Tobacco is a native of the West Indies. Romanus Paine, who accompanied
Columbus on his second voyage, seems to have been the first to introduce
tobacco into Europe as an article of luxury. Paine is said to have lived a
vagabond life, and died a miserable death.
The natives called it _Peterna_. The name tobacco is derived from the town
of Tabaco, New Spain. The Latin name, Nicotiana Tabacum, is from Jean
Nicot, who was a French ambassador from the court of Francis I. (born the
year tobacco was introduced by Paine) to Portugal. On the return of
Nicot, he brought and introduced to the French court the narcotic plant,
and popularized it in France. Thence it was introduced all over Europe,
but encountered great opposition. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco
into England about 1582.
History informs us that a Persian king so strongly prohibited its use, and
visited such severe penalties upon its votaries, that many of his subjects
fled away to the caves, forests, and mountains, where they might worship
this matchless deity free from persecution. The czar prohibited its use in
Russia under penalty of death to smokers, mitigating snuff takers' penalty
to _merely slitting open their noses_.
[Illustration: PUNISHMENT OF THE TURK.]
In Constantinople a Turk found smoking was placed upon a donkey, facing
the beast's rump, and with a pipe-stem run through his nose, was rode
about the public streets, a sad warning to all tobacco smokers. King James
thundered against it. The government of Switzerland sounded its voice
against it till the Alps echoed again.
But in spite of opposition and the vileness of the article, it has worked
itself into a general use,--next to that of table salt,--and to-day a
majority of the adult male population of our Christianized and enlightened
United States are its acknowledged votaries.
[Illustration: SMOKERS OF FOUR GENERATIONS.]
In the year 1850 I saw in a house in Sedgwick, Me., individuals of four
different generations smoking. The old grandmother was eighty-five years
old. She smoked. A grandmother, sixty-three, with her husband, smoked.
Their son smoked, and had very weak eyes. His two nephews smoked and
chewed tobacco. The elder lady died with scrofulous sore eyes, not having,
for years before her death, a single eyelash, and her swollen, inflamed
eyelids were a sight disgusting to view. All her grand and great
grandchildren whom I saw were scrofulous. Some suffered with rheumatism,
and all were yellowish or tawny.