point they were in sympathy, and he accosted him and worried and haggled him for a light, which the other could not refuse. Birds of a feather flock together," thought Morris.

He was passing over a canal bridge at the time, and, thinking of smoking, the sight of the barges brought to his mind vividly the remembrance of a horrible roar, that startled him and thousands of others from their sleep, one dark, dull morning several years before--an explosion of gunpowder on the Regent's Canal, doing damage to the extent of £70,000, caused, it was supposed, by one of the men in charge of the boat smoking a pipe.

Again, his thoughts floated back to what he had seen that very day in a large public office in London: one of the chief officials carried to his work, and carried home again, paralysed in his legs and one arm, the while smoking a short black pipe, which had to be lit for him, and people said that it was the smoking that brought him to that state.

Morris spent two months in observing smokers; he had worked with some for years, but now he studied them, boys and men, old and young, from the lad who had hardly entered his teens to the smoky, puffy, muddy, dried-up creature of far greater age; he examined the tobacco itself, saw experiments performed on animals, and saw voluntary experiments performed on human beings; he went into figures, he looked into the Bible, and while he was musing "the fire burned." "It is only fair to the boys to tell them what I have learned," said he.

He went to the doctor, and he promised to help him; he went to a City friend who had often helped him with his counsel, and he also offered assistance, and then he asked the boys if they would hear a few remarks upon the subject, and they gladly assented, and a special night was appointed for that purpose. They invited other lads also, and when the night came, Morris had managed by some means to get the four boys there who had first forced the subject upon him.

III. THE PUFF ARGUMENTATIVE.

PHILIP MORRIS took the chair, and briefly introduced the subject, and also the doctor (Dr. Kirk) and his business friend (Mr. Trinder). The following are some of the remarks that were made::

Dr. KIRK said that he should speak simply as a doctor. Smoking tobacco was really puffing, inhaling, and to a certain extent imbibing a deadly poison. This is not simply a figure of speech, but the oil of tobacco is really a most dreadful poison-nicotine-it is ranked with the most deadly. Just a drop placed upon the tongue of an animal, say a dog or cat, would kill it at once, and just a trifle more taken at once by a man would kill him. Many savages anoint their arrows with it. I myself have seen experiments made with this poison on such things as cheese mites, insects, flies, bees, wasps, birds, cats, dogs, snakes, &c., and the result has been invariably the same, death often instantaneous. The most shocking experiments that I have seen of this nature have been made by ignorant parents upon their children; I have known cases where a child has been ill, or perhaps had a wound, and the parent has given the child some tea made with some grains of tobacco, or in the case of a wound placed some tobacco juice upon it; the results have been horrible, the poor patients sometimes losing the use of their limbs. The nicotine is that part of the tobacco which the smokers "enjoy," without it the weed is of no value in their eyes. It has been discovered that in the smoke of tobacco there is, besides this nicotine, carbon, carbonic acid, and ammonia; these are delicate luxuries that the smoker coolly puffs into your face.

The next thing to notice is that the use of this tobacco means a fight against nature; now I, as a doctor, have always found that fighting against nature is a terrible, suicidal conflict. You have seen a boy learning to smoke; what a nasty sickening sight! he gets giddy, sick and faint, and what a colour he has! The poison is in him, and his nature is fighting against it. It is true that many have overcome that sensation at last, and they think that because they do not feel bad, that their heart, and brain, and lungs, &c., are not affected by the practice. A lad who tells a lie for the first time feels dreadful after it, his conscience is at war with him; yet none of you would say that the boy was unaffected by that horrible habit if he gave way to it, and could lie and cheat unblushingly, having stiffed his conscience; you say, whether he feels it or not, yet he is worse, terribly worse. The same with smoking. Again, have you ever been to a crowded meeting rather late; the atmosphere of the room is dreadful, you feel you cannot breathe, and are sickly; yet others there before you seem to bear it;

your body, fresh from the open air, revolts from it, but after remaining there a short time you get used to the place, but although you may not feel the horror of the atmosphere so much, yet it is doing your body as much injury as before. The same with smoking, the tobacco and the poison therein affects the bodies of the lad and the old man alike; although they may feel it differently, it is poisoning them both.

The old smoker says it soothes and comforts him; it is really numbing and dulling his intellect, and lowering the temperature of his body.

A smoker is an inferior man; some smokers, I know, tower amongst men in intellect and mental power; but my description is still true-he is inferior to what he ought to be. Let me give you one startling fact. In 1808 the average height of Englishmen was five feet ten inches, there was at that time comparatively but a small quantity of tobacco smoked; since that time the tobacco trade has assumed enormous proportions, and side by side with that increase the average height of Englishmen has fallen five inches, and it is now five feet five inches. Champions for rowing, running, and other great muscular feats dare not use it.

