but from which none can derive any enjoyment but themselves; and, on the contrary, in most cases, subjects the wives and children to heavy privation. This heartless and selfish conduct is carried to the utmost length in some parts of the kingdom, especially amongst the low Irish. We have frequently been solicited for alms "to save the woman and children from starving" by Irishmen, who took their pipes from their mouths at the moment. And when told, that if they could afford to purchase tobacco, they could get bread, the reply would be, “Sure it isn't yer honour that would begrudge a poor man the bit of bacca?" Perhaps English operatives would not go to this length; but we ask them, "Do you not often purchase this detestable weed, when you are conscious that it involves a privation to your wife or children-possibly both-of clothes, firing, and sometimes food?" The most moderate smoker amongst the labouring class, expends from two to three pounds a-year in pipes and tobacco, to say nothing of drinking, which he must do if he smokes. Now, let the labourer's wife have this shilling or so a-week to lay by for the use of the family, and we will engage to say, that the whole will be decently clothed and fed, instead of running about in rags and half starved. Earnestly do we wish that the poor knew better wherein the great secret of domestic comfort lies, and that, in consulting the welfare of their families, they would derive far greater and more real enjoyment, than in the selfish gratifications of the pipe and the alehouse bench, to which so many of them resort.

Dr. A. Clarke has the following sensible observations on this branch of the subject :

"Many persons I have known who were scarcely able to procure the necessaries of life, and yet, by sacrificing health and decency, have made shift to procure the daily quantum sufficit' of tobacco. I have observed some whole families, and very poor ones too, who have used tobacco in every possible way, and some of them for more than half a century. Now supposing a whole family, consisting of four, five, or six persons, to have used but one shilling and sixpence worth a-week; then, in the mere article of tobacco, nearly 2001. sterling was totally and irrecoverably lost in the course of fifty years. Were all the expenses attending this business enumerated, probably five times the above sum, in several cases, would not be too large an estimate, especially as strong drink, and its general concomitant, neglect of business, must be taken into the account. Can any who profess to call themselves Christians vindicate their conduct in this respect?"

A clergyman, of the doctor's acquaintance, calculated the expense of a poor family in snuff and tobacco to amount to onethird of their yearly earnings. The poor more than any others,

therefore, ought to avoid this indulgence, which is injurious to their health and destructive of their domestic comfort and respectability.

We have next to consider the influence of tobacco in all its forms of use upon the manners of its votaries; and here we feel it difficult to restrain ourselves within the bounds of either courtesy or delicacy. In fact, delicacy is out of the question in speaking of these practices, if, in that term, we include cleanliness and freedom from offensive smell, of person, clothes, and dwelling; nor is courtesy due to those, who make no scruple of sacrificing the comfort and sensibilities of others-especially females-to the gratification of a low, sensual, selfish habit, in which none can participate with them, and from which no one, not even themselves, derive any benefit. But we must appeal "from Philip drunk to Philip sober," and request the tobacco-takers to divest themselves for a moment of their prejudices, and reflect seriously on the consequences of the practice.

Let the smoker, then, imagine himself as constantly enveloped in an atmosphere of stale tobacco-smoke, with clothes, person, and breath, super-saturated with the effluvium. Do you suppose that your approach to a non-smoking gentleman, or to a lady, in that state, has no effect to annoy or disgust them? If they do not show that feeling, the delicacy is on their part, not on yours who practise a habit which renders you thus offensive in your person, and the consequences of which surround and follow you wherever you go. "There is not a smell in nature," says Dr. A. Clarke, more disagreeable than that of stale tobacco, arising in warm exhalations from the human body, rendered still more offensive by passing through the pores, and becoming strongly impregnated with that noxious matter, which was before insensibly perspired."

"I cannot help saying that I have often suffered a very painful nausea from the cause above assigned, and on which I will dilate no further."

But in what a condition of impurity is the dwelling of the confirmed smoker! There you breathe a highly tainted air, confined in narrow limits from which you cannot obtain the slightest relief. Everything around you exhibits the effects of this habit. What must be the feelings of a delicate female, to be subjected to these abominations day after day, without a moment's relaxation or freedom from the impurities they occasion! If they endure them, it is for the sake of peace; and if they are not affected by them, it is because the continual habit has accustomed them to the annoyance. We have, however, known wives who, though subject for years to these things, have uncomplainingly suffered a

daily martyrdom of their feelings, as well as health, under them.* What can be more selfish than for a man-the protector of the weaker sex-thus to inflict upon her a continued punishment, for the sake of a sordid gratification? For our own parts, we wonder that professed smokers ever obtain wives at all; and it must be because the women are not previously aware of the extent of the evils attached to the practice.

