DECEMBER 233 



upon its resources in the conveyance of necessary 

 supplies food, munitions, etc. but proved equal 

 to the punctual deliverance of the vast stores of 

 comforts and even luxuries consigned from voluntary 

 sources at home. 



Among the said luxuries is one whereon the Iron 

 Duke would have turned no favouring eye. The 

 tobacco which was supplied to our troops at the front 

 ay, and in hospital at home must have amounted to 

 a prodigious figure. When the Duke was Commander- 

 in-Chief in 1845 he issued the following counterblast: 



'G.O. No. 577. The Commander-in-Chief has been 

 informed that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, 

 cigars, and cheroots, has become prevalent among the 

 Officers of the Army, which is not only in itself a species 

 of intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tobacco, but, 

 undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by those who 

 acquire the habit ; and he intreats the Officers commanding 

 Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their 

 several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to 

 discourage the practice among the Officers of Junior Rank in 

 their Regiments.' 



There was no Press Censor in those days, and 

 Punch, which was then a vigorous stripling in its 

 fourth year, was allowed to make merry over this 

 fulmination, declaring that officers of the array were 

 greatly perturbed, ' dreading the possibility of being 

 thrown upon their conversational resources, which 

 must have a most dreary effect ! ' Tobacconists drove 

 a brisk trade in pipe-stoppers carved in the likeness of 

 the Duke's head. These might now be a fitting object 

 of pursuit on the part of collectors. 



