SMOKING IN JAPAN, 173 
“Tet us sit down to a good Japanese dinner—down on the 
floor. Food on the floor. Fire and cigars or pipes on the 
floor. Sit on your heels, waiting. Enter first course—Tish- 
skin soup. Smoke. Third—Fish, cake and _bean-cheese. 
Smoke. Fourth—Row fish and horse-radish. Smoke. 
Fifth—Broiled fish. Smoke again, Sixth—Custard soup. 
. Smoke. Seventh—Chicken stew, 
turnips and onions. Smoke a little. 
Eighth—Cuttle-tish, wafer cakes, 
Nipon tea. Here, if tired you 
ean stop at the end of about two 
houre’ ankle-ache. All is cleanly, 
well spiced with talk, and served 
with the utmost politeness. Sip- 
ping tea may be substituted for the 
infinitesimal whiffs of polite smok- 
ing. A grand dinner is much more 
elaborate; at least, so far as the variety of smokes is con- 
cerned. After dinner, rest and smoke.” 
An English writer could very appropriately call this a 
cloud of smoke as he has another scene herein described. 
. . Tis all smoke, possibly, but what cannot we discern, 
through a cloud of smoke? Objects dim, but 
‘Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
In Vallambrosa.’ 
Be the medium of the smoke an honest ‘ churchwarden,’ a 
short clay, or a costly meerschaum ; does the smoke emanate 
from a refined Havana, a neat Manilla, or a dainty cigarette, 
such as we are at this moment enjoying as a sequel to a mod- 
est breakfast, ’tis all smoke.” 
We have thus given a somewhat lengthy description of the 
custom and implements used in smoking, from the first dis- 
covery of the plant until now, and turn to other implements 
used in connection with the pipe. We, however, give the 
following from Cop’s “Tobacco Plant,” descriptive of the 
part played by tobacco on the stage two centuries ago: 
“The ‘Return from Parnassus’ was published anony- 
mously, and the copy I have used is dateless. It was‘ publicly 
acted by the students of St. John’s College in Cambridge.’ 
In Act I., Scene 2d, characters are given of Spenser, Ben 
Jonson, Marlow, Drayton, Marston and hakespeare, 
together with some other of the known poets and dramatists 
JAPANESE PIPES, 
