Brandy-and-water, gin, whisky, and the likes are only fit for those who nocturnally lay the foundation for matutinal 'hot coppers,' with the vilest shag in the most odorous of yards of clay. 'Smoking leads to drinking,' has been a favorite old woman's saying for time out of mind. How I hate old women's sayings! A grain--requiring to be picked out with a pin and microscope--of truth, with a bushel of bunkum or cant. How is it, that ever since the days of James I, of 'hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain' memory, there have always been carpers on the injurious effects of smoking? 'Nicotine!' they say, with a would-be-taken-for-know-all-about-it-air. Quite so; but, as recent investigations have proved that, so far as the actual 'poisoning' is concerned, it would take upwards of a thousand years to kill the most inveterate of healthy smokers, we have still time to breathe--and 'it please the pigs.' _Mem._ for pipers--French tobacco contains the greatest, Turkish the least, per-centage of nicotine. Havana, two and one-half per cent. "But an unique old woman of Jehu's acquaintance goes further still; boldly asserting that 'smoking is well for making good soldiers, well for making good sailors, well for making sometimes good lawyers; not so well for making good Christians.' Oh! ashes of Hawkins and Raleigh, shudder for the results of 'baccy on degraded human nature.' There must be a rarity of good Christians, then amongst the parsons; they are all fond of it. Dean Aldrich was, perhaps, tho greatest smoker of his day. His excessive attachment to this habit was the cause of many wagers. Here's one:--At breakfast, one morning, at the 'Varsity, an undergraduate laid his companion long odds that the Dean was smoking at that instant. Away they hastened; and, being admitted to the Dean's study, stated the occasion of their visit. The Dean replied, in perfect good humor, to the layer of the bet, 'You see, sir, you have lost your wager; for I am not smoking, but filling my pipe.' But--my cigar has reached its last dying speech, and there is but a drop left in the beaker. 'I'll not leave thee, thou lone drop! 'Twould be mighty unkind, Since the rest I have swallow'd, To leave thee behind.' "Final exhortation. Choose the small, sound, tolerably firm, and elastic cigar: the dwarf contains stuff within which the giant hath not. Don't flatter yourself you're smoking cabbage, if not tobacco--its any odds on rhubarb! 'For me there's nothing new or rare, Till wine deceives my brain; And that, I think, 's a reason fair To fill my pipe again.'"