vi INTRODUCTORY 



The demon of insomnia flies from her presence, and 

 upon the sleepless she breathes ' tired nature's sweet 

 restorer.' Faith born of experience bears willing testimony 

 to this priceless virtue. Once upon a time, too remote to 

 recall the year, it befell the writer of these lines to suffer 

 from the effects of insomnia. Wakeful nights followed by 

 comatose days passed into months, and the relief the poet 

 Young had wooed in rain still held aloof. At last fortune 

 smiled. Walking with a friend one evening a cigar was 

 proffered him. Not being a smoker he declined the weed. 

 Again urged to try it (without any suggestion of its narcotic 

 properties) he did so and smoked it to the end. That night 

 he fell into a sleep so profound that on waking the next 

 morning the hours that had fled seemed but as a moment. 

 Years have rolled by since then, but not an evening has 

 passed unsolaced by the gentle anodyne. 



Opponents of tobacco-smoking generally base their 

 objection on the rather shaky ground of what they with 

 emphasis term, 'principle.' A case of the kind cropped 

 up a few years ago when Professor Huxley related the 

 story of how he had become a convert to the creed of the 

 tobacconist. It runs as follows : 



' When I was a young man I went with a party of my 

 friends to Holland. It happened that they were smokers 

 and I was not. I did my best to fortify myself in deter- 

 mined resistance to the pernicious habit, which from my 

 standpoint I looked upon as wholly indefensible. The 

 tobacco plant belongs to a family of poisoners certainly a 

 poisonous family, what then could be said in its favour? 

 Science and reason being opposed to it how could intelli- 

 gent beings submit to its sway, and with so much assumed 

 pleasure? Thus I mused with my back propped against 

 the hotel wall where in a cosy room inside my friends were 

 quietly enjoying themselves with their weeds and social 

 gossip. I fought with myself. I fought against the 

 seductive influence of the goddess, and failed. The flesh 

 was too strong for philosophy : I crept in and joined them 

 with my first cigar.' 



A lady once confessed to the writer that she had all 

 unwittingly followed in the wake of a smoker whose cigar 