As to the habit of chewing, we believe it is confined in this country almost exclusively to the lowest class of operatives; at least we have not known more than one person professing to be a gentleman who indulges in it, and he acquired the habit in America. In that country, where the consumption of tobacco is seven pounds per head, on the entire population, it is used in all modes, by all parties and all grades; and society there affords fine illustrations of the effects upon the manners of the people. A relative of ours wishing to hear the "Swedish Nightingale" (Jenny Lind) when she performed at New York, went to the theatre for the purpose and returned with a new silk dress completely spoiled with the stain of tobacco ejected with the saliva from the mouth, which flew about in all directions. Again, a clerical friend of ours, who paid a visit to the United States, about six years ago, was invited to attend a meeting of ministers in one of the Southern States. Fifteen ministers sat in a semicircle on the platform, behind the desk at which the speaker stood; and two large spittoons were placed in front of them. Each, as he rose to speak, took from his mouth a quid of tobacco, which he deposited in the spittoon; and when he had finished his speech, took out his tobacco-box and replenished his mouth with a fresh supply! Another friend of ours was sitting before a fire at an hotel in New York, and an American gentleman was standing behind him. Presently, a mouthful of tobacco-juice flew close past the head of our friend into the fire, with the sharpness and precision of a ball from a Minié rifle. Unaccustomed to these kind of salutes, our friend suddenly turned his head, when the gentleman coolly remarked, "Ah! I just cleared you, I guess."

We could multiply such instances tenfold, if necessary; have no doubt that an English smoker will feel as much disgust at * Sir John Vanbrugh, in one of his plays, introduces "Sir John Brute," who, when remonstrated with for leaving his wife so much to herself, excuses himself on the plea that "her religion will keep her honest." what will make her keep her religion?""Persecution, and, therefore, she shall have it." "And how will you persecute her, Sir John ?""I'll plague her all day with illnature and tobacco."

"And

them as ourselves. Let them know, however, that their own practice is quite as bad in kind, if not in degree. Both are gross departures from delicacy and cleanliness; and if we take into account the more advanced state of society here than in America, there is less excuse for the English smoker and his spittoon, than for the American chewer and his indiscriminate discharges of saliva; both, however, must be fully aware, how utterly disagreeable such habits are to those who do not practise them, and, but for their selfishness, would cease thus to annoy and distress those who are not enslaved by them.

There is still one important class of our countrymen to whom we have at present adverted only incidentally; but we should consider this paper very incomplete, if we did not make a more direct appeal to them on this subject: we refer to the clergy; and if there be a body of men on whom, above all others, it is incumbent, not only to avoid setting an example in the use of tobacco in any way, but to discountenance it in all its forms, it is that body to which is committed the Gospel message. Whether we consider this evil in its moral effect, as leading to a waste of time and money, and to habits of dissipation and intemperance, or to its social effects, in destroying the health and wasting the resources of those who use it, and abridging the comfort and damaging the purity of those who do not, there are no habits prevailing in society which call for more energetic remonstrance, both from the pulpit and the press, than those connected with the use of this weed.

Strange to say, so far from making any effort to put a stop to these practices, how many of them are found amongst the most devoted adherents of the pipe and the snuff-box, the latter of which seems to be considered as essential a part of the furniture of the study as the books or the inkstand. We cannot except the clergy from this censure (for such we intend it), and we tell those involved in it, plainly and fearlessly, that it is both inconsistent and vain for them to preach self-denial to their hearers, whilst they themselves are slaves to a practice leading to a waste of time and money and health, and to habits of intemperance. We do not charge them with the latter vice, for we believe they generally stop short of that evil; but we do charge them with setting an example to men less strongly fortified than themselves by Christian principles, which, in numberless cases, has led to so many evils.

CHRISTMAS-EVE IN SWEDEN.

DECEMBER has come, and now one word meets me everywherethe word which a Swedish writer calls a magic one-Jul-afton. Do you know the meaning of that word, my friends? Well, it is the Swedish for Christmas Eve' Jul is the word for Christmas, and afton for evening; and Jul is pronounced exactly as our old term for the same happy season Yule. Now I am going to give you a full description of the famous Christmas-eve, and also of Christmas-morn in Sweden; and as every land, I believe, makes eating and drinking a component part of national festivity, or, as in England frequently, of national business, I shall begin with an account of the national dishes they have in this land of the North, as substitutes for the roast beef and plum-pudding of Old England. In connection, then, with Jul-afton, I always hear the word gröt made use of.

"What do you do on Jul-afton?" I asked a Swede. gröt," he answered in Swedish.

"We eat

I asked the same question of a lady who spoke English very well. "We eat gruel," she answered in English, "you eat gruel, too, in England."

"Yes, I believe they do when sick, or, I think, when in prison; but it is not our Christmas dish."

I found, however, the lady was mistaken in interpreting the word gröt to mean gruel: it is simply boiled rice, eaten hot with cold milk and sugar. This dish is served in all Swedish houses at the great supper which is made on Christmas-eve, and the poor who cannot afford rice, use, in the country, corn instead. They soak the grain long in water, boil it till soft, and eat it with cold milk.

"I have eaten that in my young days," said a gentleman to me, "and I assure you, madame, that goes on"-meaning, that is good enough.

The companion dish to gröt is Lut-fish-that is, stock-fish steeped in solution of potash, until decomposition begins. The smell is terrific, and I found it, alone, rather too much of a good thing for me; but the Swedes rejoice in this dish eaten with oilsauce, and it is even recommended by the doctors. In some cases, however, remedies may be worse than diseases. The supper of Jul-afton naturally forms a considerable item of its enjoyments to this supper-eating people: yet one must do the Swedes the justice to say that it is only as the accompaniment of the other and truer pleasures of that joy-bringing time. This evening is the great