Transcriber’s Note: The title of this book is given both as ‘St Nicotine of the peace pipe’ and ‘St Nicotine or the peace pipe’. Readers may decide for themselves which is most fitting.

ST NICOTINE
OR
THE PEACE PIPE

Drawn & Engraved by F. W. Fairholt

Tobacco Plants.

1. Nicotiana Tabacum; 2. N. Rustica; 3. N. Persica.

[By permission of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Ld.

ST NICOTINE
OF
THE PEACE PIPE

BY
EDWARD VINCENT HEWARD

WITH 4 FULL PAGE PLATES AND 5 TEXT CUTS

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
1909

INTRODUCTORY

The history and associations of tobacco carry the thoughts back to the jubilant days when Good Queen Bess was the idol of her people, to the stirring times when bounding gaiety and lusty banter found expression in unrestrained mirth as readily in the open street as within doors. The writer’s aim in the following chapters has been to bring together (in a somewhat desultory way, it may be) the chief features of interest which the story of the ‘Indian’s herb’ presents to us to-day. The social element undoubtedly dominates all others; this, coupled with the primitive belief in its medicinal properties, at once secured for it the good-will of men longing for knowledge of the New World and ever ready to adopt an indulgence so alluring. That this feeling was universal is shewn by the rapidity with which the smoking habit spread over the Earth wherever there was a human habitation. No less remarkable is the sturdy tenacity with which men everywhere stuck to it despite the determined opposition of potentates and pontiffs.

In the eyes of her votaries St Nicotine’s virtues are rare and manifold. Indeed all sorts of pretty things have been said and sung in her praise, and as becomes a faithful devotee at her shrine the writer believes them all as implicitly—well, as a child believes fairy tales. Many a non-smoker when questioned about his indifference to her gracious influence has heaved a pensive sigh and lamented Dame Nature’s ill-usage in denying him the taste for the nicotian incense. Consolation comes not to him when told that the good genius has knit together a brotherhood who, regaled with her balmy breath, realize the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin; that on her approach petty vexations vanish into space, and fancy, untrammelled, roves in Parnassian bowers, or sees in the vapour rising from the bowl nebulous forms resembling those in the far-off starry sky.

The demon of insomnia flies from her presence, and upon the sleepless she breathes ‘tired nature’s sweet restorer.’ Faith born of experience bears willing testimony to this priceless virtue. Once upon a time, too remote to recall the year, it befell the writer of these lines to suffer from the effects of insomnia. Wakeful nights followed by comatose days passed into months, and the relief the poet Young had wooed in vain still held aloof. At last fortune smiled. Walking with a friend one evening a cigar was proffered him. Not being a smoker he declined the weed. Again urged to try it (without any suggestion of its narcotic properties) he did so and smoked it to the end. That night he fell into a sleep so profound that on waking the next morning the hours that had fled seemed but as a moment. Years have rolled by since then, but not an evening has passed unsolaced by the gentle anodyne.

Opponents of tobacco-smoking generally base their objection on the rather shaky ground of what they with emphasis term, ‘principle.’ A case of the kind cropped up a few years ago when Professor Huxley related the story of how he had become a convert to the creed of the tobacconist. It runs as follows:—

‘When I was a young man I went with a party of my friends to Holland. It happened that they were smokers and I was not. I did my best to fortify myself in determined resistance to the pernicious habit, which from my standpoint I looked upon as wholly indefensible. The tobacco plant belongs to a family of poisoners—certainly a poisonous family, what then could be said in its favour? Science and reason being opposed to it how could intelligent beings submit to its sway, and with so much assumed pleasure? Thus I mused with my back propped against the hotel wall where in a cosy room inside my friends were quietly enjoying themselves with their weeds and social gossip. I fought with myself. I fought against the seductive influence of the goddess, and failed. The flesh was too strong for philosophy: I crept in and joined them with my first cigar.’

A lady once confessed to the writer that she had all unwittingly followed in the wake of a smoker whose cigar shed on the air a fragrance so delicate that for a time it was quite irresistible. Doubtless many another could, if so minded tell of a similar experience. A good cigar indeed—Havana or Cuban leaf for preference—is an inspiration. A meerschaum pipe when ‘mellow, rich and ripe’ is a treasure; but cigarettes are becoming, if they have not already become, a nuisance.

Grateful memories of the weed are enshrined in the literature of every language; and many an old and odd volume have yielded to the gleaner the materials of which the following pages are made up. Some parts have already seen the light in the form of magazine articles, and for permission to republish these the writer tenders his thanks to Sir James Knowles, of the Nineteenth Century Review, to the Editor of Macmillan’s Magazine, and to Sylvanus Urban of the Gentleman’s Magazine.

And this may be the fitting place to acknowledge the courtesy and kindness of the principal (Mr. A. C. Wood) of the Statistical Office of H.M. Customs, who has furnished the tabular statement, which appears below, shewing the latest facts and figures on importations of tobacco, on the rate of consumption per head of population in the United Kingdom, and the revenue derived therefrom.

Statistical Office,
H.M. Customs.

Since the date of your article there have been some considerable changes in the fiscal position of Tobacco and the following are the chief changes in rates of duty per lb. since 1898:—

The maximum limit of moisture allowed in manufacture of Tobacco was fixed in 1887 at 35 per cent., and was changed in 1898 to 30 per cent., and again raised in 1904 to 32 per cent.

The moisture naturally present in the kinds of Tobacco now imported averages about 14 per cent. I mention these facts because they are as you know of considerable importance in making calculations of the quantities sold over the counters of retailers to consumers.

Perhaps I may add that in 1904 differential rates were levied on Stripped or Stemmed Tobacco, that is upon Leaf from which the ‘midrib’ had been removed. The duty on ‘strips’ imported before the Budget was fixed at 3s. 1½d. the lb., and at 3s. 3d. on Strips brought here afterwards, while the duty on whole leaf Tobacco was settled at 3s. 0d. the lb.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

A. C. Wood,
Principal.

E. V. Heward, Esq.

UNITED KINGDOM
Tobacco. Financial Year 1904-5

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ST NICOTINE

SYMPOSIUM
CHAPTER I

Part I

Let me adore with my thrice happy pen

The sweet and sole delight of mortal men;

The cornucopia of all earthly pleasure,

Where bankrupt nature hath consumed her treasure;

A worthy plant springing from Flora’s hand,

The blessed offspring of an uncouth land.

Beaumont.

In the early days of her advent in these isles St Nicotine stood high in the land. For she had come bearing credentials from France and Portugal testifying to her many virtues as a healer of the sick as well as a social comfort. And sober-minded folk would sit outside their doors, pipe in hand, placidly inhaling the grateful vapour of the precious herb a kind Providence had sent them to assuage the ills flesh is heir to. But the quick eye and ready wit of the city wags saw the matter in a different light. The Spanish fashion of smoking, namely, of drawing the smoke into the lungs and ejecting it through ‘the organs of the nose,’ afforded them endless amusement, and sportive jests were heard on all sides about the men who made chimneys of their noses. The important part the exotic played in life’s comedy led the youthful aspirant to literary fame, Sir John Beaumont, to think that he could not do better than soar on the wings of the weed to the Parnassus he had already in view. Barely twenty, full of exuberance and lofty ideals, he poured forth his musings in a grand imitation of heroic verse. His work is entitled, ‘The Metamorphosis of Tobacco,’[1] (1602) and is dedicated to his friend ‘Maister Michael Drayton,’ whom he asks to take up the lines,

Tobacco like, unto thy brain

And that divinely touched, puff out the smoke again.

Ambitious to excel and full of noble endeavour he exclaims,

Let me the sound of great Tobacco praise

A pitch above those love-sick poets raise.

He conceives the idea of a parliament of the elements assembled to hear the complaint of Prometheus that his work is imperfect. He calls for help, and the Earth is invoked. But ‘Grandame Ops her grieved head did shake.’ She declares however that,

A plant shall from my wrinkled forehead spring

Which once enflamed with the stolne heavenly fire

Shall breath into this lifeless corse inspire.

Despite of Fate the elements combine to form the plant. Their work accomplished, it is found that Tellus had tempered too much terrene corruption in its composition. But for this

The man that tasted it should never die

But stand in record of eternitie.

Jupiter is enraged at the daring attempt to usurp his divine prerogative and banishes the plant to an unknown region. After long searching the graces discover it in the palace of the great Montezuma. They are royally entertained and wish for no greater happiness than to remain eternally regaling themselves with the vapour of the divine herb. Another flight of fancy reveals the ‘sweet and sole delight of mortal men’ as a nymph of Virginia receiving the visits of Jupiter clad in the garb of a shepherd. Juno, ever watchful over the movements of her lord, discovers the intrigue, and with threatening gesture storms at the poor thing and transforms her into the Indian weed.

It may be that the divine afflatus which Drayton, speaking of Marlowe, says, ‘rightly should possess a poet’s brain,’ imaging ‘those brave translunary things that the first poets had,’ had not yet descended upon the young poet of Grace Dieu. But it cannot be denied him that his diction is stately, and that at times he displays flashes of grandeur. Chalmers remarks of him that he brought to his task ‘a genius uncommonly fertile and commanding.’ All through his brief career he had yearned after a true poet’s renown. ‘No earthly gift,’ he wrote, ‘lasts after death but fame.’ And he sighed over the thought that all his labour should be left incomplete—‘That’s my vexation, that’s my only grief.’ His longing for posthumous fame Drayton tenderly notices in the following lines:

Thy care for that which was not worth thy breath.

Brought on too soon thy much lamented death.

But heaven was kind and would not let thee see

The plagues that must upon this nation be.

It is hard to say what plagues Drayton refers to, but it does seem unkind of Elizabethan scholars to have so neglected Sir John Beaumont, the purity and simplicity of whose life and elevated tone of work place him in marked contrast to his more versatile and distinguished brother, Francis.

Leaving the domain of the poet let us turn our gaze for a moment towards the heavens. Night’s sable mantle shrouds a sleeping world, and all is repose save the spirit of our dreams. Freed from control the ever active one flits at will in the realms of fairy-land, overleaping all difficulties, revelling in phantasms new and wonderful till day dawns, when she returns to her abode in man’s heavy brain to lighten the labour of his daily toil, and to store up memories of a world closed to mortal eyes.

A distant murmur as of an approaching storm disturbs the stillness of the night, from gathering clouds serpent-tongued lightning flashes across the sky; the furies rage, the curtains of the heavens open and lo! Jupiter appears glowing with unwonted fire. He vows he will suffer no longer the flouting scorn of imperious Juno, and with anger-distended nostrils he sniffs the ethereal air. But what is this that steals over his heated senses? Subduing, soothing, consoling more sweetly than incense from Aphrodite’s favoured altars. It ascends in cloudy wavelets from the abodes of mortals. He determines to hold a council of the gods and summons thereto the heroes of Earth famed throughout Elysium for their knowledge of the odic essence whose spirit has entered his own and quelled the rising of a conjugal storm.

Silently there glides into view a host of genial witnesses to St Nicotine’s balmy influence over the troubled spirits of mortals. Leading the spectral throng are Ben Jonson and Drummond, Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker and Overbury, swathed in clouds of vapour as if comforting themselves with the old delectable pastime. A little to the rear, pale in the majesty of thought, are Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and Newton. Leaning to his friend Shakespeare, Bacon whispers, ‘No doubt the weed hath power to lighten the body of mortals and enable them to shake off uneasiness. But where is Raleigh? He paid devotion to his divinity most constantly, and ought to be able to speak of what return he got for all his worship.’

‘You know, Drummond, as well as I do, that I always did love the weed, in spite of all that King James said against it. Did I not make my prince of swaggerers, Captain Bobadil (who was to me what Falstaff was to Will Shakespeare) descant on the fragrant theme, thus:—

‘“I have been in the Indies where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world for over a space of one-and-twenty weeks, but the juice of this simple only. Therefore it cannot be but ’tis divine—especially your Trinadado; your Nicotian is good also. By Hercules! I do hold it before any prince in Europe to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered for the use of man.”’

‘But, O worthy Ben, did not the master over-charge his ‘prentice when he allowed the braggart to lay on the tinsel with so heavy a hand?’

‘Listen to me, my masters, let Ben Jonson read the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet without blenching if he can, for that might advance him in merit; he would acknowledge that Thomas Dekker can kick.’

