smokers. That this class of tobacco consumers constitutes so large a proportion of every people, and that nations still remain in normal health and vigor, is a strong point in our argument against any marked deleterious effects being produced by the ordinary use of tobacco.

We do not know that, even if space permitted, we should come any nearer to a conclusion of the argument, so utterly impossible is it to procure exact data of effects which cannot be eliminated from those of a thousand other anti-hygienic influences of civilized life, or to judge of facts which do not admit of direct numerical analysis. Both Pereira and Christison agree that "no well ascertained ill effects have been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking"; and M. Duchatelet, as the result of his researches among four thousand workmen in the tobacco manufactories of France, who were constantly exposed to and impregnated with its narcotic influence, found no evidence of its being unwholesome.

Two sets of experiments were made with tobacco by Dr. Hammond, who was not in the habit of using it in any form. During these experiments, he smoked four hundred and fifty grains of tobacco daily. The first series was made when a sufficiency of food was taken to keep up the weight and vigor of the body; and the second, when an insufficient quantity was taken. He found that,

1. Tobacco does not materially affect the excretion of carbonic acid through the lungs, but that it lessens the amount of aqueous vapor.

2. It diminishes the amount of the excretions, and, while lessening the quantity of urea and chlorine, it increases the sum of the uric, phosphoric, and sulphuric acids given off.

The fact that the amount of carbonic acid was not diminished would indicate that the consumption of the fat of the body is not lessened by the use of tobacco. The general metamorphosis of the tissues would seem to be retarded, seeing that both the urea and the chlorine excreted are diminished in amount; but, as the phosphoric and sulphuric acids are increased, we can explain the apparent inconsistency in these results only by assuming that there is an increased oxidation of the phosphorus and sulphur of the brain and the nervous NO. 197.

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tissues, although the metamorphosis of the other nitrogenous tissues is lessened.

Tobacco, like alcohol, coffee, and tea, arrests metamorphosis, and hence, in one sense, it is a food, since we are virtually nourished by what we save. When the food is sufficient to preserve the weight of the body, tobacco increases that weight; and when the food is not sufficient, and the body in consequence loses weight, it restricts that loss. But it differs from alcohol in being unattended with any unpleasant effects upon the circulatory system, though its action on the brain is apparent in increased nervous excitement, followed by a pleasant feeling of ease and contentment.

A writer of high authority says of its physiological action: "That its greater and first effect is to assuage and allay, and soothe the system in general. That its lesser and second, or after effect, is to excite and invigorate, and at the same time give steadiness and fixity to the powers of thought." Either of these effects will predominate, we conceive, according to the intellectual state of the individual, as well as in accordance with the amount used. The pleasure derived from tobacco is very hard to be defined, since it is negative rather than positive, and to be estimated more by what it prevents than by what it produces. It relieves the little vexations of life, soothes the harassed mind, and promotes quiet reflection. This it does most of all when used sparingly, and after labor. But if incessantly consumed, it keeps up a constant, but mild, cerebral exhilaration. The mind acts more promptly and more continuously under its use. After a full meal, if it does not help, it at least hides digestion, and gives it that feeling of quiet ease which would probably exist naturally in a state of perfect health. Smoking is eminently social, and favors domestic habits. In this way, we contend, it prevents drinking, rather than leads to it. The need of alcoholic stimulus is not more, if so much, felt by those who use it as by others. Although some still associate the cigar with the bar-room, this idea is, or should be, obsolete. The poor man's pipe retains him by his own fireside, while it softens for him domestic asperities.

In the words of eulogium of Salvation Yeo, in "Amyas

Leigh": "For when all things were made, none was made better than this; to be a lone man's companion, a bachelor's friend, a hungry man's food, a sad man's cordial, a wakeful man's sleep, and a chilly man's fire, sir!" We cannot subscribe fully to this, and we believe that excess is bad. But we may well yield a little, lest more be taken. For we cannot assume the highest stand-point of the reformers, and inculcate a total abstinence from all narcotics. Men will have something of this kind; all history, past and contemporaneous, proves it. And, if not allowed coffee, tea, and tobacco, they will the more surely have recourse to opium or hemp. Even the poor Siberian, cut off from other narcotics or sedatives, digs from beneath the snows a humble toadstool, which supplies his craving for a nervous stimulant.

