SMOKE.
" IT will end in smoke" has been often said of a public commo- tion which men foresaw would lead to nothing ; but " it began in smoke " is something new to hear predicated of a smart riot. We learn from the German journals, that an attempt on the part of the police of Berlin to prevent the citizens from smoking in the streets has occasioned serious disturbances in that capital. Witlings and tourists have exhausted their tiny imaginations in attempts to cari- cature the German's love of his pipe, but here is a broad staring fact that puts out their small jokes as effectually as the sun puts out a taper. The Diet suppressed the liberty of the press ; the King of Hanover revoked the constitution granted by his predecessor; nay, this very King of Prussia cavalierly rejected certain constitutional petitions. The Germans bore it all with the most phlegmatic stoicism. But touch their pipes, and you might as safely shake the contents of the pipes into a powder-magazine. There is a point beyond which it le unsafe to tease any creature : pinch a mouse's tail, and it will biti ; pull a German's pipe out of his mouth, and he will throw his beer-glass in your face. It has excited some surprise that so goodnatured and sensible a man as the King of Prussia should have pressed hard upon this tender point ; but it may be accounted for by the influence of his new Pro- fessor of Philosophy, SCHELLING, who probably cannot bear that men should involve themselves in any other clouds of narcotic smoke than those which his metaphysics supply.
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