SMOKING AN ART. 283 



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 Mights/ but more generally 

 we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the pur- 

 chasers 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 enjoy- 

 ment. Had he known more of English smokers, he would 

 not have made so wild a statement ; and had he known Eng- 

 lish women better, he would never have attributed to their 

 sweet influence the fancied superiority he describes in Eng- 

 lish 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 the fact that so few of those who smoke 

 smoke much, often and constantly should be ignorant of, 

 or indifferent to, the conditions which are necessary to their 

 own adequate enjoyment of the weed. 



" You will see a man light a cigar so carelessly that one 

 side of the roll will burn rapidly, with prodigious fumigation 



