from their slow but regular downward flow to the region where they
melt away and deposit, as a terminal moraine, the burden of rocks
they have received years before in regions far above. A young man of
five-and-twenty, on his honeymoon, visited the Alps, and ventured
alone on to a glacier. He fell into a deep “crevasse,” or ice-fissure,
and his body was not recovered. The exact spot where he fell into the
ice-chasm was recognised, and the mountain-folk, who knew their glacier
and its rate of movement well, told the broken-hearted young widow that
it would take thirty years before that region of the glacier would
have moved so far downwards as to reach the lowest limit, and in due
course melt away. She haunted the glacier in which her young husband
was entombed year after year, and at last, when she was now grey-headed
and withered by time, that special tract of ice had descended so far,
and was so near the thawing, thinned-out margin of the glacier that
they were able to break into it with axe and pole. Then she, an old
woman, had a wonderful experience. They led her to the glacier’s edge.
Her young husband, preserved these thirty years in the ice, which had
melted around him and re-frozen, lay there unchanged. His features were
not marred by the lapse of years, nor was his clothing rent or injured.
He seemed as one asleep, resting after a long day’s climb, and she,
poor soul, had, during a blissful interval, the conviction that all
those weary years of waiting were but a long, bad dream, that she, too,
still was young, and was waking, as she had loved to do long years ago,
in time to see him lift his lids and smile.
39. _Votes for Women_
Now that so many people placidly accept the notion that women are to
have votes in the election of members of Parliament, one is tempted
to ask whether science has any facts to put forward which should be
considered before so great a change in our national organisation is
made. There are various interesting facts as to the relations of males
and females in the animal world and as to the relative strength and
activity of the sexes--which are sometimes cited as arguments in the
matter. Speaking generally, it is clear enough that among animals
the female is endowed with qualities which bear exclusively upon her
function as the guardian of the eggs or germs of a new generation. She
nourishes those germs at the expense of her own substance before birth,
feeds them, tends them and protects them--after birth. The male in
many cases contributes to the feeding and protection of the young, but
is as often as not quite unconcerned with such matters. In the higher
animals the male is far more powerful than the female, and fights with
other males both for the possession of a mate or a harem, and for the
undisturbed occupation of feeding grounds for himself and family.
Among lower animals there are curious cases of the greater strength and
size of the female. Thus, among spiders, the female is nearly twice
as bulky as the male. She makes, in many cases, a nest ready for her
young, and is visited there by the wandering irresponsible male, who,
in spite of great danger to himself, is irresistibly attracted to seek
a brief caress from the terrible spideress. She is terrible, not only
on account of her bulk, but because she makes a rule of killing, and
sucking the blood of, her infatuated admirer unless he is sufficiently
alert and agile to escape from her side more quickly than he came
to it. The courtship of spiders is a very interesting bit of natural
history. The males execute a sort of dance, and are strangely excited
by the vibrating note of a tuning fork. Two American naturalists, Mr.
and Mrs. Peckham, and also Dr. McCook, have studied this subject in
great detail.
A strange-looking, dark green worm, as big as a walnut, with a
ribbon-like trunk six or eight inches in length attached to its mouth,
lives in holes in the rocks in the Mediterranean. A similar worm
has been found off the Norwegian coast. Fanciful names are given by
zoologists to these two worms--the first is called Bonellia, the second
Hamingia. It does no harm to cite their names, and I do so with an
apology to those who do not like names. These goodly sized worms are
females, only females. For years the corresponding male was unknown.
At last a minute creature one-eighth of an inch in length, like a
tiny fragment of green thread, was found crawling about on and into
these big green Bonellias. Its structure when it was examined with
the microscope proved it to be the adult male of the worm on which
it was crawling. It was so insignificant and minute as to escape all
observation except that of a trained naturalist searching for it with
a magnifying glass. Some seven or eight of these diminutive males are
found on one female, infesting her as fleas infest a mouse, and of
about the same relative size. The microscopic husband of the Norwegian
Hamingia it was my good fortune to discover many years ago, when I was
dredging marine animals in the deep waters of the Stavanger Fjord.
So there is nothing in the eternal fitness of things proclaiming the
male as the necessary superior of the female throughout Nature. The
fact is that the question of equality and of general superiority
and inferiority has no place in regard to male and female from a
naturalist’s point of view. It is true that women are so very much
less endowed with muscular strength than men that practically every
woman is inferior to every man in this respect. It is also true that
woman’s brain is smaller than man’s, and that apart from mere size,
the intellectual activity and capacity of women, by whatever test
you examine it, is less than that of man. When exceptional cases on
both sides are excluded, the definite intellectual inferiority of the
average woman, as compared with the average man, is established as a
fact. The observations of those concerned in the education of young
men and young women side by side confirm this, and it is further
demonstrated by a consideration of the intellectual performances of
average men and average women. That, at any rate, is my own experience
as a University teacher. But women, on the other hand, fill a place in
human life as mothers, and administrators of detail, and as companions,
in which man, by the nature of things, cannot compete with them at all.