‘Hist! feather-brained gossip; proclaim not so loudly thy kinship with the asinine family.’

Advancing with measured step the noble Raleigh appears and is greeted with the cry:—

Hail, mighty Raleigh! to whose name we owe

The use and knowledge of this sovereign plant.

To which the illustrious knight made answer, ‘Not so, gentle spirits of the past; to me it was not given to be the discoverer, or the first to bring to my countrymen a knowledge of the blessed herb whose sobering and soothing virtues lend man strength to bear with tranquility the injustice of the powerful. The honour you would do unto me belongs of right to others who were before me in the fray of battle and adventure. Humble service have I rendered at her shrine, receiving thereby sweet refreshment unstinted, even when on the threshold of thy domain, O mighty Jupiter.

‘Yet, by your leave, I will relate something of the wonderful tales told of this weed by the adventurers who first brought tidings of it to Europe, and of the New World and its people they had discovered in the far-off western seas.

Sir Walter Raleigh.

‘The chiefs and headmen of the Indians avow that the herb is a most precious gift of the Great Spirit who created them, and who rules over the affairs of their daily lives. He it was in ages long past, when all the different tribes were warring one against another, had taught them the peace-inspiring virtues of the plant. He it was who, out of a fragment broken from the red rock, had fashioned for their guidance the first peace-pipe. And it came to pass in this wise: The Master of Life, the Great Spirit that broods over creation, descended to the summit of the mountain; he called his children together, and they obedient to the divine command assembled in infinite numbers to hearken to his will. Then there came forth from the mountain a voice, crying, “Listen, O children of the redskin, to the words of your Great Father. Let your deliberations, domestic as well as public, be conducted under the soothing influence of the herb of life, the divine uppówoc. Let the pipe be to you a symbol of peace between you yourselves and all the tribes of men. In loving brotherhood let it be passed from the lips of those famous in the war of words as in the strife of battle; from those seated on the front bench in the possession of treasure to those of the hungry of the assembled senators who have nought but who fain would have all. Let the smoke-cloud that ascends from the calumet be to you a pledge of peace, of personal amity and good-will. Then shall your compacts one with another be held sacred before me, and the war-club be buried deep in the earth. Henceforward shall friendship and fraternity be yours for evermore—till, alas, they of the pale face have grabbed from you your lands, and the red man hath become a stranger and an outcast in the country of his birth.”

‘Thus spoke the Master of Life to his children of the redskin. Having fashioned with wondrous curves the emblem of happiness out of stone of the red rock, he filled the bowl with the leaves of the sacred herb, and commanded the lightning to kindle it into flame. High up on the mountain over their heads he smoked the first great symbol of peace among the nations. He told the assembled multitude that the rock, out of which the pipe was made, was formed of the flesh of their grandfathers, long ages ago, when the world was deluged and the people of the earth destroyed. Seeing the gathering of the waters, the children of the forest and of the prairie fled to the high lands, thinking thus to save themselves. The waters pursued them; they were overwhelmed in one mighty mass and their bodies were converted into the red sandstone rock of the mountain, therefore is it good medicine.

‘Yet one escaped the flood. A maiden, Kwaptahw, finding herself bereft of kindred, lay disconsolate on the mountain ridge. Then it came to pass that espying her from afar, the great war-eagle came to her side. She clung to the lord of the air, and he carried her to a place of safety high up on an adjacent cliff.

‘Then like the murmur of distant waters, the voice of the great spirit gradually melted away.

“—The Master of Life ascending

Through the opening of cloud curtains,

Through the doorways of the heaven,

Vanished from before their faces,

In the smoke that rolled around him

The pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’

The shadowy form of great Elizabeth’s gallant courtier gives place to the Shepherd of the Muse, who, as he passes, beams upon his friend a countenance of supernal sweetness. Then in a voice of dreamy reverie the genius of the Faërie Queene addresses the Olympian deity after this manner:—

‘While musing on the loves and adventures of chivalrous knights and ladies fair, away from the busy haunts of men in the wilds of Kilcolman,

Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,

Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade

Of the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;

There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;

Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delight

Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,

Or thither led by chance, I know not right;

Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,

And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe

The shepherd of the ocean by name,

And said he came from main-sea deep.

He, sitting me beside in that same shade,

Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,

And when he heard the music that I made,

He found himself full greatly pleased at it;

Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hond

My pipe—before that æmulèd of many—

And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):

Himself as skilful in that art as any.

He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;

By change of turns each making other merry;

Neither envying other nor envied,

So piped we, until we both were weary.

‘Thus, O Jupiter, and you my fellow-denizens of Elysium, would we hold sweet communion of soul. And then it was I learnt of the right noble and valorous knight, the exceeding comfort of the “soverane weed,” which the elements in aforetime had formed for the solace of men and gods; for nothing loth am I to say that I drew from the pipe a foretaste of the peaceful joys of the blessed, and therefore did I recognise in the divine herb a gift from heaven, treasured up for mortals in Nature’s bounteous store. It seemeth, however, that the immortal powers swayed by imperious Juno had disowned the Virginian nymph and had lost the healing balm she breathes upon the chafed and fretful; yet, methinks, even Juno might find a piquant pleasure in a few whiffs of the weed.

‘But if Raleigh denies himself the renown of being the first to bring the Indian’s herb to his native country, he can fairly lay claim to the pleasure of having first planted it in Ireland. When he was Mayor of Youghall, and his abode the manor-house, he smoked his first pipe of tobacco in his garden, sheltered by the spreading branches of four yew trees that still may be seen forming a thatch-like covering for a summer-house. And in this Youghall garden he planted Ireland’s first instalment of the Indian weed. Ever foremost among the high-souled and adventurous, he neglected not other like humble things that he thought would be of service to his fellow-creatures, for here, too, he planted and cultivated Ireland’s greatest blessing, the potato, which fostered by prudence, rapidly gave to that wild and lawless land an abundance of food for the impoverished peasantry. He planted likewise, the affane cherry, and the sweetly perfumed wall-flower, which he had brought from the Azores, and which may still be seen growing on the banks of the Blackwater.

‘Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this goodly company, I will call upon one who has seen the plant in its native soil and can describe its uses among the Indians. For the herb, which is commonly called tobacco, hath many names and divers virtues.’ Then rose before the recumbent throng, the historian of England’s first colony in the New World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician and astronomer. He began:—

‘A brief and true report I will render you of what I learned of the herb, the truth of which can be attested by Ralf Lane, the worthy governor of the new found land of Virginia. It befel me that I went out with a number of my countrymen to that far-off land in the Western Seas the great Columbus had discovered, that I might make record of all that happened concerning us on that perilous venture. It was undertaken by the orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. Soon after we had made our peace with the natives, and they were of a peaceful race, not caring for bloody strife or for plunder, we found them making a fume of a dried leaf, which they rolled up in a leaf of maize, of the bigness of a man’s finger. By rubbing a stone with a stick, in a cunning way they had learned from some divine power, they contrived to kindle fire and putting a light to the leaf they smoked it, as is done by mortals in these days. It was the leaf of an herb which is sowed apart by itself and is called by the inhabitants uppówoc. They use it also in powder. The leaves thereof being dried and crushed small, they take the fumes or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomach and head, from whence it purgeth superfluous humours, and it openeth all the pores and passages of the body, by which means the use thereof preserveth the body in health, and they know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal people in England were oftentimes affected.

‘This herb is of so precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith. Whereupon they sometimes make hallowed fires and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice; being in a storm upon the waters, to pacify their gods they cast some into the air and into the water: so a wear for fish being newly set up they cast some therein and into the air; also after an escape from danger they cast some into the air likewise; but all is done with strange gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding up hands, and staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal and chattering strange words and noises.

‘We ourselves, during the time we were there, used to smoke it after their manner, as also we did when we returned home and found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof, of which the relation would require a volume by itself. The use of it by men and women of great calling as else, and many learned physicians bore testimony to its exceeding good qualities as a healer of the sick and a comforter in adversity.’

Then rose England’s unexampled smoker, Dr. Parr, renowned throughout Europe for his profound learning, theology and Greek. Smiling benignantly under the voluminous wig which furnished Sydney Smith with a droll figure of speech, he recounts the story of how his smoking had caused royalty to sneeze. This had happened on the occasion of a dinner given in honour of the Duke of Gloucester at Trinity College, Cambridge. Immediately the cloth had been removed the doctor began his usual practice of smoking his pipe. In the warmth of conversation he blew clouds so vigorously that a general rising in revolt took place led by his Royal Highness sneezing and holding his nose.

As to its effect upon the learned doctor, his physician, Dr. John Johnstone, explains that tobacco-smoking acted upon his patient like a charm, allaying his abnormally irritable nervous system. ‘It soothed him and assisted his private ruminations; it was his consoler in anxiety, and helpmate in composition. All who knew him had seen the air darkened with the fumes from his pipe when his mind was labouring with thought. Yet he lived the span of years allotted to mortals, falling ripe at the age of seventy eight.’ Thereupon a voice was heard protesting against the practice of smoking, in all hours and all occasions, even in the presence of ladies. ‘Were you then the divine who refused to dine out or spend an evening with a friend unless privileged to smoke when and where you pleased, even in the drawing-room of ladies, nay, would oftentimes single out the handsomest one to light your pipe?’

‘Truly your apprehension in this is in no wise at fault, nor would I mislead you as to pressing the ladies into the service of my pipe. I recognised that it was nature’s behest to woman to impart to duller mortals light and leading, and by watchful eye and ready wit to keep the flame aglow. You did not profit by observation or experience, else you would have learned this lesson.’

‘Your pardon, Dr. Parr, but I cannot conceive that you properly maintained the dignity of your calling by such discourtesy to the ladies. Of this am I conceived that had you so behaved in the presence of my wife she would have called you to better manners, unless, indeed, you had been entreated by the ladies to smoke as you did and blow fumes into their faces.’

‘Gently, gently, my sapient critic, mistake not the significance of the argument, which is this: Woman by divine command is man’s companion and helpmate through their earthly career. Shut her out from all participation in man’s social enjoyments, particularly one which like the Indian weed brings to the ruffled mind solace and an abiding peace, and there will spring up in her heart a feeling of resentment, as of a rival, which may find vent in lost tobacco or broken pipes. Therefore is it not well to teach the ladies to take pleasure in your smoking habit rather than leave them to find pleasure in putting your pipe out? And to thee, O troubled one, whose throne is the mighty Olympus, would I say that in St Nicotine’s soothing charm dwells an antidote to Juno’s censorious tongue, and in her clouds a shield against Aphrodite’s gracious influence.’

A smile plays across the countenance of Jupiter, but scorn flashes from Juno’s lustrous eyes. And Aphrodite flutters her wings in dissent, for already she feels her sway over mortals yielding to the rising power of St Nicotine of the peace-pipe. Casting her longing gaze towards the place of her birth.

To the Cyprian shores the goddess moves

To visit Paphos and her blooming groves,

Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,

And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.

SYMPOSIUM
CHAPTER II

Part II

A few more whiffs from my cigar

And then in Fancy’s airy car

Have with thee to the skies.

How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’d

Hath borne me from this little world

And all that in it lies.

Thomas Hood.

Like a sun-gleam seen through a Scotch mist the hoary head and set visage of the veteran thinker, Thomas Carlyle, appears. As a persistent preacher of the gospel of silence he will himself talk and talk on, seemingly oblivious to its application to himself. Turning to his friend, Dr. Calvert, he asks, ‘Why are we here? Really, I think it shocking that we should run to Rome, to Greece, and leave all at home lying buried in nonentity. Were I supreme chief there should be a resurrection of the old English ages. I will pit Odin against Jupiter, and find sea-kings that will put Jason to shame. Ah, tobacco! It is one of the greatest benefits that ever came to the human race. Nobody ever came near me whose talk was half so good as silence with my pipe. I would fly out of the way of everybody, and would much rather smoke a pipe of wholesome tobacco than talk to anybody just now. I saw in the weed the one element in which by European manners men could sit silent together without embarrassment, and no man was bound to speak one word more than he had actually and veritably got to say. Nay, every man was admonished and enjoined by the laws of honour, and even of personal ease, to stop short at that point; at all events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe the instant he had spoken his meaning—if he chanced to have any. The results of which salutary practice, if introduced into constitutional parliaments, might evidently be incalculable. Take for example, the Tobacco Parliament of Friedrich Wilhelm. It had not the least shadow of a constitutional parliament, nor even a privy council, as we understand it, his ministers being mere clerks to register and execute what he had otherwise resolved upon. But he had his Tabako-Collegium; his Tabagie, or Smoking Congress, and which made so much noise in the world and which in a rough, natural way afforded him the uses of a Parliament on most cheap terms and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that kind of institution. In short, he had a parliament reduced to its simplest expression; instead of parliamentary eloquence he had Dutch clay pipes and tobacco provided in abundance. And this was the essence of what little intellect and insight there was in a parliament; all that can be got out of any parliament. Sedatives gently soothing, gently clarifying tobacco-smoke, with obligation to a minimum of speech, surely give human intellect and insight the best chance they can have.’

