would sooner sacrifice our own smoke than
get a headache from that of others; and the reason for the rareness of
our attendance at music-halls is that we have to pay for every visit by
a smarting of the eyes and a feeling in the head somewhat like that
caused by the famous Sicilian torture.

What the ladies suffer goodness and they--the terms are perhaps
synonymous--alone know. If and when the Suffragettes come into power, we
shall have a prodigious counterblast to tobacco that would delight the
Stuart James of unsainted memory or the now illustrious Balzac. For
although the militant sex has many members who rejoice in a cigarette,
the majority are bitterly adverse to an expensive habit, offensive to
those who do not practise it, and exceedingly uncoquettish when indulged
in seriously. Probably if the reign of My Lady Nicotine had never begun,
and if no other enslaving habit of a like nature had taken a similar
place, the theatres would be better off than at present. Permission to
smoke will not deal with the difficulty; yet probably the habit of
smoking keeps a very large number of people away from the theatre.

Without proposing to win any of the colossal prizes offered to people
who guess the quantity of tobacco imported into this country in a
particular month, one may venture to assert that there has been a
tremendous increase in smoking during the last twenty years; and,
indeed, we all know that the man who does not smoke is almost a
curiosity nowadays.

The rules of offices, the customs of certain trades, the etiquette of
some professions, and the like, prevent a great many men from having
more than a trifling flirtation with tobacco till after dinner. The
greedy smoker may get a pipe after breakfast, a whiff during lunch-time,
and a pipe before dinner, which he takes distrustfully, because he has
been told not to smoke on an empty stomach, but he looks to the hours
after dinner for the debauch that turns his lungs from pink to brown.
Moreover, there are many men who do not care to smoke till after dinner.

What a deprivation to all these to be bustled through a shortened
dinner, to be scalded by coffee hastily drunk, and merely get a few
puffs before they find themselves in a playhouse, where, by the way, so
that insult may be added to injury, they often watch the actors smoking
comfortably. A wise manager would not allow smoking _on_ the stage
except in very rare cases. The _entr'actes_ amount to little; ther