Recognize Tobacco's worth.
Red man! let thy warfare cease:
Smoke the calumet of peace.
Chinaman! shun opium-grief:
Use the pure Tobacco leaf.
Frenchmen! no more foes provoke:
Follow arts of peace--and smoke!
German victors! crowned with laurel,
Smoke, content; and seek no quarrel.
Americans no one needs bid
To blow a cloud, or take a quid.
Though rows shake Dame Europa's school,
Johnny Bull smokes, calm and cool.
Toffy, it will ease thy brain, man!
Smoke and snuff, and smoke again, man!
Paddy, light of heart and gay,
Smoke thy dhudeen: short black clay.
Sawney, on thy Hielen' hill,
Tak' thy sneishin'; tak' thy gill!
Tourist, thou hast journey'd far;
Rest, and light a mild cigar.
Sailor, from the stormy seas,
Take a quid, and take thine ease.
"Soldier tired," put off thy shako;
Prepare to fire, and burn tobacco.
Workman, prize thine honest labor;
Burn thy weed, and love thy neighbor!
Evil-doers, when ye burn
The weed; think how soon 'twill be your turn.
Artist, let thy "coloring" be
Of a pipe; thy "drawing," free!
Miser, moderate thy greed!
Mend thy life, and take a weed.
Lawyer, loose thy bitter gripe!
Burn thy writ--to light a pipe.
Statesman, harassed night and day,
Blow a cloud; puff care away!
Hardy tiller of the soil!
Light a pipe; 'twill lighten toil.
Usurer, we surely know
Thou wilt have thy _quid pro quo_.
Merchant, smoke thy pipe; hang care!
Draughts are always honored there.
Gentle friend, whom troubles fret!
Smoke a soothing cigarette.
Preacher! take a pinch with me:
Snuff is dust, and so are we.
Hence with moralizings musty!
I say life is "not so dusty."
Smoke in gladness; smoke in trouble;
Soothe the last, the former double!
Teach the Fiji Indians, then,
To chew their quids, instead of men.
Pain from heart and brain to wipe,
Pass the weed, and fill your pipe!
Prince and peasant, lord and lackey,
All in some form take their 'Baccy.
[Illustration: Lord and lackey.]
The evil effects occasioned by man's indulging too frequently in
tobacco have been the subject of many a fierce debate between the
friends and foes of the "great plant." Many, however, are not aware of
the fatality attending its use by the brute creation. A modern English
poet on hearing of the result produced on a cow from chewing tobacco,
penned the following sad lines which he entitles--"An elegy on
somebody's Cow."
Weep! weep, ye chewers! Lowly bend, and bow;
Here lieth what was once a happy cow.
No more her voice she'll raise, now low, now high,
In amber fields, beneath an autumn sky;
No more she'll wander to the milking-pail,
While swine stand by to see her chew "pig-tail;"
No more round her the bees, a busy crew,
Shall linger, eager after "honey-dew;"
No more for her shall smoking grains be spread:
All bellowless remains her empty shed.
Sad was her fate. Reflect, all ye who read:
Life's flower destroyed by the accursed weed.
When first the yellow juice streamed o'er her lip,
One might have said, "This is a sad cow-slip."
To chew the peaceful cud by nature bid,
Degraded man taught her to chew a quid.
Sad the effect on body and on mind:
Her coat grew "shaggy," her milk nicotined;
Over her head shall naught but clover grow,
While o'er her peaceful grave the clouds shall blow.
No invalid shall ask for her cow-heel,
To heal his ailments with the simple meal;
Her whiskful tail into no soup shall go;
Mother of "weal" that would but bring us woe.
Her tripe shall honor not the festive meal,
Where smoking onions all their joys reveal;
Nor shall those shins that oft lagged on the road,
Be sold in cheap cook-shops as "_a la mode_,"
Her tongue must soon be sandwiched under ground,
Nor at pic-nics with cheap champagne go round;
Yea, even her poor bones are past all hope--
Not fit to be boiled down for scented soap.