It was noticeable that the stern denouncer of talk did not say how he, personally, would have liked a seat in a ‘parliament reduced to its simplest expression.’ Electrical glances passed from one to another of the immortals, which clearly indicated that the inflexible one would have kicked the seat from under him, and, taking his stand on the eternal verities, would have lashed with the scorn of his tongue the drowsy dogs into a full recognition of their own worthlessness; would have compelled them to realise that a deliverer was at hand, and that Carlyle was synonymous with Cromwell.

Yet he would not overlook tobacco’s failings. Tobacco he averred had done to the German populations important multifarious functions. ‘For truly in politics, morality and all departments of their practical and speculative affairs its influence, good and bad, could be traced; influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging them in idle cloudy dreams—still worse, promoting composure among the palpably chaotic and discomposed—soothing all things into lazy peace that all things might be left to themselves very much and to the laws of gravity and discomposition, whereby German affairs came to be greatly overgrown with funguses and symptoms of dry and wet rot.’ Here Germany’s great chancellor broke in with hilarity, and said how he was reminded—

‘Hold your tongue, Furst, till I have done.’ Relaxing into a more social vein, Carlyle described how he became a smoker from the age of eleven, and how his mother would fill his long clay pipe, light it, take a whiff or two, and then hand it to him. ‘And as to snuffing, I will tell you what happened to me when I was a very little boy, perhaps not more than four years old, and before I was admitted to the dignity of trousers. I went to the house of two old ladies who were fond of snuff. Their box to me was something wonderful. Either as a cruel jest, or in utter foolishness, they asked me to take a pinch, I, really, not knowing what snuff was. Urged and instructed by the ladies, I took a very big pinch indeed. An explosion, or rather a succession of explosions followed, and I thought my head was blown off. My first experience of snuff was my first tragedy.’ Whereupon there fell upon the ear strange sounds as of distant revelry re-echoed through ancient halls untenanted, and Olympus rocked under a burst of Jovian laughter.

Charles Lamb, beaming with smiles, is ready to Lamb-pun (lampoon) anybody or everybody, if he will but wa-wa-wait a bit. And Leigh Hunt, aside to Wordsworth, whispers, ‘Lamb will crack a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then melt into thin air at the awful thought.’ While Coleridge, of moody brow, brightens under the genial influence of old comrades, and casting reflective glances around him, lives again in the memory of those delightful evenings spent with them, their pipes aglow, in the old hostel where genial Elia and a host of genius loved to foregather.

Sincere, affectionate, loving Charles Lamb, whose child-like heart, so easily touched with the sufferings of others, was full of chivalrous devotion to the sufferer. He turns to Wordsworth and explains his attitude towards the weed. ‘Tobacco was for years my evening comfort and my morning curse. For two years I had it in my head to write a poem on the charmer, but she stood in her own light by giving me headaches that prevented me singing her praises.’

‘But, my worthy Lamb, you know that headaches come not so much of smoking as of imbibing too freely of that cheery October you like so well? And what strong coarse stuff you would smoke to be sure! Do you remember that even Dr. Parr was amazed at your prodigious powers, and asked how you had acquired the habit?’

‘Ah, yes, I remember, I told him I had acquired it,’ (and here a sparkle of humour plays across his face) ‘by toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue.’

‘And when your physician wisely admonished you, and would have stopped further indulgence in the weed, at least for a time, confess, naughty man, what was your reply?’

‘May my last breath be drawn through a pipe and exhaled in a pun! And yet I would readily admit that,

For thy sake, tobacco, I

Would do anything but die!’

The eloquent Robert Hall, England’s greatest pulpit orator, takes up the social theme and recounts his first experience of the pipe. ‘My association with the fraternity of smokers happened when I was a young man at Cambridge under the guidance and somewhat severe admonition of the learned Dr. Parr, whose pre-eminence among smokers we all acknowledged. Thus early in life brought under the soothing influence of the weed by so profound a scholar, whose knowledge of Greek was the terror and admiration of young men, and feeling the natural desire of youth to imitate the great, I thought I could not in any better way fit myself for his society than by adopting his habit of smoking, and out of a long clay pipe like his. It was then I developed a taste for tobacco which from that time onward never left me. Being pressed on one occasion to explain why I began the practice, I made answer that I was qualifying myself for the society of a Doctor of Divinity, and that my pipe was the test of my admission. Indeed, I began to experience an ill-at-ease feeling whenever the weed and its instrument were not within my reach. I did not care to argue with those people who thought evil things of smoking. If they did not like it I would merely advise them to keep from it. For myself, I was perfectly contented if they would let me alone, and allow me the mild indulgence during my sojourn among mortals.’

The shade of Charles Spurgeon, the hero of the Tabernacle, glides into view, holding to his lips a churchwarden of ample proportions, as if inhaling the herb’s perfumed breath with serene enjoyment. A veteran devotee at the shrine of St Nicotine he claimed a foremost place among Victorian smokers. Morning, noon and night, in season, and, as many thought, out of season, he might be found ensconced in some quiet nook, or perched on a wall, diligently like a devout Parsee keeping the sacred fire aglow, and drawing inspiration from the spiral wreaths as they ascended heavenwards. It was to his nostrils as frankincense, leading his thoughts to cerulean quarries in the sky where gems of sparkling wit (or broad humour) were to be gathered for the delectation of multitudes hungering for even his smallest joke, or it might be, an oracular utterance on the ‘Scarlet Lady.’ The Tabernacle towered high in the land in those days, and the churchwarden put forth a lengthening stem. And yet there were limits, outside which even the High Priest of the Tabernacle could not be permitted to roam, or to smoke the idolatrous Indian weed unchallenged. Here he relates how a worthy dame of his fold brought him to book on the subject—his everlasting breathing of ’bacco—and demanded of him whether the practice was orthodox: could he put his finger on any part of the Bible and say, here is my authority? Whereupon the pastor meekly answered, ‘no, madam. But we do read in the Bible of the people passing through the valley of Baca.’ ‘The valley of Baca! yes, here it is!’ From the clouds leisurely blown around her a new light dawned on her troubled conscience; the gage of battle was withdrawn, and she believed with the implicit faith of a convert in her prophet, priest and king. Others might stray from the beaten track to gain a greener mouthful, ‘but for myself,’ she exclaimed, ‘henceforward I shall rejoice in the path that leads to the Tabernacle through the valley of Baca!’

‘I love thee!’ exclaimed Captain Marryat, in the impassioned strain of a Troubadour for the lady of his heart, ‘I love thee! whether thou appearest in the form of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfumes enshrined in a meerschaum bowl. I love thee with more than a woman’s love; thou art a companion to me in solitude; I can talk and reason with thee, avoiding loud, obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm influence over the perturbed spirit. I know not how thy power has been bestowed upon thee; yet, if to harmonize the feelings, to allow the thoughts to spring without control, rising, like the white vapour from the cottage hearth on a morning that is sunny and serene; if to impart that sober sadness over the spirit which inclines us to forgive our enemies; that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and knavery of the world; that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we look around, that all is good—if these be merits, they are thine, most potent weed.’

‘A truce to superfine sentiment. Tobacco is all very well as a check to over-vehemence in men, just as a snaffle-bit is to a rampant horse; applied to the wrong person, it will turn a sluggard into a seventh sleeper. But it has a higher significance, such as you in your speculative dreaming may never have thought of. Herr Carlyle, the friend of the Fatherland, has told you his story of the use and abuse of tobacco in Germany, now I will tell you mine, just as the incident occurred in the old Bund of the times that are past.

‘I went to see Rechberg, who was at work and smoking at the same time. He begged me to excuse him for a moment. I waited a little while. By-and-by I got rather tired of waiting, and, as he did not offer me a cigar, I took one out of my case and asked him for a light, which he gave me with a somewhat astonished expression of countenance. But that is not all. At the meetings of the Military Committee, when Rochow represented Prussia at the Federal Diet, Austria was the only member who smoked. Rochow, who was a desperate smoker, would have dearly liked to smoke too, but did not venture to do so. When I came in I also felt that I wanted to smoke, and, as I did not see in the least why I should not, I asked the Presiding Power for a light, which appeared to be regarded both by it and the other powers with equal wonder and displeasure. Obviously it was an event for them all. Upon that occasion, therefore, only Austria and Prussia smoked. But the other gentlemen considered it such a momentous matter that they reported upon it home to their respective governments. The affair demanded the gravest consideration, and fully six months elapsed during which only the two great powers smoked. Then Schrenkh, the Bavarian Envoy, began to vindicate the dignity of his position by smoking. Nostitz, the Saxon, yearned to do so too, but he had not as yet received permission from his minister; but as, at the next meeting, he saw that Bothmer, the Hanoverian, lit a cigar, he (who had strong Austrian proclivities, and some of his sons in the Austrian army) came to an understanding with the Rechberg, for he also drew a weed from its leathern scabbard, and blew a cloud. The only ones now remaining were the Würtemberger and the Darmstädter, neither of them smokers. But the honour and importance of their respective States imperatively exacted that they should smoke; and so, at the very next meeting, the Würtemberger brought out a cigar. I can see it now—a long, thin, light-yellow thing! and smoked at least half of it, as a burnt offering for his fatherland!

Departure of Columbus.

(From a rare old painting.)

The important part tobacco has played in state affairs would be amazing were it not so laughable; the weed seems to break down barriers with a puff, and to clear the way to mutual understandings where jealousy and infra dig. blocked up the path. It once reached my ears that England’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Clarendon, made his office reek like a cabman’s shelter with the fumes of the strongest tobacco. He would never listen to a word against his favourite indulgence without rising in assumed wrath in its defence, and would stoutly maintain that tobacco possessed a potent spell over men’s minds, disposing them towards the good side in all the important affairs of life. And Lord Canning, too, could seldom be seen without a cigar in his mouth.

‘But as to smoking in colleges and among youths generally, I am firmly convinced that the practice is bad in every way. No youth under the age of sixteen should be permitted to take tobacco in any form, under pain of physical chastisement or public prosecution.’

Prince Bismarck having thus delivered himself, the honour of France demanded that the Grand Nation should not remain silent in the halls of the immortals. An animated chatter among the spectral throng ensues, and mutterings which mark dissension are audible above the general hum.

‘Indulgence in tobacco and alcohol are leading directly to the total annihilation of conscience … the moral sense is blunted, and degeneracy is spreading throughout Christendom. Count Tolstoy is perfectly certain of it, according to communications which have reached me through a medium of highly purified spiritual affinities.’

‘After dinner nothing ever was so good as a pipe, taken with a glass or two of brandy—not that I cared for alcohol, O dear no! but this I do say, that the more I smoked the better I worked.’

‘The depopulation of France is directly involved in the use of the pernicious plant called tobacco, as was proved by my experiments on cocks and rabbits (Dr. Depierris). The manufacture and sale of tobacco are, very properly, entirely in the hands of the government; it can, therefore, regulate the output, increase or diminish the quantity, or cut off the supply altogether, if either one or the other course be deemed advisable in the public interest. My argument was, in the first place, based upon experiments on animal organisms conducted under my own eyes, and in the second place, on reports furnished by Prefects of Departments. Those reports demonstrated the alarming fact that in ten departments where each inhabitant smoked on an average 1490 grammes of tobacco in the year, the families having seven children and upwards were in the proportion of sixty-eight in every 100,000 of the population; while in ten other departments where the average consumption of tobacco was only 451 grammes per head, the proportion of families of seven children for every 100,000 inhabitants rose to eighty-one; the still-born children numbered only 156, against 1124 in the former case. Hence the significant inference that the use of tobacco led directly to degeneracy of the human race.’

