134 



TOBACCO. 



smoke elsewhere. And the woman almost feels 

 that she has been guilty of some rudeness. Ought 

 these things to be? 



These refined gentlemen by no means regard 

 smoking as an animal indulgence, but rather as 

 an intellectual enjoyment. They will talk of 

 the ethereal mood to which it lifts them, and it 

 may be of the loftier essays and more eloquent 

 sermons they can produce under its inspira- 

 tion. This, however, is precisely the argument 

 that some urge, and with equal reason, for the 

 use of opium and hashish. Into what mental 

 exaltation did the former raise De Quincey ! Yet 

 how terrible the retribution ! The principle in 

 all these narcotics is virtually the same, though 

 tobacco is far more offensive than any, or than all 

 the rest. 



But whatever pleas may be urged, it remains 

 an unalterable fact that the public highway is not 

 a smoking room ; and, if it would be regarded as 

 an indictable offence for one to carry around with 

 him assafoetida or any other vile compound, and 

 fling it broadcast as he walks the streets or enters 

 private dwellings, why should not the doers of the 

 same with this noxious weed be also liable to in- 

 dictment ! 



You don't regard it as an annoyance to others? 

 Do you take others at all into the account ? 



Not an annoyance ! How, then, do you inter- 

 pret the conspicuous posters in various countries ? 



JVb smoking here! 