In all the lower orders of creation, the normal state is preserved. Health is the rule, and sickness the rare exception. Demand and supply are exactly balanced. The contraction of the voluntary muscles, and the expenditure of nervous power consequent on locomotion, the temperate use of the five senses, and the quiet, regular performance of the great organic processes, limit the life and the waste of the creature. But when the brain expands into the dome-like cranium of the human being, a new and incessant call is made on the reparative forces. The nervous system has its demands increased a hundred-fold. We think, and we exhaust; we scheme, imagine, study, worry, and enjoy, and proportionately we waste. In the rude and primitive nations this holds good much less than among civilized people. Yet even among them, the faculties whose possession involves this loss have been ever exercised to repair it by artificial means. In the busy life of to-day, how much more is this the case? Overworked brains and stomachs, underworked muscles and limbs, soon derange the balance of supply and demand. We waste faster than enfeebled digestion can well repair. We feel always a little depressed; we restore the equilibrium temporarily by stimulation, some with coffee and tea, others with tobacco. How much resort to the more powerful and fascinating narcotics these innocent stimulants prevent, we can only judge by the weakness of human nature and their vast consumption.

ART. VI. North America. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of "The West Indies and the Spanish Main," "The Three Clerks," "The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson,' "Doctor Thorne," "Framley Parsonage," "Orley Farm," &c., &c., &c. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1862. 12mo. pp. 623..

JOHN BULL has a great passion for writing travels. He does not appear to have travelled more or farther than his neighbors; but he has more to say about his "wanderings" than all of them together. Nor does he appear to be impelled by any laudable desire of instructing his countrymen about the geography and customs of the countries he visits. Certainly he has not succeeded, and his Transatlantic brethren are still asked, by the most refined and best-educated Englishmen, whether pine-apples do not grow in Boston, and whether the Anglo-Saxon race has not dwindled in America. Read any one of the books of travel which are issued every month from the London press, with such titles as "Six Weeks in Canada," "Vacation Tourists," "A Run to Malta," "Rambles in the East," (the short time spent in the country seems always to be put forward as a special recommendation,) and you will find that three fourths of the book are filled with complaints of hotels, ridicule of manners, and criticisms of institutions. John is so continually growling, that his national oath has become as his patronymic on the other side of the Channel, and his chief purpose in travelling seems to be to give his opinion about his neighbors' affairs. He has one standard, to which he brings everything, and whatever does not square with that must be bad. Fortunately for John, most of his neighbors cannot read, or do not take the trouble to read, his effusions, or he would be more unpopular than he is. His American cousins, on the contrary, using the same language, can read, and do read, everything he writes, espe cially about them; and no matter how insignificant the author, or how contemptible his opinions, they are wounded to the quick. This sensitiveness is very silly. John abuses everybody else, himself included, just as much as he does us.

deed, living three thousand miles off, we hardly get our share. It is his way, and, however unpleasant it may be, there is generally underneath it a vast deal of good-nature and kind feeling. Moreover, our very touchiness is the mark of a national foible quite as unpleasant to our neighbors as John's testiness. We have been a most superlatively self-conceited people, and our egregious vanity has appeared in no respect more markedly than in our impertinent demands on the admiration and applause of the world. Unlike the Englishman, we do not keep our opinions to ourselves. John Bull looks glum, and scolds and frets over the Continent; but, unless his equanimity is especially ruffled, he keeps his thoughts to himself, and his opinions first appear in two volumes, tastefully printed and elegantly bound. The true Yankee has no such retentiveness. He intrudes himself everywhere, and no hints will drive him off. He vents his opinions on all occasions, and in the loudest nasal tones. "The Rhine is a brook compared to the Hudson"; "The Alps cannot hold a candle to Niagara"; and "There is nothing in London or Paris which will compare with Stewart's, the Fifth Avenue, or Central Park." This is no exaggeration. Every educated American who has travelled in Europe has been made to blush by this gasconade of his countrymen, if he has not been driven to avoid them as he would a pestilence. As for ourselves, after a good deal of experience of both types of national manners, we must say, that, if we are to be afflicted with either, we greatly prefer the English; and if foreign criticism can give us a juster opinion of our country, and a more real independence of character, we do not care how severe it is, or how often it comes. That half of it will be false, and the other half exaggerated, is to be expected; but that is of no importance, if it only leads us to examine ourselves, not by any European canon, but by that standard which our wisest and best men have held up to us. We can have no really great or independent national character until we distinguish our faults from our merits, and diligently seek to avoid the former, while we cling with manly self-respect to the latter.

Mr. Trollope's work is decidedly above the average of ordinary "Vacation Rambles." He devoted six months to the