As I told your friend, Mr. Morris, so now I tell you, that on an average out of a hundred people that come to consult me, forty of them at least would never come if they ceased smoking. They don't think that is the cause of their ailments; they come to me with sweet simplicity, telling me of various complaints. These are the names of some of them: hoarseness, cancers of the gums and of the tongue and lips, fainting fits, cramp, nightmare, general nervous weakness, inflamed eyes, ear-ache, discoloration of the teeth, tooth-ache, gumboil, inflamed throat, bad cough. They blame draughts, close study, cold, heat, small rooms, wind, and many other things, but I can tell from their breath what to blame. I don't say that tobacco alone is at the root of the matter (you and I know well what strong drink has to answer for), but it is a chief cause.

Have you ever noticed what a great number of Germans wear spectacles? It has been confidently affirmed that as a nation they wear spectacles because, as a nation, they smoke, and it is said of them, "that tobacco burns out their blood, their teeth, their eyes, and their brain."

As a matter of experience (for I once puffed away), I found that as I smoked I wanted strong drink, water seemed nothing, and my money went in brandy. When I was a student, one day after hard puffing, and, as a consequence, hard drinking, I saw in a looking-glass a man with a most repulsive face, yellowish and ugly, with blackish teeth and nasty mouth, and colourless eyes; it was a reflection of myself, and as I looked at myself I was fairly ashamed, and a strange thought came across my mind, and I propounded to myself this question: Why, as a rule, are so many young men so unsightly, ugly, coarse and surly, while all the young ladies are so different, pretty, attractive, and pleasant? I knew that most of the latter had to work very close for long hours indoors, while most young men work less hours, see more daylight, and have far more holidays. Bless me! I know that difference in nature has a good deal to with it, but the only other reason I could assign for it was that girls were too sensible to chew and smoke tobacco and take snuff, and I find that it is estimated that if mothers were to smoke like the fathers do there would not be very many people left in this country in the course of a few years. Now, my boys, I ceased the habit, and I am now stronger, better, brighter, and can work harder and more continuously; and I say to you, "Don't touch the tobacco." Its very leaves are poisonous, and its friendship leads to death. But greater minds than mine have studied this question, and I conclude with extracts from the opinions of other doctors. Dr. Richardson says: “Boys especially inflict on themselves a penalty which is life-enduring, and is never made up." The Dublin University Magazine says: "The mental power of many a boy is certainly weakened by tobacco smoking. The brain under its influence can do less work, and the dreary feeling which is produced tends directly to idleness." Lancet says: "Shun smoking as you would shun self-destruction."

The

Mr. TRINDER next addressed the lads. He was an active, busy commercial man, he said, and while agreeing with all that the doctor had said, he would warn them against smoking on different grounds.

In the first place, smoking is not a pastime that a boy can sit at home and enjoy in the family circle. Smoking is a nuisance and a discomfort to others, and the practice of it very often develops very selfish habits. In the next place, said he, how often when a person is trying to describe a lazy, worthless chara ter, the pipe has a place in the description;

the fact is, the pipe has got a bad name. Now, at present, you are free to choose your companions, old men cannot, many young men cannot, their companions insist upon keeping to them, but you can now choose yours. Pray don't choose one with such a bad name, history, and associations.

I know some men whose only aim in life seems to be to "colour" as many pipes as possible, and hang them over their fireplaces with pride. I have heard of a man who spent over £100 on a pipe for that purpose.

66

I, myself, am well acquainted with a good-hearted fellow, but who is gradually but certainly going down the hill." He carries a big, black pipe about with him as a curiosity; he regards it with awe and veneration. Several years ago he managed a large fur and skin business in America, and he fitted out and started an expedition to Hudson's Bay in quest of furs and skins, but before it went he gave the captain half a keg of tobacco and this pipe (then new), and while on the expedition the captain smoked the whole of the tobacco away, and coloured it marvellously, but returned home unsuccessful and with scarcely a single skin; the expedition altogether failed. Thoughtful folks sometimes wonder whether that pipe had anything to do with the non-success. I firmly believe that it had a great deal to do with it. I have obtained the following figures from the information given in the Postal Directories. In London, and its suburbs alone, there are, tobacco merchants, 36; cigarette manufacturers, 57; tobacco pipe makers, 134; tobacco manufacturers, 135; cigar importers, 220; tobacconists, 2,858; besides the great army of public-houses and other shops which sell tobacco. We can hardly believe that so many separate firms in London alone are engaged in a business that brings absolute comfort to nobody, but that simply satisfies the cravings of a bad habit that makes people thin, sallow, cross, lazy, stupid, dull, and intoxicated. Shall we encourage such a trade? But as a man who has moved in and about the world I would like to speak. You would hardly believe how many terrible fires have originated from smoking pipes, how many explosions and other accident, what robberies have been committed when those in charge have been rendered useless by smoke. How many appetites driven away by it? I meet hundreds of wretched young men every day looking deplorable; they can really enjoy nothing-work, walks, not even eating and drinking; they can simply find pleasure in puffing, and puffing, and puffing. What condition will ten years hence find them in?

