practice, while those who condemn the habit have far better grounds for their opposition than they have ever yet been able to explain. To those who do know why they use tobacco, it is well-nigh incredible that so many of their fellow-smokers should be ignorant of the properties, the uses, the abuses, of the weed they burn and the fumes in which they delight. Yet, even this is not so surprising as