‘But tobacco may be used in moderation without injury, if men would but keep away from the little glasses of brandy, absinthe, and other similar liqueurs.’

‘Tobacco produces sluggishness and loss of will power.’

‘On dit, et c’est passé en proverbe; Le tabac c’est l’ami de l’homme, il le console de la femme.’

‘Fumer, c’est obtenir une trêve à la tristesse, aux préoccupations irritantes, aux petites misères de la vie, aux chagrins domestiques, aux tracasseries d’un ménage mal assorti; c’est aussi, en matiere de travaux intellectuels et artistiques, se procurer, au moyen d’une surexcitation légere, un développement, une clairvoyance d’idées qui souvent vous fuient, c’est un refuge contre ce qui blesse ou choque, contre le mécontentement de soi-meme ou d’autres; c’est dans les professions manuelles, une diminution des sensations de fatigue, d’ennui, de découragement; c’est aussi, une annihilation du mal qui cause une atmosphere froide, humide, malsaine, c’est enfin une jouissance émanant d’une faible congestion au cerveau, un étourdissement passager, une sorte d’ivresse légere qui caresse les idées et les empeche de vagabonder.

‘En résumé, après tout ce qui s’est dit et écrit pour ou contre le tabac, l’usage de cette plante est aujourd’hui général; il constitue de nos jours une branche très importante de culture, d’industrie et de commerce, et une source de revenus considérable pour les Etats.’

The voice of Fairholt, of rare tobacco fame, claims attention. ‘Let us get out of the region of captious criticism and come to the solid ground of fact. For is it not surpassing strange that man still exists on earth if there be death in the pipe? Is his life shorter, his morals worse, his intellect weaker, than in the days of, say, Henry VIII. before tobacco was known in Europe? For three hundred years the poisonous drug, if such it be, circulated in the veins of Europeans, and where is the degeneracy? They are at this day, the most active, energetic and intellectual beings that have ever peopled the planet. The learned doctor’s awful array of afflictions attested by experiments on small forms of animal life have no terrors for them; experiment and demonstrate as he may, experience is a better teacher. Is there any reason why men should apply to themselves the results of operations made upon creatures that perish of old age while human beings are still in their infancy?’

‘No, surely not,’ responds Inglis of Indian frontier fame. ‘Often did I regale my weary body and brain with a pipe after a hard day’s sport with rifle and hound on the track of the beasts of the jungle, or after a fierce bout with the courageous wild boar, whose splendid fighting qualities are little known out of India. It happens occasionally that the huntsman finds himself far out on a desolate track when

The night-cloud has lowered

And the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.

At such times he turns with joy to his ready comforter, the peace-pipe. Breathing in the fragrant breath his thoughts are set free to wander at will; old places are revisited, and lost memories revived, always tinged with pleasing thoughts of the things most cherished and the faces most loved. At peace with himself and the world, he gazes into the starlit heavens and exclaims, “Hail! thou invigorator of the weary, consoler of the sorrowful, uncomplaining, faithful friend.’”

‘I too, would add my experience of the weed’s healthful influence on weary humanity battling with plague and pestilence in tropical lands.’ Here Sir Samuel Baker relates how African savages had taught him the virtues of the plant.

‘On that continent of dreadful night, yet so fascinating to the European explorer, where death in one form or another confronts the traveller at every step, it fell to my lot to be detained at the native village of Obbo during the rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegetation to be seen in no other part of the world. Fever and dysentery were carrying off the natives in large numbers. My wife and myself were both down with fever, when the old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the countries bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manufactured in large quantities. I had never smoked in my life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco and pipes, and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the experiment.

‘During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it was my misfortune not to be a smoker. In the cool of the evening we used to sit by the bamboo table outside the door of our house and drink our coffee amidst the beautiful scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling into the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, would have made our home a paradise. On our return to Gondokora I found that the plague had visited the town during our absence, and that the vessel we were to go in to Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew having died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the purifying properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance coming to my knowledge I at once ordered several pounds of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly in the cabin, and with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the plague.’

William Makepeace Thackeray grows pugnacious in defence of his favourite indulgence, and asks, ‘What is this smoking, that it should be considered a crime! I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. The fact is that the cigar is a rival to the ladies and their conqueror too. Do they suppose they will conquer? Let them look over the wide world and see for themselves that their adversary has overcome it. Germany has been puffing for over three-score years and more, France smokes to a man. Do they think they can keep the enemy out of England? Pshaw! Look at Nicotiana’s progress. Ask the club-houses. I, for my part, think it not at all unlikely that a bishop may be seen now and then lolling out of the Athenæum with a cheroot in his mouth, or at any rate, a pipe stuck in his shovel hat.’

Bulwer Lytton waxes warm over the inestimable blessings of the pipe. He declares that it is a great comforter, and a pleasant soother! ‘Blue devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain, it opens the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage, and acts like a Samaritan. He who doth not smoke hath either known no great grief, or refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven. What, softer than woman? Yes, for the woman teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles us it is true, while we are young and handsome, when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale and the weed in that; Jupiter, hang out thy balance and weigh them both; and if thou give preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee—O Jupiter! try the weed.’

CHAPTER III
THE HOME OF THE INDIAN WEED

The white man landed—need the rest be told?

The new world stretch’d its dusk hand to the old.

Each was to each a marvel, and the tie

Of wonder warmed to better sympathy.

The Island.

Looking back towards the source whence the old world derived the Indian weed and the habit of smoking it, the career of Columbus presents itself crowded with marvellous exploits and instances of indomitable courage that have left their imprint on men’s minds for all succeeding generations. Though an old and oft-repeated story it has an abiding interest for adventurous explorers whose highest glory is to link themselves with the free and fearless Vikings. His imagination aglow with the wondrous story Marco Polo had told of his voyages in the far east, and possibly under the prompting of Toscanelli whose map was his guide, Columbus conceived the bold idea of reaching India by sailing west. Difficulties inevitable to so daring a project were met and overcome with the patience born of genius. At last he gained the ear of Queen Isabel, and to her he poured out his heart’s grief, and made her acquainted with the dream of his life. Pointing to his chart he pictured a new world teeming with every precious thing of earth, where wealth, and power, and majesty, were to be won by courage and enterprise; and all should be hers were he but equipped with royal authority and means of transport. The sincere, impassioned eloquence with which he pleaded the reasonableness of his cause and its triumphant success enlisted the sympathy of the noble-hearted Queen. She entered with spirit into the grand scheme that was to bring renown and riches to her impoverished country. ‘I will assume the undertaking for my own kingdom of Castile,’ she exclaimed, ‘I will pawn my jewels if the money you raise is not sufficient.’

On Friday, August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltos, near the little maritime town of Palos (Andalusia), as admiral of the three small ships his indomitable energy had brought together. His own vessel, the Santa Maria, had been built expressly for the voyage, and was manned by a crew of fifty ruthless, unskilful adventurers. The two others were caravels named the Pinta and the Niña; they were owned by the Pinzon family, and were commanded, respectively, by Martin Alonzo and his brother Vicente Yañez. In all one hundred and twenty men embarked under the inspiriting influence of Columbus on their perilous adventure into unknown seas. Three months have well-nigh passed and yet no sign is visible of the promised land. After enduring hardships the severest, worn out by storm and tempest in regions leading they knew not whither, their murmurs deepen into open mutiny; the crew gathers round the great captain with threats to throw him overboard unless he will turn the rudder and sail home. The vision of Columbus rises before us: tall, fair, blue-eyed, beaming with the confidence of a life’s devotion to a great purpose, he confronts his boisterous crew, and, with chart in hand, once more subdues them with an enthusiasm fired by profound conviction. On the morning of October 12, a sailor, Rodirego de Triano on board the Niña scanning the horizon, calls to his mates to look out for land, pointing to a dark mass looming in the distance. Then there breaks forth from the mast-head the wild cry, Tierra! Tierra! and the helmsmen steer their course into the calm waters of San Salvador.

Here among the fair Bahamas where on Nassau’s most conspicuous site is reared a statue to Columbus, let us linger a moment while the great navigator and his adventurers prepare for landing in order to take possession of the new territory in the names of their Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabel. Richly attired in scarlet and plumes, and accompanied by the two Pinzons, with a chosen escort bearing the standard of Spain, they enter their boats and are rowed to the shore. With tears of joy Columbus kneels and kisses the ground, while thanking Heaven for the great mercy vouchsafed to him and his companions. Very soon they become aware that the island is populated; they see natives running hither and thither, peering from among the trees that stretch down to the shore, and making gestures to one another in evident amazement. By-and-by they approach nearer and nearer to the white men; now they throw themselves on the ground in attitudes of wonder and supplication. Columbus is struck with their child-like simplicity; he reassures them, offering to each some trifling article—beads, buttons, etc.—which they take with eager delight. Their curiosity leads them to touch the hands and faces of the white men, whose garments are a great surprise. From a creek hard by canoes shoot out into the open, but the moment the occupants see the towering vessels of the Spaniards with their flapping sails, amazement strikes them dumb and motionless. Columbus directs his men to capture them, but the spell broken, they struggle desperately and plunge into the water. Two, however, are secured and brought on board, where they are treated with the utmost kindness by Columbus, for he wishes to learn from them something of their language, their country, and its products, particularly about gold and where it is to be obtained.

The gladsome sight that everywhere met their eyes must have been very refreshing to the weary mariners. As far as the eye could reach there was a luxuriant vegetation, and a forest of trees bearing an amplitude of rich and varied fruit stretching down to the shore temptingly over-hanging its sides, as if inviting the strangers to feast and enjoy the good things of this Elysium. Perennial springtime seemed to reign over the happy island, whose inhabitants knew no want nor suffering. Its waters were liquid sapphire and malachite, looking through which could be seen graceful branching corals; sky-blue fishes playing hide-and-seek with golden ones among a delicate network of purple and yellow; there, too, were miniature willows of lilac, and many another rare thing in the mermaids’ pleasure gardens. Here and there the coast was strewn with shells of exquisite beauty—trumpets for Tritons; the king conch, out of whose pink lining lissome fingers create lovely cameos; tiny rice shells, pink ones like ladies’ finger-nails, and cowries, and many another rare shell that, in the days of England’s shell mania, would have realised a handsome fortune for the happy possessor.

Sailing amidst these scenes of wondrous beauty they, sixteen days later, October 28, sighted the island of Cuba, to which Columbus gave the name of Juana, in honour of Prince Juan. In his selected letters, translated by R.H. Major, F.S.A., Columbus says: ‘I followed the coast westward, and found it so large that I thought it must be the mainland, the province of Cathay, China.’ Continuing his narrative he says, ‘And as I found neither towns nor villages on the coast, but only a few hamlets with the natives of which I could not hold conversation because they immediately fled, I kept on the same route, thinking I could not fail to light upon some large cities and towns.… Returning to the harbour I had remarked, I sent two men ashore to ascertain whether there was any king or large cities in that part.’

Cruising in this region of enchantment, Cuba had fallen upon his enraptured gaze like a vision of Eden. Soft and gentle breezes, an azure sunlight sky, a rich luxuriant landscape, the carolling of birds, exercised a powerful influence over his imagination. He exclaims: ‘It is the most beautiful island the eyes ever beheld. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well understand it, for I observed they were all as green and luxuriant as in Spain in the month of May. Some were in blossom and others bearing fruit, others otherwise, according to their nature. The nightingale was singing as well as other birds of a thousand different kinds, and that in November, the month in which I myself was roaming amongst them.’

After an absence of three days, the two men whom Columbus had sent to explore returned. They had found no king nor large city, but had come upon many small hamlets with numberless inhabitants; yet nothing could be seen that in any way corresponded to their ideas of settled government. On their way back they for the first time witnessed the use of a herb which, says Washington Irving, ‘the ingenious caprice of man has since converted into an universal luxury in defiance of the opposition of the senses.’ Among other tales, strange and wonderful, the two men told how they had come upon naked Indians with lighted fire-brands in their mouths, from which they drew in the fumes, expelling them again through their nostrils! They were simple, inoffensive people, and well disposed towards the white men, whom they allowed to examine their fire-brands. They had found them to be composed of the dried leaves of a herb rolled up tightly in a leaf of maize. Lighting one end of the roll, they put the other end between their teeth, and inhaled the fragrant vapour with an air of placid enjoyment which seems to have produced in the Spaniards a craving for the weed that to this day has never left them.