Smoking often leads to loose, wanton habits, and this is fatal to progress in business; further still, it often leads to crime. A smoker is fearfully tempted, and he is weaker because of the habit. How many have fallen ? One gentleman says that in his business, which turns over half a million pounds annually, that they never had a fraud in their accounts but they could trace it to a smoker. On business grounds I say, therefore, don't smoke. Glance Gaylord says: "Oh, boys, puffing an Havana is not the mark of a man, as some of you seem to think; it is not the mark of a manly boy, at any rate, and when I meet a jaunty, puffing little fellow, though he may be smart and noble-looking, I think, 'Ah, me! what a pity that within that fair white forehead there is not sense and manliness enough to detest such a habit!-to feel that the true mark of a manly boy is his perseverance and energy, and, above all, his love of right and duty.'

PHILIP MORRIS, in bringing the meeting to a close, remarked that the vast majority of the best men had condemned the practice. Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, the late Prince Consort, the " Iron Duke," Goethe, Dr. Livingstone, and such popular names as "Old Parr," and Weston the pedes trian. I find, said he, the following curious collection of rulers prohibited as much as possible the practice: King James I., Queen Elizabeth, Napoleon III. (to the students), Shah Abbas, Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent XII., the Grand Sultan Amurath IV., and the Grand Duke of Moscow. King James said: "It is a custom loathesome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs ;" and truer words were never uttered. Why did these rulers denounce it? Because of its filthiness and wastefulness, and because it brought trouble and disgrace upon their people, and therefore upon themselves. But we here look upwards, higher than to these monarchs. Not one of those rulers took the interest and pride in his nation that God takes in His people. If it disgusted and shocked a Shah or a Pope, then how must the Great, Pure, Good God look upon it? How can He approach us if we are clouded in tobacco fumes? yet He wants us, loves us, delights to be with us. If we will only listen quietly and silently, we shall hear his voice saying, Come out from among them, and be ye

separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters." IV.-PUFFED OUT.

into all minds, but we are allowed to judge people by their The boys now look back upon that night. We cannot pry fruits, and we know that none of those lads have since been seen to smoke, and, indeed, we have their word that they de not, and they are the better for it. Who would be ranked with the "masses" and the "average," when by laying aside this weight they might run with patience and success the race CHARLES JOHNSON (Hackney).

that is set before them?

THOSE CHILDREN AGAIN!

your

"JOHNNIE, here you are at the breakfast table, and face is unwashed," said his mother, with a sharp look. 66 T know, ma: but I saw the animalcules in pa's microscope last night, and I ain't going to have those things crawling all over my face."

"As you are going past the grocery store," said Mrs. Brown to her son, "it will save time if you step in there and get a pound of tea." "What do I care about saving time?" replied young Brown contemptuously; "I guess I shall have all the time there is as long as I live, and I ain't going to hoard up any for my heirs to squander."

A BOY being asked what was the plural of " Penny," replied, with great promptness and simplicity, "Twopence." "How strange!" exclaimed a gentleman, looking up from his newspaper, at the breakfast-table. There's a cat in Manchester that drinks beer!" Well, 'pa!" said his daughter, a girl of sixteen, "she's probably a Maltese cat!"

66

NELLIE has a four-year-old sister Mary, who complained to mamma that her button shoes were hurting her. "Why, Mattie, you've put them on the wrong feet." Puzzled and ready to cry, she made answer, "What'll I do, mamma? They's all the feet I've got!"

ARTHUR, four years old, has been listening to a long story from Aunt Hattie. "How do you like my story, Arthur?" she asked. "Pretty well," responded the youthful critic. "The beginning was very good, and so was the end, but-it had too much middle."

A THREE-YEAR-OLD, while her mother was trying to get her to sleep, became interested in some outside noise. She was told that it was caused by a cricket, when she sagely observed, "Mamma, I think he ought to be oiled."