Ah! hide her hide, poor beast. Her stomachs five
Dyed with the chewing she could not survive;
The very worms from her will turn away,
To seek some anti-chewer for their prey.
Ye chewers! be ye pilgrims to her tomb;
Lament with us o'er her untimely doom.
Awhile she stood the anti-chewer's butt,
Till scythe-arm'd Time gave her an "ugly cut."
She stagger'd to her death, and feebly cried,
And sneezed, "Achew! achew!" and chewing died.
There are many parodies of popular poems written in praise of the
weed; of which the following in imitation of Tennyson's "Charge of the
Light Brigade," entitled "The Charge of the Tobacco Jar Brigade," is
one of the best.
"Epigrams, epigrams,
Pour'd in, and numbered--
Good, bad, indifferent--
More than Six Hundred.
"Epigrams potters want,"
Quoth The Tobacco Plant:
Write! you for fame who pant;
Write! we'll three prizes grant."
Wrote for Tobacco-Jars,
Over Six Hundred.
Postmen, ere morning's light;
Postmen, whilst day was bright;
Postmen, as closed in night,
Ran--tan'd and thunder'd
Loud at our office door;
Brought letters, many score--
Contents of bags--to pour
Table and desk all o'er:
Handfuls and armfuls bore,
Casting them on the floor.
Then through the town they tore,
Hastening back for more--
More than Six Hundred.
Letters to right of us,
Letters to left of us,
Letters in front of us,
Seeming unnumbered!
Envelopes every size
Met our astonish'd eyes.
Writer with writer vies!
Which wins the chiefest prize
Out of Six Hundred.
How did each writer strain
After a happy vein!
Pegasus, spurning rein,
Shied, jibb'd, and blunder'd.
Reverend writers, then
Took up the winged pen;
Suff'rers on beds of pain
Sought the bright muse again;
Lawyer and barrister
Courted and harassed her;
M. D.s and editors;
Debtors and creditors;
Artists and artisans,
Nicotine's partisans;
Nurses and gentle dames
Call'd it endearing names;
Poets, ship-masters, too;
Ay! poetasters, too;
Wooing fair Nicotine,
Six hundred scribes were seen.
Anti-Tobacco cant,
Bigoted, bilious rant,
Bursting to vent their spleen,
Joined the Six Hundred.
Flash'd many fancies rare;
Flash'd like Aurora's glare;
Quick jotted down with care;
Some the reverse of fair;
Some that we well could spare;
Some that were made to bear
Blunders unnumbered.
Plunging in metaphor,
Not a bit better for--
Pardon the Cockney rhyme!--
Similies plunder'd.
Praising Tobacco smoke,
Heeding not grammar's yoke,
Prosody's rules they broke.
Many a rhyming moke,
Sense from rhyme sundered:
Many wrote well, but not--
Not the Six Hundred.
Honour Tobacco! roll'd,
Cut, press'd, however sold.
Alpha and Beta, bold,
Ye shall be tipp'd with gold.
Omega shall be sold,
Others in type behold
Nearly Six Hundred."
The following poem entitled "Weedless," after Byron's "Darkness,"
gives a vivid description of the world without tobacco.
"I had a dream, and it was all a dream:
Tobacco was abolish'd, and cigars
Were flung by "Antis" fearsome space--
The foreign and the British fared alike--
And the blue smoke was blown beyond the moon.
Night came and went and came, and brought no "weed,"
And men forgot their suppers, in the dread
Of the dire desolation; and all tongues
Were tingling with the taste of empty pipes;
And they did live all wretched; old hay bands,
And street-door mats, and clover brown and dry;
Carpets, rope-yarn, and such things as men sell,
Were burnt for 'bacca; haystacks were consumed,
And men were gathered round each blazing mass,
To have another makeshift sniff.