Here was a race of beings living in happy ignorance of the strifes and ambitions, the anxieties and vexations of civilised man, reclining in every posture of ease while breathing the fragrant odours of their treasured weed: civilised man, indeed, gazed with amazement and longing. Sweeter far than incense from Arabi was this new delight to the Spaniards, it became a necessity; it was their morning comforter that fortified them for the combat of the day, and their evening solace. Thus it happened that the new world gave to the old its first lesson in the art of regaling tired nature with her own anodyne. Navarrete says: ‘The habit has since become universal, and hence the origin of the so much prized and so far celebrated havanas.’

With the experiences of a new world just dawning upon them, the explorers were prepared at every step to encounter prodigies of a startling character. So far, however, they had seen nothing to cause them apprehension; nothing had yet fallen in their way more interesting than these primitive people clad merely in nature’s copper-coloured cuticle, and adorned with ornaments of pure gold and rare and curious shells intermingled with their braided locks. And yet still more strange, these very simple-minded children of nature looked up to the white men as visitors from the spirit-land of their dreams, and with awe and wonder made offerings to them of whatever things they esteemed most precious. The ships in the offing with flapping wings had come from the blue beyond their ken, and the white men were denizens of the skies. This curious idea—so soon to be dispelled by the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards—which the natives had conceived of the strangers is alluded to by many early writers who afterwards visited the new world. Sir Francis Drake, in The World Encompassed (1572-73), speaking of the North American Indians, says: ‘They brought to the ship a little basket made of rushes and filled with a herb which they called tabah.… They came now a second time bringing with them as before had been done, feathers and bags of tabah for presents, or rather, indeed, for sacrifice, upon this persuasion that we were gods.’

The chief object Columbus had in view, that indeed which had secured him the powerful influence of the Church, was not merely the discovery of the marvellous country of the East Indies, mentioned by Marco Polo, but the conversion to Christianity of the Grand Khan who ruled over the land. To this end, and to obtain for him friendly treatment, he bore for the Khan a royal letter of introduction signed by their Christian majesties of Spain.

Meanwhile, Columbus had been busily occupied in collecting the spoils of his easily acquired possessions in the West India Islands, in readiness to return home and render an account to his magnanimous friend and protectress, Queen Isabel, of the perils of his voyage and the ultimate realisation of his dreams. His own vessel, the Santa Maria, having run aground had to be abandoned, but the Niña was soon made ready for him, and without undue delay the little craft weighed anchor on January 16, 1493. On his arrival in Spain the Court was at Barcelona, and thither Columbus journeyed, attended by his train, bearing the trophies of his adventure. He was received by the king and queen with every mark of royal favour. Seated in their presence, he displayed to their eager gaze the specimens he had brought for their acceptance of various products of the new found land: virgin gold, cotton, mysterious plants (assuredly the tobacco plant would be here), birds of rare plumage, and animals of unknown species. But rising in importance above all these things were nine native Indians for conversion and baptism to attest to the reality of his triumph. Though the Grand Khan had not been seen, yet in presence of these Indians even the learned Bishop of Talavera could no longer look askance at the great navigator as a vain dreamer not altogether free from suspicion of magic. In grateful remembrance of Her Majesty’s bounty and enthusiastic protection, Columbus presented to her the casket which had contained the jewels she so generously gave up for his use, now filled with pure gold, as an earnest of what was in store for Spain in their Majesties’ new dominions. The casket is preserved to this day in the sacristy of the cathedral at Grenada.

Columbus was of too active a disposition to indulge his well-earned repose; the old craving for adventure and exploration left him no peace. Under royal command a fleet worthy of his grand scheme of conquest and colonisation was prepared for him, consisting of three large galleons and fourteen caravels, carrying 1,500 men, and all things necessary for the establishment of a new colony. He was invested with supreme authority as admiral, viceroy, and captain-general of all islands and continents in the Western Ocean. Second in authority was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, who accompanied the expedition bearing the royal commission of inspector-general of the West India Islands. By the end of September 1493 the fleet was speeding its way towards the Far West, and with favouring gales was wafted straight amongst the Windward Islands. Had some good genius guided their course across the deep in order to disclose to them the beauties of the new world, no fairer island could have been found than the one which, on that bright morning in January 1494 lay before the adventurers as the great master mariner steered his vessel into the safe harbour of Hayti—land of mountains. The climate was perfect; a perpetual summer was tempered by cool mountain breezes and periodical showers, which swept in from the Atlantic. By the banks of this beautiful harbour, on the north shore, Columbus planted the first Spanish settlement, and in grateful tribute to the Queen he named it Isabella. The country, which in all probability he believed to be the continent he was in search of, he named San Domingo, a name which soon disappears from the records, substituted by that of Hispaniola. From this island came to Europe the first written allusion to the use of tobacco by the natives. It is from Fra Ramono Pane, a Franciscan, whom Columbus had left at Hayti. In a letter to his friend Peter Martyr, Queen Isabel’s secretary, he tells him of a curious practice said to be common among the natives of rubbing the dried leaves of a herb into a powder, and then with a hollow forked tube, two prongs of which they put up their nostrils while holding the lower one in the powder, ‘they drew the powder into their noses, which purges them very much of humours.… The cane or tube is about half a cubit long.’ This description would seem to indicate snuffing rather than smoking. It seems clear that we have here come upon the origin of the practice of titillating the olfactories which towards the close of the sixteenth century, had become, says Molière, ‘la passion des honnetes gens.’ Catherine de Medici became one of the earliest devotees to the new indulgence; fashion led the poudre à la Reine through the courts of Europe, where elegant dilettanti vied with each other in the display of jewelled snuff boxes filled with odeur de Rome, or other right puissant sternutatories, not always of a harmless kind. Prelates and abbés were enamoured of the delightfully-scented refresher, and in Spain they did not scruple to place their brilliant boxes on the altar for their use, in spite of Pontifical ordinances and anathemas from Urban VIII. and Innocent XII. Physicians, carried away with the belief that a grand sternutatory had been discovered, proclaimed its advent to a grateful people, and prescribed its use liberally; for, said they, ‘it must needs do good where the brain is replete with many humours, for senselessness or benumming of the brains, and for a hicket that proceedeth of repletion.’ Yet there were divisions in the ranks of medical men; there were different sides of the question, different interests or tastes to be considered. Had not the Duc d’Harcourt suffered martyrdom in the new cause in order to please Louis le Grand? The Court physician, Monsieur Fagon, devoted his brilliant talents to a public denunciation of the new vice which, springing from heathen soil, was fast spreading over Christendom! Unhappily for the success his eloquence merited, in the warmth of his oratory he so far forgot himself as to dip his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and take copious pinches of tabac en poudre in order to refresh his fickle brain.

The early writers on the smoking habit were perplexed about the origin of the name given to the weed. Many favoured the opinion that the plant and its use had first come under the observation of Europeans in the island of Tobago. This notion is shewn to be incorrect in a work bearing the rather long and ambitious title of Tobago: a Geographical Description, Natural and Civil History, together with a full Representation of the Produce and other Advantages arising from the Fertility, excellent Harbours, and Happy Situation of that Famous Island. The author says, ‘I do not recollect any author who has given a clear account of this name; and as many have expressed a doubt whether the island was so called from the herb, or the herb from the island, I hope the curious and inquisitive reader will be well pleased to see that matter set in its true light; for the fact is that neither the island received its name from the herb, nor the herb from the island. The appellation is, indeed, Indian, and yet was bestowed by the Spaniards. The thing happened thus: the Caribbees were extremely fond of tobacco, which in their language they called kohiha, and fancied when they were drunk with the fumes of it the dreams they had were in some sort inspired. Now their method of taking it was this: they first made a fire of wood, and when it was burnt out they scattered upon the living embers the leaves of the plant, and received the smoke of it by the help of an instrument that was hollow, made exactly in the shape of the letter Y, putting the larger tube into the smoke, and thrusting the shorter tubes up their nostrils. This instrument they called tabago, and when the Admiral Christopher Columbus passed to the southward of this island he judged the form of it to resemble that instrument, and thence it received its name.’

Among the continental tribes, however, smoking instruments were found which, in variety of form, originality of design, and skilful execution, equal the best productions of Europe; indeed, they have to the present day served as models for the rest of the world. Those who, inspired by Cooper born-ideals of the noble savage in his native wilds, long for a sight of real Indian life, unspoiled by contact with civilised man, will now look in vain across the American continent. The Indian, to his sorrow, soon learnt the vices of the white man who, by craft and arms, ousted him from his heritage. Occasionally, however, far up the Mississippi valley, or on the confines of the Canadian forests, the desire may, to some extent, be appeased. The observer may with admiration note the fine physique, the strongly marked physiognomy, the untrammelled freedom of these primitive lords of the land. Old chiefs may be seen gravely smoking by their wigwams, while reclining against the trunk of a fallen tree and discussing among themselves the prospects of war or peace, or perhaps congratulating themselves on the accession to their numbers of some neighbouring tribe. A little way off young warriors are furbishing up arms for the chase, or war as may be. Others are elaborately ornamenting with carving and paint their curious tobacco pipes, some of wood with long stems adorned with feathers, some cut out from the treasured red pipe-stone brought from the mountain quarry. Economy of the precious weed is not overlooked, and the inner bark of the red willow is peeled into fine shavings and when dried over a low fire is mixed with the tobacco leaves. Their tobacco pouches well filled they may start on the chase or the war path, assured that they are well provided with refreshment for many days.

Europe, however, is indebted to Oviedo for the most intelligent account of the tobacco plant, and the method commonly adopted by the Caribs of preparing and using it. During his tenure of office in the West Indies he collected an immense amount of information relating to the inhabitants, their country and its products, the results of which he published in 1526, under the title of Historia natural y general de las Indias. In the Seville edition of 1535 is an engraving of the smoking instrument used by the Caribs. It is of the form already described. Oviedo says of it that ‘it is about a span long; when used the forked ends are inserted in the nostrils, the other end being applied to the burning leaves of the herb. In this manner they inhale the smoke until they become stupefied. And when forked canes cannot be procured, they make use of a straight reed or hollow cane, and this implement is called tabaco by the Indians.’ Oviedo speaks disparagingly of the smoking habit, and classes it amongst their evil customs as a thing very pernicious, and done in order to produce insensibility. Remarking on the prevalence of the habit, he says that the consumption of tobacco by the various tribes of the Indians is of universal and immemorial usage, in many cases bound up with the most significant and solemn tribal ceremonies. No matters of importance to the tribe or the family can be conducted, no compact can be held binding, that has not been ratified by the passage of the great pipe, be it the pipe of peace or the pipe of war—the calumet or the tomahawk—from the lips of one chief to those of the others of the conference. The pipe, then, is their great seal, the solemn pledge of friendship, good faith, and such qualities as the chivalry of the forest suggests to the untutored mind. Although Oviedo regards unfavourably the practice of smoking, he evidently prized the plant, as we read that on his return home he cultivated it in his private gardens. This is but one step removed from its enjoyment in the pipe, and who can say that in his retirement he did not take that step? Las Casas speaks so slightingly of his work as to say that it contains almost as many lies as pages. Las Casas, the renowned friend and protector of the poor oppressed Indians, could certainly speak with confidence on matters relating to the West India Islands. He had gone to the colony in the train of Nicolas de Ovando in 1502, and settled in Cuba as parish priest and vicar-apostolic of the islands. Possibly his intimate knowledge of the cruelties practised by his countrymen on the unoffending natives and their insatiable greed of gold, had turned him against all highly-placed officials in the colonies. He agrees with Oviedo, however, in dislike of tobacco-smoking. He says: ‘I cannot see what benefit can be derived from it.… However extensive it may be in other countries (and common no doubt it is there) the habit has become so general in this [Spain] that, to the discredit of parents, it is even followed by children.… The eternal cigar is seen in the mouths of old and young, even in that of the ragged urchin.’

