"His worst crack, though, was when a man of great local prominence, who stood high with the people, died and it fell to G.'s lot to describe the funeral ceremonies and eulogize the deceased. G.'s mother-in-law had just arrived and the poor fellow was so badly rattled that he got hold of the 'bull-dog' instead of the brier and made the Hon. G. out the grandest rascal who had ever preyed upon the vitals of a law-abiding community. The only thing that saved his neck this time was the fact that it all turned out to be true and his paper got the credit of a 'scoop.' After that he had a little case made to hold all four of his pipes, with a strap to go around his neck—and I guess he sleeps with it now.
"They say that Guttenberg conceived the notion of the printing press while taking an after-dinner smoke; that Stephenson's ideas of steam locomotion came to him through the curling wreaths of his favorite Virginia; and that Morse figured out the telegraph with a pipe in his mouth. I never could corroborate these statements, though I don't doubt them a bit. But, be that as it may, the man, woman or child who tries to deprive us of the solace and inspiration of tobacco, is like the goat that tried to butt a train off the track. He is not only trifling with one of the greatest factors in civilization, but he is toying with a lost cause."
"No, I don't believe in capital punishment," said the Observer, as he rose from the barber's chair and adjusted his collar before the glass. "It's less expensive for the government than to board a man for life, and it satisfies the popular idea of justice, but I doubt very much its efficiency in the suppression of crime.