VI PREFACE. 



energy, if it does not put money in the till of the 

 ' Lancet ' ! He may reproduce the contents of 

 the hundred volumes which have been written 

 against tobacco ; he can add nothing which was 

 not said before ; the weed defies him, will bear 

 the brunt of his battle, will conquer him and reign 

 on for ages, until a superior to it shall take its 

 place as a social and moral modificator. 



Parliament may fearlessly proceed to cut down 

 the D Schedule of the income-tax without 

 dreading a diminution in the patriotic aid of 

 Nicotiana. And,* if of two countries, with an 

 equal amount of population, the wealthiest and 

 most highly civilised will consume the greatest 

 weight of soaj:) ; if it be no exaggeration to say 

 that we may fairly judge of the commercial 

 prosperity of a country from the amount of sul- 

 phuric add it consumes ; we may most assuredly 

 add, that the consumption of tobacco will always 

 advance with the increase of populaticm, in spite 

 of medical or any other humbug.t 



* Liebig, ' Letters on Chemistry,' Letter IlL 

 t It appears that our population-increase of last year was 

 at the rate of a thousand a-day. The doctors in the ' Lancet' 



