TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH 71 



pressing it within his own, he probed her little finger into 

 the bowl of his pipe to remove some obstruction. The 

 story told by Sir David Brewster points a moral ladies 

 should be chary of lavishing their affection on philosophers, 

 they are so very absent-minded. Divinity furnishes a host 

 of devotees to the pipe. Leading the throng are Dr. 

 Henry Aldrich, of Christ Church, Oxford ; Dr. Parr, whose 

 Greek was the admiration of ripe scholars and the terror of 

 little boys ; who overwhelmed his friends with torrents of 

 eloquence and clouds of tobacco-smoke ; Robert Hall, 

 England's greatest pulpit orator, and many another divine 

 burned incense continually at the shrine of Nicotiana ; 

 while towering in the forefront of the great tobacco-smoker- 

 of the Victorian age are the figures of Carlyle and 

 Tennyson. But these illustrious examples of great tobacco 

 smokers are, in respect to the whole community, altogether 

 exceptional, and may be regarded as having no more 

 bearing on any general rule applicable to all men than had 

 their individual capacity for imbibing, say, ' sweet waters.' 

 It may be observed, however, that those who pass severe 

 censure on the smoking habit seem to overlook the fact 

 that men do not eat or drink tobacco ; that the prudent 

 smoker is quite contented if its ambient fumes gently float 

 about him, regaling his olfactory sense. It can never 

 satisfy reasonable inquiry to be told that deadly results 

 follow the administration, not of the smoke, but of a single 

 drop of the essential oil of tobacco to a dog, that dies of 

 old age at fifteen years ; or to a rabbit, that breeds seven 

 times a year and dies at the age of five. Far above 

 theorising there is the teaching of experience, and if each 

 would-be smoker will in this, as in other things, be guided 

 by this unfailing monitor, and act upon the dictates of 

 common sense, no harm will come to him. 



