56 REVIEWS. [February, 



argument, if estimated by the number and weight of the para- 

 graphs, pamphlets, and other publications, written with the good 

 intention of keeping this practice within due bounds, was unfa- 

 vourable to the smokers. The incorrigibles, of course, were un- 

 convinced ; smoking seems to be on the increase. The tobacco- 

 nists, in order to meet the growing demand for the fragrant 

 weed, and to commemorate their deliverance from a dispute 

 that threatened the ruin of their trade, caused a large pipe 

 to be manufactured, with a bowl quite as large as a common 

 coffee-cup and nearly of the same shape, with a short tube ; 

 and this new contrivance for consuming tobacco by the ounce 

 was named — it may be surmised, in derision— '" the Controversy 

 Pipe.'' 



The cry against tobacco reminds us of the greater cry which 

 has been raised and sustained for many years, against beer, 

 wine, and spirits, and in recommendation of teetotalism, total- 

 abstinence or temperance principles. Tobacco, like everything 

 else, is good if used in moderation. The best gifts of Providence 

 may be abused. It is the abuse of the article that is injurious. 

 That it has some effect on the digestive organ is generally ad- 

 mitted ; or it renders its power less active. It allays the craving 

 for food. Some call it a sedative, others an excitative ; all will 

 agree that it is a pickpurse, not in a small way, with young 

 fashionables or Oxford students, if we may judge by their tobac- 

 conists' bills which are occasionally published for the edification 

 of the class Paterfamilias, — it should be plural, — who pay the bills 

 of some of the ingenious high-born youth of the nation. Per- 

 haps its most important use is that of being a fiscal commodity, 

 or it is produced, impoi'ted, manufactured, sold, and smoked in 

 cigars, or in controversy pipes, or in meerschaums, or in Turkey 

 or china pipes, or in meerschaum-washed pipes, or in common 

 clays, from the vulgar cutty of the Scot, the dudeen of the Irish, 

 through all the varieties of three and four a penny, up to the 

 aldermanic or churchwarden's pipe, a name invented or applied 

 when churchwardens were of more consequence than they are 

 now ; it is used for the nostrils, applied with fingers and with 

 spoon, and it is eaten, — for the sake of revenue. In this we 

 have a common interest. The revenue is the great fund from 

 which all our official dignitaries, from our Queen down to the 

 police-officer, are paid ; from this source our gallant army and 



