150 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



called away to another patient for a few minutes, and 



went, leaving M with strict orders not to put his 



foot down. On her return to his bedside, to her 

 astonishment he was gone ; and after some searching 

 she discovered him, by the traces of blood on the stairs 

 and corridor, sitting down in the yard, smoking his 

 pipe with the greatest sang froid. She spoke to him 

 seriously about disobeying orders and doing himself 

 an injury; but he was perfectly callous on the subject 

 of his toe. She succeeded, however, in working on his 

 feelings at having disfigured the corridor with blood, 

 and he came back, saying, ' Indeed, ma'am, I could 

 not help going to have a pipe, for that was the nastiest 

 stuff I ever got drunk on in my life ' — alluding to the 

 taste of the chloroform."* 



Powerful as may be the objection made by the 

 " softer sex " to smoking, backed by some few of that 

 other sex " softer " still, who so vapidly denounce what 

 they cannot enjoy ; two popular writers of the day 

 are inclined to doubt the success of either assailant. 

 Thackeray, in his Fitz-Boodlc Papers, jocularly says, 

 ladies cannot expect to succeed in conquering the 

 practice. He asks, " What is this smoking, that it 

 should be considered a crime ? I believe in my heart 

 that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. The fact 

 is, that the cigar is a rival to the ladies, and their 

 conqueror too. Do you suppose you will conquer ? 

 Look over the wide world, and see that your adversary 



* Ismeer, or Smyrna, and the British Hospital in 1855. By A Lady. 



