JARVES, the art writer, pronounces tobacco the active agent in the decline of the fine manners in Europe. Whatever the benefit or the harm the use of tobacco may do the consumer's body, its common tendency is to render the mind indifferent to the well being of his neighbors. The supreme test of the virtue of the knight in the days of chivalry, which was the highest ideal of fine manners, was his self-denial and desire to succor the oppressed. The severest tests of the modern gentleman is his willingness to forego his pipe for the comfort and health of another. It takes a thoroughly well-bred man to withstand this form of self-indulgence when it can only be practiced at the expense of another. Germans are the worst examples of bad manners in this respect, for it never seems to enter their comprehension, however courteous and willing to oblige in other matters, that what is a sensual happiness to them may be absolute misery to another. Frenchmen are rapidly losing their proverbial politeness also, by this species of self-indulgence. Englishmen and Americans, to a certain extent, invoke the law to protect them, and with both peoples there is more consideration for the rights and welfare of others than obtains in general among civilized nations. But selfishness of this sort has taken less firm root in Italy than elsewhere, precisely because amenity of manners and consideration for others in public are still the social rule. Not only do Italians refrain from smoking where it is prohibited, but I have seen them voluntarily give it up, when they noticed others were incommoded, where by regulation they were entitled to smoke, and this not only by gentlemen but peasants. On the other hand, I have known a German of rank with his daughter to get into a ladies' compartment in a railway carriage, and insist on using his pipe, despite the expostulations of the lady occupants, who were compelled to apply the guard for protection, when he was made to go into the smoking carriage, the scene occurring in Italy. As he reluctantly went, his daughter angrily turned to the ladies, exclaiming; "See what you have done to my poor papa; you make him leave his place to smoke away from me." The tendency of an inordinate use of tobacco to develop boorish manners requires no better illustration, for it is one which is now-a-days too common not to have been experienced by most persons who travel.—Sel.