The third voyage of Columbus to the Far West, resulting in the discovery of the South American continent, brought the Spaniards into contact with new races well advanced in the arts of civilisation as compared with the condition of the inhabitants of the islands, and opened the way for intercourse and the development of mutual interests of no common order. What use they made of this brilliant opening, leading to the conquest of Mexico and Peru, is told in the fascinating pages of Prescott. Well might the eyes of the Spaniards be dazzled by the splendours they beheld in the palace of the great Montezume, where, on the occasion of their reception by the Emperor, cigars were handed to the guests inserted in tubes of richly-carved gold, tortoise-shell, or silver; or they imbibed the soothing pleasures of the ‘intoxicating weed called tobacco mingled with liquid amber.’ And while thus engaged a troop of almost phantom-like tumblers and jugglers gaily disported themselves before their wondering eyes. The after-dinner smoke, so dear to middle age, is a vestige of that civilisation which, before the onward march of the Spaniards, vanished like the mist of the morning. Our excellent guide through these realms of a shadowy past relates how the Aztecs would smoke after dinner to prepare for the siesta with as much regularity as an old Castilian does now. When dinner was over they rinsed the mouth with scented water, and an officer of the Court would then with much ceremony hand to the king his pipe. They smoked out of pipes made of polished and richly-gilt wood, inhaling the fragrant fumes of tobacco mixed with other aromatic herbs.

Girolamo Benzoni of Milan took a strong dislike to the Indian weed, and saw in it only a noxious plant whose fumes poisoned the pure breath of heaven. Like every European who visited the newly discovered countries of the West, he had his attention drawn to the herb the Indians loved, and in his History of the New World through some portion of which he travelled in 1642-45, he describes the tobacco plant as growing in ‘bushes, not very large, like reeds, that produce a leaf in shape like that of a walnut, though rather larger.’ He says it is greatly esteemed by the natives and the slaves whom the Spaniards have brought from Ethiopia. He then describes the method of preparing it for smoking, which corresponds pretty nearly with the process in operation at the present day in America, and tells us that ‘when the leaves are in season they pick them, tie them up in bundles, and suspend them near their fireplaces till they are very dry; and when they wish to use them, they take a leaf of their grain (maize) and putting one of the others into it they roll them round tightly together; then they set fire to one end, and putting the other end into the mouth they draw their breath up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into the mouth, the throat, the head, and they retain it as long as they can, for they find a pleasure in it; and so much do they fill themselves with this cruel smoke that they lose their reason. And there are some who take so much of it that they fall down as if they were dead, and remain the greater part of the day or night stupefied. Some men are found who are content with imbibing only enough of this smoke to make them giddy, and no more. See what a wicked and pestiferous poison from the devil this must be! It has happened to me several times, that going through the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua, I have entered the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which, in the Mexican language, is called tobacco, and immediately perceiving the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste and seek some other place.’ These strong words call forth the remark from his translator, Admiral Smith, that ‘surely the royal author of the famous Counterblast must have seen this graphic and early description of a cigar!’ Though in the same key, Benzoni’s is but a feeble breath compared with the fulmination of our British Solomon against the ‘lively image and pattern of hell,’ or the ‘Stygian fumes from the pit that is bottomless!’ The fame of the Indian weed as a healer of the sick had not reached Europe when Benzoni published his travels through the Spanish possessions of the West, but its medicinal property had not escaped his acute observation. He gives a drawing of the medicine man putting three of his patients through a course of his tobacco treatment. The first is represented freely imbibing the fumes of tobacco, the second is just dropping his pipe, and himself off to sleep, and the third swings in a hammock attended by the doctor. Benzoni relates how in La Espanola and the adjacent islands sick men went to the place where the smoke was to be administered, and when they were thoroughly intoxicated by it, the cure was mostly effected. ‘On returning to his senses the patient told a thousand stories of his having been at the council of the gods, and other high visions.’

And as to the origin of the plant, let the old chieftain of the Susquehanna tribe himself relate the story. It will merely be necessary to introduce him to the reader seated with his family, and a few braves gathered around him, listening to the words of a Swedish missionary, who expounds to them the creed of the Christian and the scriptural narrative of our first parents. The sermon over, the old chief, with easy grace and measured words, replies: ‘What you have told us is very good, we thank you for coming so far to tell us those things you have heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you what we have heard from ours.

‘In the beginning we had only flesh of animals to eat, and if they failed they starved. Two of our hunters having killed a deer and broiled part of it, saw a young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other, “It is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let us offer some of it to her.” They accordingly gave her the tongue. She was pleased with its flavour, and said, “Your kindness shall be rewarded, come here thirteen moons hence and you shall find it.” They did so, and found where her right hand had touched the ground maize growing, where her left hand had been, kidney-beans, and where she had sat they found tobacco!’

CHAPTER IV
TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH AND CHARACTER

But oh, what witchcraft of a stronger kind,

Or cause too deep for human search to find,

Makes earth-born weeds imperial man enslave,

Not little souls, but e’en the wise and brave?

Arbuckle.

Is smoking injurious to health? is an old and oft-repeated question which has agitated men’s minds for fully three centuries, and out of which has grown a literature of peculiar interest, now signalised by royal Counterblasts and Papal Bulls, now rising in grateful pæans for the blessing conferred on weary humanity by the weed whose—

quiet spirit lulls the lab’ring brain,

Lures back to thought the flights of vacant mirth,

Consoles the mourner, soothes the couch of pain,

And breathes contentment round the humble hearth.

The utterances of the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, calling attention to the vast consumption of tobacco in these islands have given force and significance to the question, and naturally they suggest the further inquiry as to how we stand in the matter in relation to the past and to other civilised nations. On the threshold of the inquiry figures present themselves pointing directly to the conclusion that the British nation is spending upon the indulgence almost as much money as it does on the time-honoured staff of life, our daily bread. Certainly this aspect of the subject is somewhat startling. If the consumption of tobacco has grown to such a magnitude that it threatens to exceed that of wheat, then, clearly its consideration has become a question of national importance. It is the purpose of this chapter to lay before the reader some facts, statistical, botanical, and chemical, relating to this Indian weed which has done more to set good people by the ears than the whole world of Flora besides. To this end it will be necessary to ponder for a brief space on the skeleton forms and figures embalmed in State Blue Books.

Board of Trade returns are not what may be called recreative reading for leisure hours, but looked at good-naturedly we soon come to regard them as we should sure-footed sumpter mules carrying the account books of commerce. A little searching and sifting among their packs, brings us upon figures which plainly tell the story of a steady, constant growth of the smoking habit, and that it has, within the last half-century, increased in strength more than two-fold. The ratio per head of the population, briefly stated, is as follows: In 1841, when the population of Great Britain, and approximately of Ireland, was 26,700,000, the quantity of tobacco cleared through the Custom-house for consumption in this kingdom was 23,096,281 lbs., or 13¾ ounces for each inhabitant. In 1861, with a population of 28,887,000, the quantity of tobacco imported for home consumption amounted to 35,413,846 lbs., showing that its use had increased to 19½ ounces per head. Ten years later (1871) the proportion was 23 ounces for each person. And in 1891 the ratio per head had risen to 26 ounces; the quantity imported being 60,927,915 lbs. for a population of 38,000,000. Put plainly, this increase of consumption may only mean that the man who, in 1841, smoked only one pipe a day, in 1891 found himself so much better off that he could afford to smoke two.

Here, however, we come upon an important factor which, in calculating the weight of tobacco actually consumed, must be taken into account. Dr. Samuel Smiles, in the course of his investigations into the subject, discovered that in the process of manufacturing the leaf into the tobacco of commerce, water was added to the extent of 33 per cent. of the whole. The Statistical Office of the Customs has courteously furnished the writer of these lines with the further information that ‘Raw tobacco when imported contains naturally 13 per cent. of moisture, but when it is cut up for sale, the total moisture must not exceed 33 per cent.’[2]

In estimating the weight of the weed actually consumed, it will be necessary to make an addition of 20 per cent. to the weight of the manufactured leaf imported. Since 1891 there has been a gradual increase in the quantity imported. In the financial year 1904-5 the total of all kinds amounted to 107,862,489 lbs. Of this 83,374,670 lbs. was retained for Home use, giving 1.95 lbs. per head of the population, and yielding a revenue to the national exchequer of £13,184,767.

As to the cost to the nation of this enormous quantity of tobacco, the official returns state that the declared value in 1895 was, for manufactured £1,256,313, and for unmanufactured £2,097,603, together £3,353,916. It is clear, however, that these figures can have little or no significance from the consumer’s standpoint. Besides the declared value and the Customs duty, there is to be taken into account the cost of manufacture and all the expenses incidental thereto; the retail dealer’s profits, varying from about 20 per cent. in the poorer districts, to 75 per cent. in the best west-end shops. It may be mentioned also that the Customs duties vary, according to the kind of the tobacco imported, from 3s. 6d. to 5s. a pound weight, and that the price for which it is sold to the merchant, ranges from 1s. 6d. per pound. No satisfactory data upon which a fair estimate can be based are to be found here. But, if an average price per ounce be taken, as a starting point, of the charge made by the tobacconist to the consumer of all the various kinds, from the patrician Havana to the plebeian ‘rough-cut,’ then we may arrive at a fairly reasonable estimate. Sixpence an ounce is rather below than above the average price paid for the weed. At this rate, however, a total annual expenditure is reached of £31,304,108. Then there is the almost endless variety of nick-nacks which accompany the use of tobacco, from the dhudeen and metal tobacco box of the Irish peasant, to the lordly, gold-mounted meerschaum and amber pipe, with cases, pouches, jars, pipe-racks, and all the paraphernalia the nicotian epicure demands for the use and adornment of his favourite indulgence. And how is the cost of these accessories to be obtained? If, out of the 40,000,000 inhabiting these islands there should be 10,000,000 smokers, each spending on an average 2s. 6d. only a year on these things, then would the annual outlay to the consumer mount up to the grand total of £32,554,108.

Again the writer has to acknowledge his indebtedness to the statistical branch of the Customs for the interesting information that the quantity of wheat consumed in this kingdom in 1895 was about 27,500,000 quarters—770,000,000 lbs.—and that the average value was 24s. a quarter, making a total value of £33,000,000. Thus we see how nearly the sum expended upon tobacco-smoking approaches to the sum spent upon wheat. Comparing the quantities of the two commodities we can only say, so much the better for the consumer of wheat, who obtains in weight about fifteen times more of bread than he could purchase of tobacco for the same sum—bearing in mind that wheat requires 45 per cent. of water for its conversion into bread. And herein lies the secret of the large consumption of tobacco: bread is so cheap, the poor man can afford to indulge in a little more of his comforter than he could formerly.

Commenting upon the vast increase in the consumption of tobacco, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so mindful of the public interest as to give expression to his matured conviction that ‘Everything spent on tobacco by those who have enough to eat is waste.’ Acknowledging himself to be a non-smoker, and perhaps prejudiced, he would only appeal to smokers whether this was not waste: ‘It is calculated,’ said Sir Michael, ‘by the Customs authorities that no less a value than £1,000,000 is literally thrown into the gutter in the shape of the ends of cigarettes and cigars. It is all the better for the revenue, but I think it may be a subject of consideration for smokers.’

Looked at broadly, all such considerations are relative—relative to the numbers who smoke and to their ability to spend. Naturally we turn to our neighbours across the silver streak and ask what they are doing; are they more frugal than we are in the use of the weed? Germany, always to the fore where painstaking and close attention to minutiæ is required, tells us that Holland uses the leaf at the rate of a trifle over 7 lbs. per head of her population; Austria, 3.8 lbs.; Denmark, 3.7 lbs.; Switzerland, 3.3 lbs.; Belgium, 3.2 lbs.; Germany, 3 lbs.; Sweden and Norway, each 2.3 lbs.; France, 2.1 lbs.; Italy, Russia, Spain may be classed together with a consumption of 1¼ lb.; while the United States rises in the scale to 4½ lbs. for each inhabitant. There is much virtue in figures; they give us the comforting assurance that after all we are not so bad as our neighbours by a pound or more, taking the average consumption of the leading nations of the world. So we may be permitted a little longer to smoke our pipe in peace undeterred by fearful forebodings of evil to come.

