SMOKING AN ART, 283 
material which may make or mar a nation; for all this was 
done, and even overdone, by the graphic sensationalists of 
the London penny dailies when Oh iweller Lowe proposed 
a tax on matches. We may, upon occasion, feel for the 
manufacturers and venders of ‘lights, but more generally 
we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the pur- 
chasers of such contrivances for the ignition of pipes and 
cigars. The smoking of tobacco is an art; an art which, in 
its proper exercise, requires much care, much prudence, and 
not a little skill. This is a proposition which must, from its 
very nature, be startling to non-smokers, and surprising to 
many smokers. The tobacco hater (invariably an illogical 
creature, who hates that which he knows not) will hold up 
hands in amazement, and sniff with the nose in contempt, to 
whom reply would be superfluous. . 
“With the smoker the case is otherwise. A German 
writer recently said that the English were better smokers 
than the Germans; because, whereas the German smoked 
incessantly, without rule, system, or moderation, the English 
smoked with care, with slow and appreciative lovingness, and 
the determination not to overstep the bounds of rational enjoy- 
ment. Had he known more of English smokers, he would 
not have made so wild a statement ; and had he known Eng- 
lish women better, he would never have attributed to their 
sweet influence the fancied superiority he describes in Eng- 
lish as compared with German smoking. In truth, the art 
of tobacco using is nowhere more ignored, nowhere more 
contemptuously neglected than in these ‘favored isles.’ For 
one man who smokes with a reason, for a purpose, or by 
system, you shall find a thousand who smoke without either ; 
and the result is that those who smoke have little defense, in 
the general way, for their practice, while those who condemn 
the habit have far better grounds for their opposition than 
-they have ever yet been able to explain. To those who do 
know why they use tobacco, it is well-nigh incredible that so 
many of their fellow-smokers should be- ignorant of the 
properties, the uses, the abuses, of the weed they burn and 
the fumes in which they delight. Yet, even this is not so 
surprising as the fact that so few of those who smoke— 
smoke much, often and constantly—should be ignorant of, 
or indifferent to, the conditions which are necessary to their 
own adequate enjoyment of the weed. 
“You will see a man light a cigar so carelessly that one 
side of the roll will burn rapidly, with prodigious fumigation 