Happy were those who smoked, with smould'ring logs,
The harmless Yarmouth bloater after death--
Another pipe not all the world contain'd;
The furze was set on fire, but, hour by hour,
The stock diminish'd; all the prickly points
Quivered to death, and soon it all was gone.
The lips of men by the expiring stuff
Drew in and out, and all the world had fits.
The cinders fell upon them; some sprang up,
And blew their noses loud, and some did stand
Upon their heads, and sway'd despairing feet;
And others madly up and down the world
With "two-pence" hurried, shouting out for "Shag;"
And wink'd and blink'd at th' unclouded sky,
The "Anti's" smokeless banner--then again
Flung all their halfpence down into the dust,
And chewed their tainted pockets; snuffers wept,
And, flatt'ning noses on the dreary ground,
Inhaled the useless dust; the biggest "rough"
Came mild, tobacco-begging; p'licement came,
And mix'd themselves among the multitude,
"Run in" forgotten; uniforms were chew'd,
And teeth which for a moment had had rest,
Did move themselves again; old beaver hats
Fetch'd little fortunes; they were torn in bits,
And smok'd or chew'd at will; no bits were left.
All earth was but one thought, and that was smoke,
Immediate and glorious; and a pang
Of horror came at intervals, and men
Cried; and the boys were restless as themselves,
Till by degrees their stockings were devour'd;
E'en pipes were dropp'd despairing--all, save one,
One man was faithful to his pipe, and kept
Despair and deeper misery at bay,
By seeking ever for a "topper," dropped
From some spurned pipe, but that he could not find;
So, with a piteous and perpetual glare,
And a quick dissolute word, sucking the pipe,
Which answer'd never with a whiff, he slept;
The crowd dispersed by slow degrees, but two
Of all the dreary company remain'd,
And they kept 'bacca shops; they sat upon
The scanted lid of a tobacco tub,
Wherein was heap'd a mass of coined bronze--
Profits of 'bacca, sold--they were sold out;
They, grinning, scraped with their warm, eager hands
The little halfpence and the bigger pence,
Counted a little time, and cried "Haw! haw!"
Like a whole rookery; then lifted up
The tub as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's profits; saw, and smiled, and winked,
Uncaring that the world was poor indeed,
So they were rich in pence. The world was mad,
The populace and peerage both alike
Birds--Eyeless, Shagless, and returnless, too--
Oh! day of death, oh! chaos of hard times!--
And princes, dukes, and lords, they all stood still,
Feeling within their pockets' silent depths;
And sailors went a-moaning out to sea,
And chew'd their cables piecemeal: then they wept,
And slept on the abyss without a quid.
All quids were gone, cigars were in their graves;
The plant, their mother, had been rooted up;
Pawnbrokers had a ton of pipes apiece,
And "Antis" triumph'd. Then they had no need
To keep a "Sec.," so Reynolds got the "sack."
One of the best of all parodies is one in imitation of Longfellow's
"Excelsior," entitled "Tobacco." It is from "Copis' Tobacco Plant."
[Illustration: The strange youth.]
"The summer blight was falling fast,
When straight through dirty London passed
A youth, who bore, through road and street,
A packet, thereon written neat;
"Tobacco!"
His brow was glad, his laughing eye
Flashed like a gooseberry in a pie;
And like a penny whistle rung
The piping notes of that strange tongue--
"Tobacco!"
In dusty homes he saw the light
Of supper fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the ruddy chimneys smoked:
He from his lips the word evoked--
"Tobacco!"
"Try not the weed," good Reynolds said;
"I've smoked it 'till I'm nearly dead:
Take not the juice in thy inside;"
But loud the jovial voice replied--
"Tobacco!"
"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest;
I have got on my Sunday best:"
A wink stood in his bright blue eye,
And answered he, without a sigh--
"Tobacco!"
"Beware the briar's poison'd root;
Beware the birds-eye put into 't."
This was the Anti's latest greet.
A voice replied, far up the street--
"Tobacco!"
At break of day, on Clapham Rise.