A PRIMARY school teacher sent a little girl to inquire why another scholar was absent from school. The child returned with the news that the absentee had a bad "ulster" in her throat, and couldn't come.

A LITTLE Scotch boy, about four or five years old, was ill of fever, and the doctor ordered his head to be shaved. The little fellow was unconscious at the time, and knew nothing of it. A few days after, when he was convalescent, he happened to put his hand to his head, and after an amazed silence shrieked out, "Mither! Mither! my head's barefoot."

A SIX-YEAR-OLD was enveloped in a shirt much too big for him. After strutting about for some time he burst out, "Oh, ma! I feel awful lonely in this big shirt."

"WHY haven't you brought back the umbrella you borrowed of me, Sammy ?" "Because father always told me to lay up something for a rainy day.”

A LITTLE boy was sent to a shop for some eggs. Before reaching home he dropped them, basket and all. In answer to his mother, who, on his arrival, inquired whether any were broken, he said, "No, ma, I didn't 'zactly break any, but

somehow the shells came off one or two of them."

"I SAY, my lad, what's the name of that hill, yonder?" inquired a tourist of a small boy he met on the road. 'Dunno," was the laconic answer. "What!" said the tourist, "lived here all your life, and don't know the name of it?" "No," said the youngster, "the hill was here afore I come'd."

ROM just below my study window there runs

F a long straight path, along which I have many

times walked at the steady pace which I find suitable for healthy exercise;, and I often count my steps along this road, noting how many bring me to the different points which I know along its course. Exactly 252 steps from my house wall I pass a pole bearing a weather-cock, and when I have advanced 660 steps further (making 912 steps in all) I pass the door (immediately under the belfry) of a church. How many inches I take to each step I have not been quite certain (let us suppose), but I have become quite certain that in walking for my health I take always exactly the same number of steps between the landmarks I have just mentioned. Now, sitting in my study, the idea occurs to me that I would like to know exactly how far off that church steeple is, so that I may learn how far I walk when I take such and such a number of steps, say 5,000. How am I to do this, having for instrument only a measuring tape?

After a little consideration I hit upon the following plan:-I observe that a small round knob at the top of the weather-cock, looked at from a certain point of my study window, seems exactly opposite the highest point of a clock-face on the steeple. I measure along the glass from that point, straight upwards, a yard exactly, and looking through the part of the window-pane thus reached I see the knob of the weather-glass lower down on the clock-face, in fact, very near the bottom. So I carry my eye a little higher till the knob just hides the bottom of the clock-face, and measuring along the pane I find the point I am looking through to be exactly 42 inches from the one through which I had looked, at first.

all the time I gave to learning geometry at school. Half-a-dozen plans occur to me, but I use the following:

I mark a length of one-third of an inch (upright) on the window-pane, and then I walk back till I see that small distance on the glass just spanning the distant clock-face from top to bottom. some way the point from which I am thus looking, as by moving a chair, till I have just to look over its back (the eye quite close to the chair back, or at some known, because measured, distance from it), and then with my measuring tape I find exactly how far the measured third of an inch on the window is from the place where the eye has to be set, that the small measured mark may just span the clock-face. Suppose I find this distance to be exactly 9 feet.

clock-face, 110 inches in diameter; Mm is my little Let Fig. 2 show what I have now done. Ce is the mark on the window-pane, one-third of an inch long; and I know EM to be 9 feet long. It is obvious that EC exceeds EM in exactly the same degree that Ce exceeds Mm, or that 110 inches exceed one-third of EM. Multiplying 9 feet by 330, then, I get what I an inch, that is, EC is exactly 330 times as long as want, the distance EC; that is, I find the clock-face Ce to be 990 yards away, and learn thus that I walk 990 yards in 912 steps; so that when I have walked 5,000 steps I have walked a good deal more than

FIG. 1.

Let Fig. 1 show what I have done thus far. 4 is the point through which I saw the knob at K thrown seemingly to C at the top of the clock-face, and a is the point through which I saw K thrown seemingly to cat the bottom of the clock-face, as shown by the lines of sight AKC and aKc. I know that 4a is 42 inches, for I have measured it, and it is very obvious that Ce is greater than Ha in the same degree that KC is greater than KA. But I know from my walks that KC is greater than KA in the proportion of 660 to 252. So that we get Cc at once in inches from the little "rule of three" sum,

As 252: 660 :: 42: Cc.

This, worked out, tells us that Ce is exactly 110 inches.

So far so good. I have learned the real size of the clock-face; if I cannot learn from this how far off it is, I ought to be very much ashamed of myself, after

often find out precisely what the distance is. It illustrates closely the way in which what is called a transit of Venus is used by the astronomer to determine the distance of the sun, without the astronomer having to extend his measuring work to the place where that fiery orb turns the very metals into

vapour.

