patible with a high state of intellectual activity. We do not think, however, that the defence of a moderate use of tobacco rests upon the support of even these gigantic exemplars of the human mind: it has a far surer foundation in the universality of its use. Surely a substance which is used almost as commonly as food itself-which finds equal favour in the hut of the savage and the homes of the first cities in the world— must be something more than a mere vulgar mistake, a noxious blunder, which has only to be exposed to be abolished. It must be en rapport with man's nature itself to have spread even farther than the use of wine. Let our controversialists consider this fact in its broad and ineffaceable meaning, and we do not fear that they will pooh-pooh it as unworthy of being considered, as Mr. Solly does.

Mr. Solly asks if our psychologists or mental physicians cannot give us some account of the average number of lunatics who have been habitual smokers. Is this eminent surgeon, who has devoted himself to brain diseases all his life, unaware that tobacco is, almost without exception, used as a common article of consumption, and as a sedative, in our public and private lunatic-asylums? We select, for instance, the following items from the reports of lunatic-asylums on our own table:-Colney Hatch: tobacco and snuff for one year, £271. 2s.; North and East Riding Lunatic Asylum tobacco, 210lb., £36. 15s.; snuff, 8lb., £1. 178.; Wilts County Asylum: tobacco, 227 lb., £37. 10s. 11d.; snuff, 371⁄2lb., £6. 12s. 8d. We may go through the reports of every county asylum in

England and find similar entries. This, if not an exact answer to Mr. Solly's question, at least shows what are the smoking habits of our lunatics. The medical superintendents of our asylums must be prepared to defend this practice against the wholesale denunciations of Messrs. Lizars and Solly; and we call upon them publicly to give "the reason that is in them" for what they do. As far as we have been able to observe, it would appear that excessive smoking is more particularly confined to very young men a class of persons who are generally apt to run into excesses of all kinds. To such persons the habit is, we believe, injurious, as the nervous system in youth is particularly sensitive. In middle age, we question whether there is such a thing as immoderate smoking to any extent; certainly the habit is not so universal among men of the world as it was in the reign of the first and second Georges, when the pipe and the pot, or the punchbowl, were the sole solace of the age.

After a certain period of life the human frame seems capable of resisting the influence of any amount of tobacco-smoking. Those who have noticed the habits of very aged people know full well that many of them, especially in the lower ranks, consider the pipe to be the chief enjoyment of life. There was a few years ago an old woman at Swansea, 108 years old, whose cutty pipe was never out of her mouth; and we have remarked that of late most old women who have died at a very advanced age, beyond a hundred years, have retained the habit until the latest moment of their existence. We do not wish to put forward these old

women as any argument in favour of immoderate smoking, as we know the worthlessness of arguing from the special to the general, but simply to show that tobacco, even taken largely, in a certain stage of life, and after the establishment of a habit, becomes quite inert.

PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD.

FOR the small sum of half a crown you may in the summer season leave hot and dusty London behind you, traverse the South Downs, skirt the South coast, spend a day in the great naval arsenal of Portsmouth, and be back again in town to a late tea: that is, those who like cheap trips and this kind of racing within an inch of their lives may do so if they like-which I do not. Wanting a holiday last summer, and having made inquiries for the least Cockneyfied seaside place within a couple of hours' journey of London, I made up my mind to spend a month at Southsea, to the horror of my respectable friends. And where in the name of fate is Southsea? inquires the reader. Southsea, then, is the west-end of Portsmouth, so to speak, although it really lies to the east of that famous port-so close, in fact, that you may throw a biscuit from the Common almost into the High Street. There are certain places that every Englishman must see in the course of his lifetime, and the dockyard-the chief cradle of our fleet-is one of them. And it is not only the cradle but the destined grave of our naval power, as some people will have it; for here we are

told the Frenchmen will some day catch us, and smother us in our naval hive like a swarm of hornets, unless we keep a good look-out. For these reasons Portsmouth Dockyard, just at the present moment, is one of the points on which the national eye is fixed.

There is certainly something very charming in the extreme civility with which the total stranger is treated in our great public establishments. He is made to feel that all the treasures that he sees belong to him,-in common, it is true, with the Queen and a few millions besides, but still to him; and he enjoys all the dignity of proprietorship. Indeed I could not help feeling that I possessed more than my ordinary share of those large 120-gun ships, &c., inasmuch as a six-foot policeman was told off especially for my service in surveying all the glories of the premier British arsenal and dockyard.

And first about Masts. Those accustomed to seaports and merchantmen only are struck with the imposing magnitude of all the details belonging to our great ships of war. Milton, when he likens Satan's spear to the mast of " some tall admiral," conveys by his similitude only a just idea of its portentous size.

Let us take the mainmast of the Duke of Wellington, for instance. Here it lies, stretching its length for many a rood: not a simple spar, for no tree that grows could furnish such a bulk as it presents; but a complex structure, built up of innumerable pieces, with as much care as one of those tall chimney-stacks which carry off the fumes of alkali works, rising to a