When Mellodrama was Mellow.

But for good clean murders, double-action heart-beats, and simple sin, Bland Holt had the modern synthetic sob-story licked to a frazzle. Of course, all the plots were the same plot, and everybody knew that finally the hero and heroine would be wedded in the old village church; that the last act would portray the villain, wearing broad arrows a yard long, chewing his moustachios to pulp in a cardboard cell of solid stone, while he hearkened to the hammers putting the finishing touches to the scaffold in the yard. Sometimes, when I see sordid sin posing on the silver sheet as drama, I long for a return of the days when melodrama was mellow.

“It would be a good thing for dentists if smoking had never been invented,” writes “Forceps” in a London journal devoted to dentistry, adding, “tobacco-smoke is one of the very finest preservatives of the teeth. It may discolour them sometimes but it frequently prolongs their usefulness to old age. Sweets, on the other hand, are the dentists' best friends. Children and women, who are always munching them, very often suffer badly from defective teeth, and I never pass a lolly-shop without wanting to take off my hat to it. But tobacco-smoke assuredly prevents decay.” So it does. But the tobacco should be a special quality. “Toasted” is ideal for the purpose, because, owing to the comparative absence of nicotine in it, it can be smoked so freely without affecting the health. All five brands of the genuine toasted—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, and Desert Gold, are splendid teeth preservers, and more fragrant and delightful tobaccos are simply not to be had whatever price you may pay.