DRINKING AND SMOKING. 291 



to open its pores ; then draw it out, allowing but an inch to 

 be held within the lips believe me, you will enjoy it a hun- 

 dred-fold more ; and there are but few cigars that will not 

 allow of their virtue being drawn though their leaves. Never 

 bite the end off, and never use your cigar cruelly, by squeez- 

 ing it, biting it, or re-lighting it. Cigar-holders, tubes, quills, 

 and such like inventions, we despise. If you cannot bear the 

 cigar in your mouth aye, and enjoy it you have no busi- 

 ness with it : go back to your brown paper and cane ! 



" "What is the best beverage to imbibe whilst inhaling the 

 precious weed? Momentous question! Coffee, or claret, 

 says Jehu. I do not believe in bitter, as an accom- 

 panying liquid to a cigar. The Corporation of Christ-church, 

 years ago, smoked cigars, and drank with them that then 

 famous concoction known as ' Ringwood Beer.' What was 

 the result ? The first toast at every civic banquet held for 

 years in that borough was gravely given out, and bumpered 

 with due solemnity, as follows : 



' Prosperation to this Corporation.' 



Brandy is a perfect antidote to inebriation from beer, so we 

 are told. The Corporation should have known this, and 

 been awakened from their long and pleasant dream of pros- 

 Deration. Brandy I should hardly reckon amongst the drinks 

 that ought to be with cigars, notwithstanding that Tennyson 

 has asked : 



'For what delights can equal those 

 Which stir, with spirits, inner depths ? &c.' 



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 r harmful to the brain ' memory, there 

 have always been carpers on the injurious effects of smok- 

 ing ? ' 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 



