Have I, Tabitha Tompkins, a right to my share of fresh air uncontaminated? or have I not? I ask the question with my arms akimbo. I might as well say what I’ve got to say, popgun fashion, as to tiptoe round my subject, mincing and curtesying when I’m all ablaze with indignation.

I ask again: Have I a right to my share of fresh air uncontaminated? or have I not?

Do I go out for a walk? Every man I meet is a locomotive chimney. Smoke—smoke—smoke—smoke:—great, long tails of it following in their wake, while I dodge, and twist, and choke, trying to escape the coils of the stifling anaconda, till I’m black in the face. I, Tabitha Tompkins, whose grandfather was one of the “signers” of the Declaration of Independence! I feel seventy-six-y! I have borne it about as long as I can without damage to hooks and eyes.

If I try to escape it, by getting into an omnibus, there it is again! If it does not originate inside, some “gentleman” on the box or top, wafts it into the windows. If I take refuge in a ferry boat, I find “gentlemen requested not to smoke,” (as usual) a dead letter,—no more regarded than is the law against gaming, or the Sunday liquor traffic. Do I go to a concert at Castle Garden, and step out on the balcony between the performances for a breath of fresh air?—myriads of lighted Havannas send me dizzy and staggering back into the concert room. Does a gentleman call to see me of an evening?—the instant he shakes his “ambrosial curls,” and gives “a nod,” I have to run for my vinaigrette.

Do I advertise for lodgings; and after much inspection of rooms, and wear and tear of patience and gaiter boots, make a final selection? Do I emigrate with big trunk, and little trunk, and a whole nest of bandboxes? Do I get my rocking-chair, and work-table, and writing-desk, and pretty little lamp, all safely transported and longitudinized to my fancy? Do I, in a paradisaical state of mind, (attendant upon said successful emigration,) go to my closet, some fine morning, and take down a pet dress?—asafoetida and onions, what an odor! All the “pachouli” and “new mown hay” in New York wouldn’t sweeten it. Six young men the other side of that closet, and all smokers!!! Betty, you may have that dress;—I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs.

Do I lend a masculine friend my copy of Alexander Smith’s Poems?—can I ever touch it again till it has been through quarantine? Does he, by mistake, carry home my tippet in his pocket after a concert?—can I compute the hours it must hang dangling on the clothes line, before it can be allowed to resume its place round my neck?

Do I go to church on Sunday, with a devout desire to attend to the sermon?—my next neighbor is a young man, apparently seated on a nettle cushion: he groans and fidgets, and fidgets and groans; crosses his feet and uncrosses them; kicks over the cricket; knocks down his cane; drops the hymn-book, and finally draws from his coat pocket a little case; takes out one segar after another, transposes them, applies them to the end of his nose, and pats them affectionately; then he examines his watch; then frowns at the pulpit; then, glancing at the door, draws a sigh long enough and strong enough to inflate a pair of bellows, or burst off a vest button.

“Mr. Stubbs is earnestly requested to call and settle the above bill at his earliest convenience.”

With a dolorous whine, this same young man deplores (in public) his inability to indulge in the luxury of a wife, “owing to the extravagant habits of the young ladies of the present day.” I take this occasion to submit to public inspection a little bit of paper found in the vest pocket of this fumigated, cork-screwed, pantalooned humbug, by his washerwoman:

Consistent Stubbs! But, then, his segar bill is not receipted!