16 ST NICOTINE 



wholesome tobacco than talk to anybody just now. I saw 

 in the weed the one element in which by European 

 manners men could sit silent together without embarrass- 

 ment, and no man was bound to speak one word more 

 than he had actually and veritably got to say. Nay, every 

 man was admonished and enjoined by the laws of honour, 

 and even of personal ease, to stop short at that point ; at all 

 events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe the instant 

 he had spoken his meaning if he chanced to have any. 

 The results of which salutary practice, if introduced into 

 constitutional parliaments, might evidently be incalculable. 

 Take for example, the Tobacco Parliament of Friedrich 

 Wilhelm. It had not the least shadow of a constitutional 

 parliament, nor even a privy council, as we understand 

 it, his ministers being mere clerks to register and execute 

 what he had otherwise resolved upon. But he had his 

 Tobago-Collegium ; his Tabagie, or Smoking Congress, and 

 which made so much noise in the world and which in a 

 rough, natural way afforded him the uses of a Parliament on 

 most cheap terms and without the formidable inconveniences 

 attached to that kind of institution. In short, he had a 

 parliament reduced to its simplest expression ; instead of 

 parliamentary eloquence he had Dutch clay pipes and 

 tobacco provided in abundance. And this was the 

 essence of what little intellect and insight there was in a 

 parliament ; all that can be got out of any parliament. 

 Sedatives gently soothing, gently clarifying tobacco-smoke, 

 with obligation to a minimum of speech, surely give human 

 intellect and insight the best chance they can have.' 



It was noticeable that the stern denouncer of talk did 

 not say how he, personally, would have liked a seat in a 

 ' parliament reduced to its simplest expression.' Electrical 

 glances passed from one to another of the immortals^ 