For the astronomer knows the relative distances of Venus and the sun quite certainly from many a long year of watching. He knows certainly that when Venus travelling round the path VV, Fig. 3, comes between the earth E (travelling on the path EE') and the sun S, so as to be in the straight line EVS, the distance EV bears to the distance V'S the proportion 252 to 660 (very closely), just as I knew that that proportion held between certain distances along a road. When, then, Venus coming as to V, Fig. 4, is seen on the face of the sun (like the knob on the clock-face) by observers looking along lines of sight from two known places, as da, on the

FIG. 4.

earth E, the astronomer knows that whatever the distance Aa may be, the distance between the two points Ce on the sun's disc Ss must exceed Aa in the same degree that 660 exceeds 252: so that if Aa is a distance of 4,200 miles Ce will be a distance of 11,000 miles. Now if the observations were exactly made at A and a astronomers could find out afterwards what portion of the whole diameter Ss of the sun this known length Cc occupied. Say a 77th part; then this would make the diameter of the sun to be 77 times 11,000 miles, or 857,000 miles.

The rest is easy, corresponding exactly to what was illustrated by Fig. 2. A one-inch globe will be found to hide the sun at a distance of 107 inches pretty closely; but of course more exact observations have to be made in real practice: hence a globe looking as large as the sun must lie at a distance equal to 107 times its own diameter. Thus the sun's distance, as thus determined, would be 107 times 857,000 miles, or 91,699,000 miles.

The principle here explained underlies in reality all the methods of observing Venus in transit in order to determine the sun's distance. Still, one or two points have to be considered.

First, Venus goes almost exactly thirteen times round the sun while the earth goes round eight times, or in eight years; from which of course it follows that Venus passes between the earth and the sun five times in eight years, since she makes five more circuits. One would expect, then, five transits in eight years. But so many do not take place. The plane in which Venus travels is slightly slanted to that in which the earth travels, so that generally she is either above or below the line ES, joining the earth and sun, when she comes to the position V. Viewed,

then, from the earth she generally passes above or below the sun's disc when coming between, just as from most parts of my study window the knob of the weather-cock is either above or below the clock-face on the distant steeple. But if Venus is anywhere near one or other of the two points where her path crosses the plane of the earth's path, then she cannot get across without seeming to pass across the sun's face. Then comes the astronomer's opportunity to apply the method explained (in principle) just now. These two points lie in such directions on opposite sides of the sun, say as V and V' in Fig. 3, as correspond to positions of the earth (as E and E') which she reaches on or about December 8th and June 6th; so that transits of Venus can only happen nearly on those dates. (Mercury, the only other planet which travels inside the earth's track, can only be seen crossing the sun's face on or about November 6th and May 5th. A writer living in Louisville, Kentucky, who used to pretend to foretell the weather, once rather amusingly showed how ignorant he was of astronomy, by saying he took a certain spot he saw on the sun in September for Mercury in transit, which is much as though a schoolboy should say he took a certain solid leather ball he had found for his own foot-ball).

But as Venus goes round almost exactly thirteen times in eight earth-circuits or years, it happens generally that whenever there has been a transit either in June or December, another happens nearly on the same date eight years later. Only two can come this way with eight years between, and there may be only one December or June transit; still for hundreds of years past and to come there have been and will be a pair of transits separated by eight years in June and in December alike, followed in each case by more than two hundred years without a transit at the same season, and by more than a hundred years without any transit at all. What I mean will be seen from the following list of dates of some transits of Venus:

December 6, 1631 December 4, 1639 June 5, 1761

June 3, 1769

December 9, 1874
December 6, 1882
June 8, 2004
June 5, 2112

The transit of December 4, 1639, was the first ever observed, though Gassendi watched for the transit of 1631. It is singular to think that only two persons, neither of them paid astronomers, looked for that transit, though it occurred only 243 years ago; while many thousands, including paid astronomers, lovers of astronomy, and others who like to see anything that is to be seen, watched for the transit of December 6th last.

It should be added that four methods were used for observing the transit. First came two methods of which much has been heard, called Halley's and Delisle's. In one the observer at a (Fig. 4) times Venus as she crosses the sun's face rather lower than if she were seen from E the earth's centre, while the observer at A times her along a path lying rather higher; they thus learn the lengths of the chords she traverses, and so by a little simple geometry the distance between the middle points of the chords. This, of course, does as well as though Venus were observed at those middle points. Delisle's method depends on getting the exact time when Venus