MEDICINAL ACTION. 141 



now and then swelled into a strain of very tolerable 

 music. 



* Verse sweetens toil,' 



says the stanza which Dr. Johnson was so fond of quot- 

 ing ; and really it is so good that I will transcribe the 

 whole of it : — 



* Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound : 

 All at her work the village maiden sings ; 

 Kor, while she turns the giddy wheel around, 

 Eevolves the sad vicissitude of things.' 



Verse, it seems, can sweeten the toil of slaves in a tobacco- 

 factory. 



" ' We encourage their singing as much as we can,' said 

 the brother of the proprietor, himself a diligent masticater 

 of the weed, who attended us, and politely explained to us 

 the process of making plug-tobacco — ' we encourage it as 

 much as we can, for the boys work better while singing. 

 Sometimes they will sing all day long with great spirit ; 

 at other times you will not hear a single note. They 

 must sing wholly of their own accord ; it is of no use to 

 bid them to do it.' " 



§ Is Smoking Injurious to Health and 

 Morals ? 



If the reader has perused the voluminous cor- 

 respondence in the * Lancet,' during the last six 

 weeks, relating to this question, he is aware that 

 its whole purpose is to attribute almost every 

 disease to the use of tobacco. Diseases of the 

 heart, of the brain, of the spine, chest, lungs, of 



