3i6 The Soverane Herbe 



ment, but 'simply and solely to drown the voice of 

 conscience. The brain -clouding fumes paralyze 

 conscience.' If conscience has any influence for 

 good deeds and benevolence, then this does not 

 hold good. When is man more generous and 

 charitable, more benevolent and beneficent, than 

 when smoking? Are non-smokers ex officio more 

 virtuous ? ' Be careful of smoking,' said an old 

 colonel to young Disraeli ; ' My cigar lost me the 

 most beautiful woman in the world. Smoking has 

 prevented more liaisons than the dread of a duel or 

 Doctor's Commons.' ' You prove it a very moral 

 habit,' replied Disraeli. 



One of the slanders hurled at smoking is that it 

 leads to drinking. Nothing is more absurd and 

 false. Many teetotalers are hard smokers ; hard 

 smoking and hard drinking rarely go together. 

 Nowadays, indeed, smoking is to man what wine 

 used to be. Nicotia divides with Bacchus the task 

 of pleasing and refreshing man ; hence Bacchus 

 is much less worshipped than before the advent 

 of Nicotia. Watch two men, one a smoker, the 

 other a non-smoker, drinking. The latter finishes 

 his glass before the smoker has filled and lit his pipe. 

 It stands to reason that a man with nothing to do but 

 drink — no pipe to load, smoke, keep alight — drinks 

 more than one so employed. Observation confirms 

 this fact, as an hour in any place where men do 

 congregate to drink and smoke will prove. 



Again, it is noteworthy, as pointed out previously, 

 that the renascence of smoking in England synchro- 

 nized with the decrease of drunkenness. When 