At the house of the late Sir James Knowles, some twenty-five years ago,
when discussing the relative value of the physical and intellectual
capacities of the men as compared with the women of the English working
class, Mr. Gladstone (at that time the head of the Government) said to
me, “I am of opinion that the relative value of a man and a woman is
in all classes of society about the same as it was in my grandfather’s
time in Jamaica when they purchased slaves. They gave £120 for a man
and £80 for a woman, and that is a fair measure of their relative value
all the world over.” It is necessary to remember that Mr. Gladstone
was not estimating the ultimate value of woman in human life when he
said this. He would, I think, have considered, as I do, that it is
absurd to attempt to estimate that or to raise a discussion as to
general superiority and inferiority in reference to the male and the
female of the human species. They are creatures as necessary one as
the other, differing from one another profoundly and excelling one
another in diverse qualities and capacities. Without this complementary
division of fitness and quality our life would be a monotone robbed
of the infinite variety which characterises humanity. What Mr.
Gladstone estimated as being less by one-third in women than in men
is power--work-value--whether physical or intellectual. I think Mr.
Gladstone’s estimate must be admitted as true.
But I do not for a moment say that when this inferior intellectual
and physical capacity of woman is admitted the question is settled
as to whether women should vote for the election of representatives
to carry on the affairs of the country. The affairs of the country!
They are, in the first place, the protection of person and property
by the law, which must be upheld by force if necessary; then defence
against foreign aggression, also a matter of force; and, further, the
education and training not only of children but of the ripe youth of
the country--a matter of intellect--which also has a weighty influence
in the making of wise laws. Then there is the devising of weapons and
means of defence by land and by sea, as well as the discovery and
application of knowledge in regard to disease, both of mind and body,
for the benefit of the community. And there will soon be a good deal
more!
It does not necessarily follow, because women cannot themselves do some
of these things at all, and for the others are less able than men, that
they should not give a vote in electing the men who are to attend to
them. The only question is, Would it make life better for both women
and men were they allowed to do so?
The argument that the paying of taxes on men’s property qualifies men
to give a vote, and therefore the paying of taxes on women’s property
should, _ipso facto_, entitle women to give a vote, is fallacious,
because the paying of taxes is not the reason or determining cause of
men having a vote, but only a subsidiary test or qualification which
might be abolished or modified. The property of minors pays the tax,
but it is not proposed on that account that children should vote. The
property qualifications in use at present are merely a method for
excluding certain men, and we might have an intellectual qualification
or a muscular qualification for the same purpose. Indeed, we do at
present exclude male imbeciles and those who are immature. The reason
for extending the Parliamentary vote to a larger and larger body of
the male population has been to secure the assent of the strength and
manhood of the country to the laws and public acts of the Government,
and to ensure its willing participation in that maintenance of the
central Government’s decisions by physical force, which is the ultimate
and by no means very remote method by which they are maintained. It
does not seem to be likely to be an improvement on our present system
that women, who must always be regarded as specially privileged because
of their physical weakness, should nevertheless be allowed to influence
by the mere number of their votes the decision of questions in which
the employment of the physical strength of men acting as defenders of
our territory, guardians of the peace, or ministers of the law, is the
essential condition of an effective result following on such decision.
To a naturalist human population does not appear as a number of units
of which a few more are female than male--but rather as a series of
families, consisting of men, women, and children, bound together by a
variety of reciprocal services, dependent one on another, ordered and
disciplined to a distribution of functions and duties by the tradition
and experience of ages. The notion that the paterfamilias is the
rightful chief of his wife and children, and that through him they are
represented, and should be content to be represented, in the local and
greater State Government--is one of long standing in civilised Europe.
The powers of the paterfamilias have been gradually limited in the
course of the development of social life since the young men and the
old bachelors, too, have been given a share of power in the State: but
the recent proposal to break the fabric of his household by giving the
Parliamentary franchise to women is so sudden and strange a notion that
he seems not to have realised what it means.