A pot-boy opened both his eyes,
And to himself did gently swear,
To hear a voice call through the air--
"Tobacco!"
A traveler up a tree he found,
Who smoked and spat upon the ground;
And then among the blossoms ripe
He cried, while puffing at his pipe--
"Tobacco!"
There in the grayish twilight, "What's
That you say?" cried eager Pots,
And from the branch so green and far,
A voice fell like a broken jar--
"Tobacco."
The following lines from the same source have been very appropriately
called "The Smoker's Calendar."
When January's cold appears,
A glowing pipe my spirit cheers;
And still it glads the length'ning day,
'Neath February's milder sway.
When March's keener winds succeed,
What charms me like the burning weed?
When April mounts the solar car,
I join him, puffing a cigar;
And May, so beautiful and bright,
Still finds the pleasing weed a-light.
To balmy zephyrs it gives zest,
When June in gayest livery's drest.
Through July Flora's offspring smile,
But still Nicotia's can beguile;
And August, when its fruits are ripe,
Matures my pleasure in a pipe.
September finds me in the garden,
Communing with a long churchwarden.
Ev'n in the wane of dull October,
I smoke my pipe and sip my "robur,"
November's soaking show'rs require
The smoking pipe and blazing fire:
The darkest day in drear December's--
That's lighted by their glowing embers.
The Hon. "Sunset" Cox in his lecture on American Humor alluded to the
national characteristics of the French, Spanish, German, and other
nationalities, says:--
"The highest enjoyment of a Frenchman is to hear the last
cantatrice, the Spaniard enjoys the most skillful thrust of
the matador in the bull arena, the Neapolitan the taste of
the maccaroni, the German his beer and metaphysics, the
darkey his banjo, and the American--
'To the American there's nothing so sweet
As to sit in his chair and tilt up his feet,
Enjoy the Cuba, whose flavor just suits,
And gaze at the world through the toes of his boots.'"
This would seem to be a feature of the Dutch according to a late
traveler, who says:--
"I like Holland--it is the antidote of France. No one is
ever in a hurry here. Life moves on in a slow, majestic
stream, a little muddy and stagnant, perhaps, like one of
their own canals; but you see no waves, no breakers; not an
eddy, nor even a froth bubble, breaks the surface. Even a
Dutch child, as he steals along to school, smoking his short
pipe, has a mock air of thought about him."
The following epigrams for tobacco jars from "The Tobacco Plant"
evince much "taste, wit, and ingenuity."
Fill the bowl, you jolly soul,
And burn all sorrow to a coal.
_Henry Clay._
That man is frugal and content indeed,
Who finds food, solace, pleasure in a weed.
_The "Weed"._
Behold! this vessel hath a moral got,
Tobacco-smokers all must go to pot.
_Epigrammatic._
A weed you call me, but you'll own
No rose was e'er more fully blown.
_Sic Itur ad Nostra._
Great Jove, Pandora's box with jars did fill
This Jar alone has power those jars to still.
_In Nubilus._
Tobacco some say, is a potent narcotic,
That rules half the world in a way quite despotic;
So to punish him well for his wicked and merry tricks,
We'll burn him forthwith, as they used to do heretics.
_Zed._
[Illustration: Smoker reading epigrams.]
No use to draw upon a bank if no effects are there,
But a draw of this Tobacco is quite a safe affair;
And a pipe with fragrant weed (such as I hold) neatly stuffed,
Is just the only thing on earth that ought to be well puffed.
_R. S. Y. P._
Poor woman "pipes her eye,"
When in affliction's gripe;
But man, far wiser grown,
Just eyes his pipe.
_In Nubilus._
Sir Walter Raleigh! name of worth,
How sweet for thee to know
King James, who never smoked on earth,
Is smoking down below.
_Ex Fumo dare Lucem._
Travelers say Tobacco springs
From the graves of Indian kings:
Fill your pipe, then--smoke will be
Incense to their memory.
