52 ST NICOTINE 



3.8 lbs. ; Denmark, 3.7 lbs. ; Switzerland, 3.3 lbs. ; Belgium, 

 3.2 lbs.; Germany, 3 lbs.; Sweden and Norway, each 2.3 

 lbs. ; France, 2.1 lbs. ; Italy, Russia, Spain may be classed 

 together with a consumption of i|- lb. ; while the United 

 States rises in the scale to 4^ lbs. for each inhabitant. 

 There is much virtue in figures ; they give us the comforting 

 assurance that after all we are not so bad as our neighbours 

 by a pound or more, taking the average consumption of 

 the leading nations of the world. So we may be permitted 

 a httle longer to smoke our pipe in peace undeterred by 

 fearful forebodings of evil to come. 



But then the whole world smokes, and what the whole 

 world does must surely have some show of justification. It 

 is estimated that two thousand millions of pounds weight 

 are consumed every year, and that its money value far 

 exceeds five hundred million pounds sterhng ; its production 

 finds remunerative employment for countless thousands of 

 families. In America alone the tobacco plantations cover 

 an area of 400,000 acres, and in the labour of cultivation 

 40,000 persons win their daily bread. And what of the 

 million of money wantonly thrown into the gutter every 

 year? The smoker may well pause over his pipe and 

 consider what this may really mean. One million pounds 

 divided among forty million people would give si.xpence to 

 each. That every man, woman, and child should in this 

 manner waste sixpence a year is doubtless much to be 

 deplored ; in the eyes of our excellent guardian of the 

 public purse it is reprehensible. But is the whole of this 

 money or money's worth really lost past recovery ? Investiga- 

 tions made at the instance of the Board of Inland Revenue 

 concerning the fate that befalls cigar ends have been the 

 means of revealing a curious aspect of our complex social 

 system. Amid the crowd, the bustle and din of struggling 