The apathy which many men exhibit in regard to this proposal is as
remarkable as the amiable courtesy with which others assent to it
rather than “disoblige a lady.” Looking at the proposal not as a
question of justice, which really has nothing to do with it, but in
reference to the inquiry as to whether it is likely, if carried, to
increase the happiness and prosperity of the community, I must say
that, so far as the natural history of man gives indications, it seems
to me that if women acquired the Parliamentary franchise and made
active use of it, they would be led into a new attitude of independence
and separation from the men and from the family group to which they are
by birth or alliance attached. I fear that the great business of making
the nest beautiful, producing and tending the young, nursing the sick,
helping the aged, consoling the afflicted, rewarding the brave, of
dancing and singing and creating gaiety within the charmed circle where
political contests and affairs of State are of no account, would be
neglected and without honour. In the end these amenities of life would
probably fall into the hands of commercial companies and be sent out at
so much a head--imported from Germany. Woman would not be the gainer,
for she can only gain by continuing to astonish man by all she does for
his enchantment and delight, to serve him and to crown his life--she
will only suffer by becoming “independent.” The movement which is
supposed to lead to a higher development of womanhood, and consists in
women mobbing people on their doorsteps, waving flags and shouting
at other people’s meetings, and struggling in the arms of policemen,
seems to be inconsistent with a development in the direction which
has hitherto been popular and successful in the progress of man from
savagery to decency. It is difficult to suppose that men will really be
so blind to the facts of the real importance and true value of women
as to allow this movement to succeed whilst they look on with vague
incredulity as to its being anything more than a huge joke.
There is, too, finally, one serious warning to be derived from the
ascertained facts of human physiology and psychology. The immutable
task, the sacred destiny, of women is to become the mothers of new
generations. Nothing which is likely to interfere with or lessen the
respect and veneration due to women in view of this tremendous natural
determination of their instincts and aspirations should be lightly
sanctioned by men so long as they have the power of deciding the
matter. There is good and sufficient ground for fearing that the new
status of women which would be established by their entry on an equal
footing with man into the arena of political struggle and public life,
would injuriously affect in a majority or large minority of cases that
mode of life and economy of strength which is necessary for those who
must give so much to the great and exacting demands of maternity.
The gratification of the whim of a few earnest but injudicious women
would be an altogether insufficient justification for the injury of
the “physique” of women in general by the strain of public competition
with men, and for the widespread development in women of an increased
habit of self-assertion and self-sufficiency--habits which must make
them unwilling to accept their natural duties as wives and mothers--and
must make men equally unwilling to promote them to these honours and
privileges.
40. _Tobacco and the History of Smoking_
A proposal is before Parliament to prevent little boys from “smoking”
in public places. Little girls are, as the bill at present stands, not
to be interfered with. Perhaps this is because they are not to have
votes when they grow up, and so they may do as they like.
Apart from the question as to whether the smoking of tobacco is
injurious to the health or not, there are many curious questions which
arise from time to time as to the history and use of tobacco. I have
no doubt that for children the use of tobacco is injurious, and I am
inclined to think that it is only free from objection in the case of
strong, healthy men, and that even they should avoid any excess, and
should only smoke after meals, and never late at night. The strongest
man, who can tolerate a cigar or a pipe after breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, may easily get into a condition of “nerves” when even one
cigarette acts as a poison and causes a slowing of the heart’s action.
A curious mistake, almost universally made, is that of supposing that
the oily juice which forms in a pipe or at the end of a cigar is
“nicotine,” the chief nerve-poison of tobacco. As a matter of fact,
this juice, though it contains injurious substances, contains little
or no “nicotine.” Nicotine is a colourless volatile liquid, which is
vapourised and carried along with the smoke; it is not deposited in the
pipe or cigar-end except in very small quantity. It is the chief agent
by which tobacco acts on the nervous system, and through that on the
heart--the agent whose effects are sought and enjoyed by the lover of
tobacco. A single drop of pure nicotine will kill a dog. Nicotine has
no aroma, and has nothing to do with the flavour of tobacco, which is
due to very minute quantities of special volatile bodies similar to
those which give a scent to hay.
Most people are acquainted with the three ways of “taking
tobacco”--that of taking its smoke into the mouth, and more or less
into the lungs, that of chewing the prepared leaf, and that of snuffing
up the powdered leaf into the nose, whence it ultimately passes to the
stomach. A fourth modification of the snuffing and chewing methods
exists in what is called the “snuff stick.” According to the novelist,
Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, the country women in Kentucky use a short stick,
like a brush, which they dip into a paperfull of snuff; they then
rub the powder on to the gums. Snuff-taking has almost disappeared
in “polite society” in this country within the past twenty years,
but snuffing and chewing are still largely practised by those whose
occupation renders it impossible or dangerous for them to carry a
lighted pipe or cigar--such as sailors and fishermen and workers in
many kinds of factories and engine-rooms.
One of the most curious questions in regard to the history of tobacco
is that as to whether its use originated independently in Asia or was
introduced there by Europeans. It is largely cultivated and used for
smoking throughout the East from Turkey to China--including Persia
and India on the way--and special varieties of tobacco, the Turkish,
the Persian, and the Manilla are well known, and only produced in the
East, whilst special forms of pipe, such as the “hukah” or “hooka,” the
“hubble-bubble,” and the small Chinese pipe are distinctively Oriental.
