SOCIAL AND ^ESTHETIC VIEW. 145 



case would be different. But the dreadful penalty 

 falls heaviest on the nearest and dearest : on those 

 who cannot escape the sickening atmosphere, no, 

 not for a moment. 



A writer of experience tells us that there are 

 professional men, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, 

 college professors, and not a few prominent liter- 

 ary men, who carry with them into society, as well 

 as into the street and the railway car, not the odor 

 of a fresh cigar, which, in comparison, would be 

 endurable, but the "vile, vulgar scent of a cigar 

 long since burned to ashes." 



Who, indeed, has not seen a gentleman (?) enter 

 a car, and leaving his satchel or overcoat in posses- 

 sion of a seat, retire to the smoking-car, lose him- 

 self in the dense clouds of some half a hundred 

 cigars, have his smoke out, and then return 

 saturated from hat to boots with the sickening 

 fumes? And, alas! peradventure, this may be a 

 Reverend, a Professor, or a Doctor of Divinity, 

 and a man of refinement too. 



If an Arab regards spitting in his presence as an 

 insult, even outside his tent, can one conceive of 

 the just indignation of American women when 

 travelling in the cars? There 's little use in care- 

 fully holding up one's dress, and looking warily 

 from place to place. One may as well make a 

 covenant with her eyes, and take the first seat that 

 comes. The men chew and spit, they read and 

 spit, they talk and spit, they laugh and spit, they 

 breathe and spit, and some swear and spit. 



