Pray, observe the marvelous comedy of modern commerce! The gentlemen of the British American Tobacco company, those most esteemed purveyors of the leaf, have suddenly discovered that their coffers are not as overflowing as a plump merchant's belly after a Christmas feast. In a fit of sudden frugality—or perhaps a panic that would make a novice speculator tremble—they have decided to cast nearly a fifth of their workforce into the cold streets of unemployment.

By the end of this year, some five thousand and five hundred poor souls shall be told their services are no longer required. To add a touch of further absurdity, another three thousand five hundred shall be handed over to 'outsourcing'—a modern term for hiring some distant scoundrel to do the work for a pittance. In total, nine thousand wretches are to be sacrificed upon the altar of Efficiency.

Why this sudden madness, you ask? It appears that the common folk have grown weary of their traditional pipes, and the shareholders—those nervous creatures of the Bourse who value a promissory note more than human life—are shrieking for 'alternatives.' Thus, the company has launched a 'transformation program,' a grand title for a simple scheme to hoard some eight hundred million dollars a year. One can almost see the Chief Merchant rubbing his hands with glee, calculating his profit while his clerks weep into their hats!

Indeed, the analysts—those gentlemen who predict the rain while standing in a thunderstorm—foretell a global decline in cigarette sales by some two and a half percent. In the distant lands of Russia, the collapse was even more theatrical, with sales plummeting by twenty-three percent in a single year.

It seems the trend is set. Even the Philip Morris International concern, another titan of the trade, has announced its intention to abandon the traditional cigarette in favour of products that claim to be less hazardous to one's health.

One must admire the audacity of these commercial giants: they spend a lifetime selling smoke, and now, when the smoke clears, they find it most convenient to vanish the workers who helped them blow the bubbles!