But then the whole world smokes, and what the whole world does must surely have some show of justification. It is estimated that two thousand millions of pounds weight are consumed every year, and that its money value far exceeds five hundred million pounds sterling; its production finds remunerative employment for countless thousands of families. In America alone the tobacco plantations cover an area of 400,000 acres, and in the labour of cultivation 40,000 persons win their daily bread. And what of the million of money wantonly thrown into the gutter every year? The smoker may well pause over his pipe and consider what this may really mean. One million pounds divided among forty million people would give sixpence to each. That every man, woman, and child should in this manner waste sixpence a year is doubtless much to be deplored; in the eyes of our excellent guardian of the public purse it is reprehensible. But is the whole of this money or money’s worth really lost past recovery? Investigations made at the instance of the Board of Inland Revenue concerning the fate that befalls cigar ends have been the means of revealing a curious aspect of our complex social system. Amid the crowd, the bustle and din of struggling humanity, glimpses may be caught of a quiet fellow-being plodding along the highways and byways of the great metropolis, with a bag slung over his shoulder, and his eyes fixed on the gutters intent upon picking up these unconsidered trifles, or wending his way to the side door of some hotel or hall where convivial souls do congregate of an evening, and there doing a little private business with the janitor, who pours into his bag these spoils of the night’s revelry. And so it comes about that out of the gutters and waste places of the earth there ultimately return to the manufacturer the sorry remains of the once-treasured Indian weed. Many a young hopeful of slender purse hugs with pride his penny or twopenny cigar clad in a new coat, little dreaming of its having in a former existence shone, glow-worm like, in another sphere. Then there are ‘fancy mixtures’ made up for the pipe, enticingly scented with an odour unknown to the weed, and which, as if ashamed of the connection, vanishes in the burning, leaving not a trace behind, save wonder at what can have become of it, for the smoker gets none. And have we not always in view the lowly wayfarer along life’s by-paths, whose feet have trodden thorny places and stumbled, maybe? He sees in the castaway an emblem of himself, and fraternally picks out of the gutter a little consolation for the buffets of the day; for tobacco has been aptly called the poor man’s anodyne. And so life is rounded off with a smoke. Possibly thoughts such as these mingle with the smoker’s reflections on the subject of waste to the consideration of which Sir Michael invited their attention. But the economic phase the question presents may be safely left to settle itself; for, after all, the cost of the indulgence is the merest trifle compared with the price paid for it in, say, Jacobean time, when paternal governments, out of a too tender regard for the interests of their loving subjects of mean estate, levied a tax upon tobacco which if converted into the coinage of the present day would be equivalent to six or seven times the sum for which it may now be purchased from the tobacconist. Curiously enough, another Michael (Drayton), well-nigh three hundred years ago (Polyolbion, 1613), raised his voice more in sorrow than in anger against the extravagance of his times, as compared with the days

Before the Indian weed so strongly was embrac’t,

Wherein such mighty summes we prodigally waste.

In this love of the weed, and the extravagant sums expended upon it, is to be found the key to Robert Burton’s high praise and vigorous condemnation, uttered in one breath, of tobacco. As an example of Elizabethan nervous vigour the passage is worth quoting:

Tobacco! divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco! which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones; a sovereign remedy to all diseases; a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused by most men, who take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

Democritus Junior did not mince matters, either in writing or when indulging in lusty banter with bargemen on the Thames.

Of more vital importance than the price paid for it is the consideration of its effects on health and character, and, if we would view the subjects in its larger bearings, on our physical and moral organisation it is obviously necessary that we should

Survey the whole nor seek slight faults to find

Where nature moves, and rapture charms the mind.

At the outset, however, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that there is no question as to the baneful action of tobacco in any form on growing youths. Until the age of adolescence is safely passed, or till the riper age of one and twenty has been attained, there should be no thought of smoking. The tests and experiments of physiologists, the untrained observation of laymen, and the accumulated experience of civilised nations are agreed in this conclusion. Remarks pointing to the rapid growth of the smoking habit among youths were made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his recent Budget speech, where, commenting upon the augmented revenue from tobacco, he said it was mainly due to the vast consumption of cigarettes, which were specially attractive to our youthful population. ‘I am told,’ Sir Michael added, ‘of one manufacturer who makes two millions of cigarettes a day who hardly made any a few years ago.’

Every-day observation bears out the statement that the cigarette is the chosen smoke of youths. Go where we will, in crowded streets or country lanes, boys of the tender age of from nine or ten years upwards are almost constantly met with, smoking paper cigarettes, who were they better advised would prefer toffy, as was the case a few years ago. Surely every one knows that children cannot go on smoking tobacco with impunity, without, in fact, doing themselves life-long injury. Since parents are too heedless of their children’s welfare to prevent them from pursuing a practice the inevitable results of which will, by-and-by, appear in stunted, weakly growth and the train of evil which follow on deranged nerve-tissue, it would seem to be no more than humane that the Legislature should step in and prohibit the sale of tobacco in any form to children under the age of say, sixteen. Already some of the states of North America have instituted penal enactments for the protection of children against the indulgence, which to them is pernicious.

But what shall be said of the young man whose downy lip bears testimony to his approaching majority—the age when life is a romance and the future aglow with roseate dreams? He knows himself to be the hope and pride of his parents, that in him is centred all sorts of brilliant possibilities. Nothing could be more fitting, he thinks, than that he should proclaim to the world that he is now a man by airing the park with his first cigar. And who so heartless as to say him nay? He now becomes confidential with the tobacconist, and learns from him the names of the choicest brands, as the Vegueras, the kind specially prepared for the Prince of Wales, selected from the finest growths of the plant raised in the Veulto Abajo district of Cuba, as well as the outer signs of many another rich and rare leaf from the gardens of the Queen of the Antilles, or from the plantations of the Indian Archipelago. By-and-by his whole energies will be devoted to the service of his king and country, doing the world’s roughest work away out in the wilds of Africa, or administering justice, it may be, among lawless tribes in Imperial India; and many a time, when belated on a desolate track with nothing to cover him but a blanket borrowed from his trusty peon, he will draw from the recesses of a deep pocket or knapsack a homely briar-root with more real pleasure than he ever felt when smoking the choicest cigar on the Mall.

The temperament of each individual or of a race is an important factor in a judicious consideration of the subject; it opens out a field of inquiry of no ordinary interest, more particularly as regards eastern nations. By temperament physiologists mean certain physical and mental characteristics arising from the predominant humours of the body. Galen in the second century was perhaps the first to employ the term to designate, according to the teachings of the old school, the condition of the four elements of the body—the blood, choler, phlegm, gall—and the varying combinations of these, recognised to-day as the sanguine, lymphatic, nervous, or bilious temperaments. Interest in this aspect of the subject is heightened when we consider the marvellous effect the consumption of tobacco has had on races inhabiting Western Asia. Speaking on this curious point in the Indian Section of the Imperial Institute in February, 1896, Sir George Birdwood called attention to the change wrought in the character of the Turks by its use. He remarked that

in ancient times the Scythians were a ceaseless scourge to the neighbouring nations; that they were referred to by the prophet Jeremiah as a ‘seething caldron,’ ever boiling over in fierce and cruel eruptions from the North. Where are they now? They have become the modern Turks; and the magic which changed them from restless, destructive nomads into the quiet and only too conservative sedentary Turks, Von Moltke tells us in his Letters from Turkey was none other than the acquired American habit of smoking tobacco.

Coming from so profound an observer of men as the great German strategist, this testimony to the influence of the Indian weed on human character is to be accepted as a valuable contribution to our knowledge. And yet, viewed in the light of recent events in Turkey, the marvellous transformation mentioned would seem to be hardly yet completed. Besides, may not other influences tending to modify the character of the Turks be found in their four centuries of intermarriage with tribes of a less turbulent disposition, as with Persians and Circassians, than the fiery, stubborn mountaineers from whom they had descended? It seems but reasonable to think so. Let us hasten, however, to note that other distinguished travellers in Turkey speak to the same effect, and that they, too, attribute the change to the sobering and soothing action of tobacco upon them. Dr. Madden, whose Travels in Turkey and Egypt were published in 1829, says (i. 16) that

the pleasure the Turks had in the reverie consequent on the indulgence in the pipe consisted in a contemporary annihilation of thought. The people really cease to think when they have been long smoking. I have asked Turks repeatedly what they have been thinking of during their long reveries, and they replied ‘Of nothing.’ I could not remind them of a single idea having occupied their minds; and in the consideration of the Turkish character there is no more curious circumstance connected with their moral condition.

Further testimony to Nicotiana’s benign sway over human character is borne by Mr. E. W. Lane, the talented translator of the Arabian Nights and author of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. In this latter work Mr. Lane says that

in the character of the Turks and Arabs who have become addicted to its use it has induced considerable changes, particularly rendering them more inactive than they were in earlier times, leading them to waste over the pipe many hours which might be more profitably employed; but it has had another and better effect—that of superseding in a great measure the use of wine, which, to say the least, is very injurious to the health of the inhabitants of hot climates.… It may further be remarked in the way of apology for the pipe, as employed by the Turks and Arabs, that the mild kinds of tobacco generally used by them have a gentle effect; they calm the nervous system, and, instead of stupefying, sharpen the intellect.

He next pays a high tribute to the Oriental method of smoking, and assures the reader that the pleasures of Eastern society are considerably enhanced by the use of the pipe, adding, ‘It affords the peasant, too, a cheap and sober refreshment, and probably often restrains him from less innocent indulgences.’ Mr. Layard and Mr. Crawfurd, whose large experience of Eastern peoples is known to the world, have each recorded his opinion to the effect that the use of tobacco has contributed very much towards the present sobriety of Asiatics. The presence of an array of witnesses such as these to the power of the pipe to subdue the savage breast naturally suggests the thought of a new field of operations for its use. That laudable organisation, the Peace Society, which seeks to combat man’s militant instincts by such persuasions as fall short of the shillelagh, ought certainly to find in the Indian’s peace-pipe with a well-filled tobacco-pouch a coadjutor for the propagation of its amiable doctrines; at any rate, a pioneer that would prepare the soil for the seed and the advent of the millennium. Lord Clarendon, when Minister of Foreign Affairs, used to excuse his room reeking with the fumes of tobacco by declaring that diplomacy itself was a mere question of the judicious application of tobacco between opposing plenipotentiaries. The pipe, indeed, has always been recognised as a good diplomatist. If you want time to consider well before committing yourself to an answer you find that the pipe won’t draw, though you puff and puff; then, having gained time and cleared your thoughts, the pipe mends, a cloud is formed, and out of chaos comes light, and now you are ready with your argument, though you may begin with, ‘your pardon, friend, but what were we talking about?’ If diplomacy can be soothed and led out of thorny paths into pleasant ways, then assuredly a useful career awaits the weed in the House, where the magic of its suasive breath would subdue a bellicose Parliament into easy complaisance, and so confer an inestimable blessing on a weary Legislature.

But it would be well to take a closer view of this marvellous weed which enters so largely into our domestic economy, dipping into our purses, affecting in some measure our health and habits, in a way, too, that leads people to think that surely a mischief-loving Puck lurks among its alluring leaves, delighting to send its votaries, some into dreams of Elysium, others into visions of—another place. Nicotiana, the name science has bestowed on the plant in recognition of the services of Jean Nicot in spreading a knowledge of it over Europe, more particularly as regards its supposed medicinal properties, is a member of a large and varied family of the natural order Solanacæ, one of the largest genera, containing about 900 species. The whole family is more or less suspicious; some members are decidedly bad, as, for example, the deadly nightshade, henbane, and mandrake, evil names which startle the timorous and all self-respecting people. Relief, however, comes, and confidence is restored, when we learn that linked with Nicotiana as twin sister is our old and esteemed favourite the potato, whose humble services to hungry humanity are incalculable. Yet out of the leaves and fruit of this useful and innocent member of the family chemists extract a deadly poison called solanine, which they describe as an acrid narcotic poison, two grains of which given to a rabbit caused paralysis of the posterior extremities, and death in two hours. Traces of this poison are also found in healthy tubers. And yet nobody was ever poisoned by eating potatoes; far from this, many in times of scarcity have died for want of them. Considering these things, smokers may possibly comfort themselves with the thought that tobacco does not stand alone in evil repute, that even a vegetable which enters so largely into the composition of humanity as does the potato contains a portion—an infinitesimal portion it is true, but still some portion—of the element of evil which seems to permeate more or less all things earthly. But let them reserve their judgment until the evidence of the chemist has been heard. It may be urged, too, that the highly prized virtues of the tomato, a family connection, might be taken into account in estimating the sins of the shady ones. The love-apple of Eris, far from creating discord, gives unalloyed pleasure, affording the epicure a gastronomic delight.

