286 FLAMERS. 



on his cheek, down his neck, scarring his skin, burning holes 

 in his coats and trousers, frightening passers-by, and doing 

 all manner of deep-dyed devilment ? Nor is this the worst. 

 Those who will trust their skins, and their eyes, and their 

 clothes to i Vesuvians,' ' Flamers,' and the like, are not to be 

 pitied ; for they are more cruel to their tobacco than the 

 fusees are to them. Our grievance is that so many engines 

 of destructiveness and offensiveness should be so largely 

 patronized by smokers, to their own discomfort, the ruination 

 of their tobacco, the scandalization of gentle and simple, and 

 the encouragement of vicious manufactures. Now, we are 

 not going to particularize too closely, for fear of conse- 

 quences. In these days, when a man may bring an action 

 for libel because it has been said of him that he sells bad 

 soup at a railway station, prudence is the better part of valor. 

 But, just examine this heterogeneous pile of ' cigar-lights,' 

 which rears its audacious head upon the table. Here are 

 Palmers, Barbers, Farmers, Lord Lornes, Tichbornes, Bry- 

 ants and Moys, Bells and Blacks, Alexandres, Bismarcks, 

 King Williams, Napoleons, and scores of other varieties. 

 Some light l only on the box,' some light anywhere, some 

 everywhere, and some nowhere. Some are on wood, some 

 on porcelain, some on glass, some on dire deeds intent. 

 There are vestas, safety-matches, patent flint-and-steel con- 

 trivances, with silver tubes and marvellous screws wherewith 

 to put them out when they have served your turn. Some 

 are excellent, many passable, still more intolerable. One of 

 these times it may be worth while to speak of the good ones, 

 but at present we care only to treat of those that are bad, 

 and that briefly. 



"Here's a 'Flamer' we name no names everybody 

 eeeins to make flamers ; and this one deserves his title. We 

 want to light a peaceful pipe, and he bursts out in a fury 

 like unto nothing on earth so much as Etna in convulsion, 

 or the Tuilleries in petroleum blaze. But, if you have any 

 respect for your tobacco, your lips, your nostrils, or your 

 lungs, you will let him get rid of his flames before you apply 

 him to your cigar ; and, when you do venture so far, he 

 drops off the stick and burns a hole in the carpet. Or, if 

 you be daring enough to take a light from the flamer while 

 ne flames, you spoil your tobacco, foul your mouth, and get 

 a taste of sulphur-suffocation such as Asrnodeus ^might have 

 were he to take a whiff of a smoke-and tire belching chimney 

 in the Black Country as he flies across that district by night. 