Not only that, but the islanders of the Far East are inveterate smokers
of tobacco, and some of them have peculiar methods of obtaining
the smoke, as, for instance, certain North Australians who employ
“a smoke-box” made of a joint of bamboo. Smoke is blown into this
receptacle by a faithful spouse, who closes its opening with her hand
and presents the boxful of smoke to her husband. He inhales the smoke
and hands the bamboo joint back to his wife for refilling. The Asiatic
peoples are great lovers of tobacco, and it is certain that in Java
they had tobacco as early as 1601, and in India in 1605. The hookah
(a pipe, with water-jar attached, through which the smoke is drawn in
bubbles) was seen and described by a European traveller in 1614. Should
we not, therefore, suppose that in Asia they had tobacco and practised
smoking before it was introduced from America into the West of Europe?
It seems unlikely that Western nations should have given this luxury
to the East when practically everything else of the kind has come from
the East to Europe--the grape and wine made from it, the orange, lemon,
peach, fig, spices of all kinds, pepper and incense. Yet it is certain
that the Orientals got the habit of smoking tobacco from us, and not we
from them.
Incredible as it seems, the investigations of the Swiss botanist,
De Candolle (see his delightful History of Cultivated Plants--a
wonderful volume, published for 5s., in the International Scientific
Series) and of Colonel Prain, formerly in India, now Director of Kew,
have rendered it quite certain that the Orientals owe tobacco and
the habit of smoking entirely to the Europeans, who brought it from
America, as early as 1558. In the year 1560 Jean Nicot, the French
Ambassador, saw the plant in Portugal, and sent seeds to France to
Catherine de’ Medici. It was named Nicotiana in his honour. But the
introduction into Europe of the practice of smoking is chiefly due to
the English. In 1586 Ralph Lane, the first Governor of Virginia, and
Sir Francis Drake brought over the pipes of the North American Indians
and the tobacco prepared by them. The English enthusiasm for tobacco
smoking, “drinking a pipe of tobacco,” as it was at first called, was
extraordinary both for its sudden development, its somewhat excessive
character, and the violent antagonism which it aroused, and, as we
learn from Mr. Frederic Harrison, still arouses. It was at once called
“divine tobacco” by the poet Spenser, and “our holy herb nicotian” by
William Lilly, and not long afterwards denounced as a devilish poison
by King James. The reason why the English had most to do with the
introduction of smoking is that the inhabitants of South America did
not smoke pipes, but chewed the tobacco, or took it as snuff, and less
frequently smoked it as a cigar. From the Isthmus of Panama as far as
Canada and California, on the other hand, the custom of smoking pipes
was universal, and wonderful carved pipes of great variety were found
in use by the natives of these regions, and also dug up in very ancient
burial grounds. Hence the English colonists of Virginia were the first
to introduce pipe-smoking to Europe.
The Portuguese had discovered the coasts of Brazil as early as 1500,
and it is they who carried tobacco to their possessions and trading
ports in the Far East--to India, Java, China, and Japan, so that in
less than a hundred years it was well established in those countries.
Probably it went about the same time from Spain and England to Turkey,
and from there to Persia, and rapidly developed not only special new
forms of pipe (the hookah) for its consumption, but also within a few
years special varieties of the plant itself. These were raised by
cultivation, and have formerly been erroneously regarded as native
Asiatic species of tobacco plant.
The definite proof of the fact that tobacco was in this way introduced
from Western Europe to the Oriental nations is, first, that Asiatics
have no word for it excepting a corruption of the original American
name tabaco, tobacco, or tambuco: it is certain that it is not
mentioned in Chinese writings nor represented in their pottery before
the year 1680. In the next place, it appears that careful examination
of old herbariums and of the records of early travellers who knew
plants well and recorded all they saw, proves that no species of
tobacco is a native of Asia. There are fifty species of tobacco, but
all are American excepting the Nicotiana suaveolens, which is a native
of the Australian continent, and the Nicotiana fragrans, which is a
native of the Isle of Pines, near New Caledonia.
Forty-eight different species of tobacco (that is to say, of the genus
Nicotiana) are found in America. Of these Nicotiana tabacum is the only
one which has been extensively cultivated. It has been found wild in
the State of Ecuador, but was cultivated by the natives both of North
and South America before the advent of Europeans. It seems probable
that all the tobaccos grown in the Old World for smoking or snuffing
are only cultivated varieties--often with very special qualities--of
the N. tabacum, with the exception of the Shiraz tobacco plant, which,
though called N. persica, is of Brazilian origin, and the N. rustica,
of Linnæus, a native of Mexico, which has a yellow flower, and yields
a coarse kind of tobacco. This has been cultivated in South America
and also in Asia Minor. But tobaccos so different as the Havannah, the
Maryland and Virginian, the incomparable Latakia, the Manilla, and the
Roumelian or Turkish--all come from culture-varieties of the one great
species, Nicotiana tabacum.