The genus Nicotiana comprises upwards of forty species, of which five only are cultivated for tobacco, and, of these, three stand out conspicuously as the best and most favoured ones of commerce. In botany they are designated:—(1) Nicotiana Tabacum; (2) N. rustica; (3) N. persica. They differ one from another chiefly in the degree of thickness of the midrib and fibres, and in the evenness of the leaves, which are usually hairy and somewhat clammy feeling. The first mentioned is the typical tobacco plant of America, whose home is still where Raleigh’s first colonists to the New World found it, in Virginia. From its leaves is prepared the great bulk of the tobacco consumed in this country, as well as in America. It is a strong, handsome, flowering perennial, growing in latitudes varying from about 40° Fahr. to the tropics. And a most voracious feeder, it quickly exhausts the richest soils, yet it is so hardy that it will thrive in almost any soil and anywhere. In tropical lands, however, particularly such as are light, dry, and rich in potash, it flourishes most luxuriantly, and attains its fullest and healthiest development, sometimes rising to the grand altitude of 15 feet, though 6 feet is the usual limit of its upward growth. The root is large, long, and fibrous; the stalk or central stem is erect, strong, of the thickness of a man’s wrist, and hairy; towards the top it divides into branches. The leaves embrace the stem from the base; they are large, symmetrical, lanceolated, and of a pale-green colour, measuring usually 2 feet by 18 inches. From the summit of the branching stalks clusters of rose-coloured flowers are produced of a bell-shape, the segment of the corolla being tapering and pointed; the seeds are contained in long sharp-pointed pods, and are so small that in one ounce no fewer than 100,000 have been counted.

Next in order of importance in a commercial sense ranks the Syrian plant, N. rustica. It is nevertheless a native of America which transplantation into Syrian soil has greatly improved in all those qualities which commend themselves to delicate smokers. It differs from its sister plant of Virginia chiefly in its dwarf-like stature, for it seldom attains a higher growth than three or four feet, and its leaves are not so symmetrical; they are of an ovate shape, and are not attached to the centre stem, but issue from the branching stalks, which in the season bear green flowers; the segment of the corolla is rounded. This, too, is a hardy plant, flourishes well in almost any latitude, and ripens earlier than the N. Tabacum. For some years back it has been largely cultivated in Germany, Holland, and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean; indeed, it at one time flourished rapaciously in our own fields, flowering from midsummer to Michaelmas. From its leaves are obtained, under the varying conditions of soil and climate, the kinds of tobacco vended to the consumer under the names of Turkish, Syrian, and Latakia. And on account of its retaining much of its primitive colour all through the process of drying and manufacture it is recognised in commerce as ‘green tobacco.’

In the third variety we have the beautiful white flowering Persian plant, from whose oblong stem-leaves is prepared the famous Shiraz tobacco, N. persica. It is now recognised as a native of Persia, though its original home is undoubtedly across the Atlantic. Being slow to ignite, this aromatic weed does not lend itself readily to the cigar; but surely the difficulty might be overcome by using an Indian wrapper. The planters of Dindigul, or, as Sir W. W. Hunter gives the name in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Dindu-Kal (Rock of Dindu), are now sending to Europe large quantities of their fine flavoured tobacco leaf which would form a very good wrapper for this fragrant but slow-burning weed.

There is a fourth variety named Nicotiana Finis, which has found much favour in the private gardens of England. It is not so symmetrical as those just mentioned, its leaves are small, widely separated, in fact, rather straggling; but under the training of a skilled gardener it is made to assume a bushy form. Its chief attraction is found in the delicate white flowers which it produces; these during the daytime droop, but at sundown they generally assume an erect posture and become firm, then the petals expand and the flower emits a delicious perfume, sweeter far than jessamine. In the tobacco plant English florists and gardeners have found an accessory for filling up vacant spots in their shrubberies with good effect; and the side-beds along a carriage drive, or the shelves in a greenhouse, can be pleasingly diversified by selections from the varying kinds the genus Nicotiana presents. As an ornamental flowering plant it is certainly worthy of a place among the many charming indigenous and exotic shrubs which nowadays adorn private grounds. Then its uses either as a fumigator or as a wash are such as all experienced gardeners know well how to appreciate; in either form it is a powerful prophylactic, readily destroying insect pests and the germs of blight.

Let us now pass into the domain of the chemist and view for a while the operations of this modern magician as he summons the genii of the Indian weed to appear before him in all their naked deformity, and compels them to yield up their secrets. There is no poetry in the chemist’s crucible; imagination fails to lend a transient charm to the grim constituents of the bewitching leaf. Here, in his silent retreat, the analyst weighs and measures, tests and resolves into their original elements whatever things, foul or fair, come into his hands. He weighs a pound of the prepared leaves, steeps them in water, and subjects them to distilation; presently there rises to the surface a volatile, fatty oil which congeals and floats. It has the odour of tobacco and is bitter to the tongue; on the mouth and throat it produces a sensation similar to that caused by long-continued smoking. Taking a minute particle on the point of a needle he swallows it, and immediately experiences a feeling of giddiness, nausea, and an inclination to vomit. And yet the quantity obtained of this evil thing from the pound of leaves is barely two grains. Now he adds a little sulphuric acid to the water, and distils with quicklime; soon there is dislodged from the hidden cells of the leaves a small quantity of a volatile, oily, colourless, alkaline fluid, the prince of the genii—nicotine. The odour of an old clay pipe grown black with age hangs about it: it is acrid, burning narcotic, and scarcely less poisonous than prussic acid, a single drop having the power to kill a dog. It boils at a temperature of 482° Fahr., and rises into vapour at a point below that of burning tobacco, consequently it is always present in the smoke. Evaporating one drop of this subtle essence you are at once seized with a feeling of suffocation, and experience difficulty in breathing. Distilled alone in a retort yet another element is called up of an oily nature, which resembles in its chief characteristics an oil obtained by a similar process from the leaves of the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). This also is acrid and poisonous; one drop applied to the tongue of a cat brought on convulsions, and, in two minutes, death. All these evil things the chemist tells us dwell in the heart of the Indian herb, and, mingling with other unseen elements, lure men on to their fate. In the mystical glare of his laboratory there looms into shape before our mental vision the spectral form of the King of Denmark, in Hamlet, telling of the dark deeds done

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leprous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body.[3]

And memory recalls the case of the Comte de Bocarmé who was executed at Mons, in 1851, for poisoning his brother-in-law with nicotine, in order to obtain reversion of his property. The simple though crafty Hottentot, too, finds in the juice of tobacco a potent agent wherewith he can rid himself of the snake that, unbidden, glides into his kraal. Under the influence of one drop the reptile dies as instantly as if struck by an electric spark.

A distinguished physician and man of science, Sir B. W. Richardson, has tested the tobacco leaf and all its component parts with a thoroughness which puts to flight all doubts as to what it is ‘men put into their mouths to take away their brains.’ The chief results of his experiments may be briefly summarised. Although evident differences prevail in respect to the products arising from different cigars, different tobacco, and different pipes, there are certain substances common to all varieties of tobacco-smoke. Firstly, in all tobacco-smoke there is a certain amount of watery vapour which can be separated from it. Secondly, a small quantity of free carbon is always present; it is to the presence of this constituent that the blue colour of tobacco is due. It is this carbon which in confirmed and inveterate smokers settles on the back part of the throat and on the lining of the membrane of the bronchial tubes, creating often a copious secretion which it discolours. Thirdly, the presence of ammonia can be detected in small quantity, and this gives to the smoke an alkaline reaction that bites the tongue after long smoking; it is the ammonia that makes the tonsils and throat of the smoker so dry, and induces him to quaff as he smokes, and that partly excites the salivary glands to secrete so freely. This element also exerts an influence on the blood. Fourthly, the test of lime-water applied to the leaf shows the presence of carbonic acid. In the smoke the quantity differs considerably in different kinds of tobacco; to the action of this constituent Sir B. W. Richardson traces the sleepiness, lassitude, and headache which follow upon prolonged indulgence of the pipe. Fifthly, the smoke of tobacco yields a product having an oily appearance and possessing poisonous properties; this is commonly known as nicotine, or oil of tobacco, which on further analysis is found to contain three substances, namely, a fluid alkaloid (the nicotine of the chemist), a volatile substance, having an empyreumatic odour, and an extract of a dark resinous character, of a bitter taste. From this comes the smell peculiar to stale tobacco which hangs so long about the clothing of habitual smokers—if the smell be from good Eastern-grown tobacco many persons think it wholesome. It is nevertheless this extract which creates in those unaccustomed to its use a feeling akin to sea-sickness. Hence it appears that the more common effects are due to the carbonic acid and ammonia liberated in the process of smoking, while the rarer and more severe symptoms are due to the nicotine, the empyreumatic substance, and the resin.

As to the effects of tobacco-smoking upon the human body Sir Benjamin Richardson would appear to see no reason for thinking that it can produce any organic change, though it may induce various functional disturbances if carried to excess. These are such as all young smokers experience more or less severely, according to their temperament and the quality or strength of the tobacco they use. There can be no question that the first attempt at smoking reveals phenomena which plainly show that to become one of the initiated in the service of Nicotina a certain ordeal must be passed through if the novice would rank among her votaries. It may be of use to remark that the stronger kinds of tobacco are the products of the Virginian and Kentucky plantations; French tobacco too is quite as strong, they contain from six to eight per cent. of nicotine; Maryland and Havanna tobaccos, also those of the Levant, generally average two per cent., while the products of Sumatra and China barely contain one per cent. of nicotine. The general conclusion Sir Benjamin Richardson deduces from his experiments is such as might be fairly expected from an eminent physician of large experience, unbiassed by prejudice. In this judicial sense he remarks that tobacco ‘is innocuous as compared with alcohol; it does infinitely less harm than opium, it is in no sense worse than tea, and by the side of high living altogether it compares most favourably.’ But on the question of youths smoking he speaks most decisively against even the smallest indulgence in tobacco before the system is matured. His words are: ‘With boys the habit is as injurious and wrong as it is disgusting. The early “piper” loses his growth, becomes hoarse, effete, lazy, and stunted.’

The late Professor Johnston, of Durham, gave his attention to the subject, and in the eminently useful work on the Chemistry of Common Life he minutely describes the results he obtained from a careful analysis of tobacco leaves. These in all essential particulars are such as have already been mentioned. Although he points out the highly poisonous nature of some of the constituents of tobacco, he yet speaks regretfully of his inability to derive from smoking the soothing pleasures mentioned by others, particularly by Dr. Pereira, who remarking on its tranquillizing effects when moderately indulged in, says that ‘it is because of these effects that it is so much admired and adopted by all classes of society, and by all nations, civilised and barbarous.’ Mr. Johnston continues:

Were it possible amid the teasing, paltry cares, as well as the more poignant griefs of life, to find a mere material soother and tranquillizer productive of no evil after-effects and accessible alike to all—to the desolate and the outcast equally with him who is rich in a happy home and the felicity of sympathising friends—who so heartless as to wonder or regret that millions of the world-chaffed should flee to it for solace? I confess, however, that in tobacco I have never found this soothing effect. This no doubt is constitutional, for I cannot presume to ignore the united testimony of the millions of mankind who assert from their own experience that it does produce such effects.

He draws attention to the effects of tobacco on the Turks, and speaking of the drowsy reverie they fall into under its influence, asks if it is really a peculiarity of the Turkish temperament that makes tobacco act upon them as it does, sending the body to sleep while the mind is alive and awake.

That this is not its general action in Europe (he remarks) the study of almost every German writer can testify. With the constant pipe diffusing its beloved aroma around him the German philosopher works out the profoundest of his results of thought. He thinks and dreams, and dreams and thinks, alternately; but while his body is soothed and stilled, his mind is ever awake. From what I have heard such men say, I could almost fancy they had in practice discovered a way of liberating the mind from the trammels of the body, and thus giving it a freer range and more undisturbed liberty of action. I regret that I have never found it act so upon myself.

These reflections of the sympathetic Professor may be very grateful to the habitual smoker, who influenced by a natural feeling of attachment, looks lovingly on his pipe and pouch, as he would on old friends grown dearer with time; the older and more worn the closer he clings to them, till by-and-by he talks to them as would primitive man to his fetish. But this amiable weakness needs to be looked firmly in the face, and if it cannot bear scrutiny, if the indulgence be found hurtful to body or mind, it must go; thrown out of the window if need be, with a resolve not to go out and look for it, to restore it to its old niche, though the old pouch may contain Mr. J. M. Barrie’s beloved, Arcadia Mixture.