300 The Soverane Herbe 



very fully oxidized and decomposed. It consists 

 mainly of exceedingly small solid particles, and thus 

 the smoke assumes a bluish colour. As Lord Kelvin 

 recently explained, minute particles have an intense 

 affinity for moisture. On being inhaled the blue 

 smoke loses its smallest particles, which are captured 

 by the moisture of the mouth. It is these small 

 particles which give the smoke its blue colour, the 

 relatively large size of the particles forming the 

 smoke exhaled from the mouth being of the well- 

 known grayish tinge. 



In a whiff from a pipe there are said to be 

 1,800,000,000 particles, from a cigar 2,000,000,000, 

 and from a cigarette 2,900,000,000 particles. The 

 pipe is thus the best means of smoking, as, the smoke 

 consisting of few particles, less will adhere to the 

 mouth than from the fume of cigars or cigarettes. 



Anti-smokers prove the deadly character of tobacco 

 by the fact, and fact it is, that an ordinary cigar 

 contains enough nicotine to kill two men. One- 

 tenth of a grain of nicotine kills a dog of medium 

 size ; in a quarter of an ounce of tobacco there is 

 nicotine sufficient to poison twenty or thirty men — 

 if swallowed. But tobacco is smoked ; and how 

 small is the quantity of nicotine inhaled — to be 

 exhaled — is proved by the fact that people can and 

 do smoke many cigars a day without dying or 

 suffering in any way whatever. 



American preachers have proved to delighted 

 sensation-seeking congregations the deadliness of 

 tobacco by administering during their sermons a 

 grain of nicotine to a cat. Puss immediately gives 



