The tobacco monopoly is farmed out to a company, on whom any loss would fall in the first instance; but if the abstention from tobacco were continued long, the Government would soon feel the effects, through the inability of the company to keep up their present rate of payment.
Whether rightly or wrongly, an attempt to cut off the funds of the Papal exchequer in this manner is certainly being made.

Strangers, of course, are not interfered with; but Italians are warned at the doors of the cigar-shops and the lottery-offices not to enter and buy.

The sudden diminution in the number of people you meet smoking in the streets is quite remarkable, and, I am sure, would strike any observer who had never heard of the movement.

There have been already several disturbances between smokers and non-smokers.

The story goes, that in a quarrel arising out of this subject, a man was stabbed in the street the night before last; but in Rome it is almost impossible to make out the truth in a matter of this kind.