There is one other aspect of this great subject, which is almost peculiar to New England, the home of reform.  Certain Puritanical pessimists have argued that the use of tobacco is immoral.  There are few, except our own sober people, who would admit this question at all.  We would treat this prejudice with the respect due to all sincere reforms.  And we have attempted to show, that, since all races have used and will use narcotics, we had better yield a little, lest more be taken, and concede them tobacco, which is more harmless than many that are largely consumed.  We have proved to our own satisfaction, and we hope to theirs, that tobacco in moderation neither affects the health nor shortens life; that it does not create an appetite for stimulants, but rather supplies their place; and that it favors sociality and domestic habits more than the reverse.

If the formation of any habit be objected to, we reply, that this is a natural tendency of man, that things become less prejudicial by repetition, and that a high hygienic authority advises us “to be regular even in our vices.”

As we began in a light, we close in a more sober vein, apologists for tobacco, rather than strongly advocating either side.  On one point we are sure that we shall agree with the ladies, and that is in a sincere denunciation of the habit of smoking at a tender age.  And although, in accordance with the tendency of the times, the school-boy whom we caught attached to a “long-nine” would consistently reply, "Civis Americanus sum!” we shall persist in claiming the censorship of age over those on whose chins the callow down of adolescence is yet ungrown.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE DONE INTO FRENCH.

In the first place, it really was an immense success, and Shylock, or Sheeloque, as they dubbed him, was called before the curtain seven times, and in most appropriate humility nearly laid his nose on his insteps as he bowed, and quite showed his spine.

It certainly was like Shakspeare in this, that it had five acts; but when I have made that concession, and admitted that Sheeloque was Le Juif de Venise, I think I have named all the cardinal points of similarity in the “Merchant of Venice” and “Le Juif” of that same unwholesome place.  To be sure, there is a suspicion of le devin Williams, as they will call him, continually cropping out; but a conscientious man would not swear to one line of it, and I do not think Shakspeare would be justified in suing the French author for compensation under the National Copyright-Act.  I speak of Shakspeare as existing, because it is my belief he does, in a manner so to speak.

I have intimated that “Le Juif” has five acts; but I have not yet committed myself to the assertion that he was in seven tableaux, and possessed a prologue.

It is now my pleasing duty to force you through the five acts, and the one prologue, and the seven tableaux,—­every one of them.