Though the weed's nor rich nor rare,
'Tis a balm for every care.
_Peter Piper._
Give me the weed, the fragrant weed,
My wearied brain to calm;
In a wreath of smoke, while I crack my joke,
I'll find a healing balm.
Day after day, let come what may,
The pipe of peace I'll fill;
I readily pay for briar or clay,
To save a doctor's bill.
_Pompone._
Great men need no pompous marble
To perpetuate their name;
Household gear and common trinkets
Best remind us of their fame.
Raleigh's glory rests immortal
On ten thousand thousand urns,
Every jar is _in memoriam_,
Every fragrant pipe that burns.
_At an Ash._
There are jars of jelly, jars of jam,
Jars of potted-beef and ham;
But welcome most to me, by far,
Is my dear old Tobacco-Jar.
There are pipes producing sounds divine,
Pipes producing luscious wine;
But when I consolation need,
I take the pipe that burns the weed.
_Jars._
Friend of my youth, companion of my later days,
What needs my muse to sing thy various praise?
In country or in town, on land or sea,
The weed is still delightful company.
In joy or sorrow, grief or racking pain,
We fly to thee for solace once again.
Delicious plant, by all the world consumed,
'Tis pity thou, like man, to ashes too art doom'd.
_Erutxim._
Hail plant of power, more than king's renown,
Beloved alike in country and in town;
In hotter climes oft mingled with the jet
Of falling fountains; whilst the cigarette
Kisses the fair one's lips, and by thy breath
Redeems the wearied heart from ennui's death.
_Theta._
If e'er in social jars you join,
Seek this, and let them cease:
Let all your quarrels end in smoke,
And pass the pipe of peace.
_Fumigator._
[Illustration: The explosion.]
Many a jar of old outbroke
Into fire and riot;
This will yield, with fragrant smoke,
Happy thought, and quiet.
41,911.
The moralist, philosopher, and sage.
Have sought by every means, in every age,
That which should cause the strife of men to cease,
And steep the world in fellowship and peace;
But all their toil and diligence were vain,
'Till Raleigh, noble Raleigh! crossed the main,
And brought to Britain's shores the wish'd-for prize,
The sovereign balm of life--within it lies.
_Dum Spiro Fumigo._
To rich men a pastime, to poor men a treat,
To all a true tonic most bracing and sweet,
To talent a pleasure, to genius a joy,
To workmen a comfort, to none an alloy,
The tyrant it softens; it soothes him if mad,
The king who may rule if he smokes not, is sad.
_Kit._
Sacred substance! sweet, serene;
Soothing sorrow's saddest scene:
Scent-suffusing, silv'ry smoke,
Softly smoothing suffering's stroke;--
Solacing so silently--
Still so swift, so sure, so sly:
Smoke sublimated soars supreme,
Sweetest soul-sustaining stream!
_Similia Similibus._
Why should men reek, like chimneys, with foul smoke,
Their neighbors and themselves to nearly choke?
Avoid it, ye John Bulls, and eke ye Paddies!
Avoid it, sons of Cambria, and Scottish laddies!
Let reason convince you that it very sad is,
And far too bad is,
And enough to make one mad is
To be smoked like a red herring or rank Finedon haddies.
_J. S._
No punishment save hanging's too severe
For those who'd rob the poor man of his beer;
But for the wretch who'd take away his pipe,
I think he's fully execution ripe!
_Pipe Clay._
Weeds are but cares! Well, what of that!
There's one weed bears a goodly crop;
And this exception, then, 'tis flat,
Doth give that rule a firmer prop.
Tobacco brings the genial mood,
Warm heart, shrewd thought, and while we reap
From this poor weed such harvest good,
We'll hold more boasted harvests cheap.
_Festus._
To poets give the laurel wreath, let heroes have their lay,
Of roses twine for lovely youth the garland fresh and gay;
But we poor mortals, quite content, life's fev'rish way pursue,
Can we but crown our foolish pates with wreaths of fragrant blue,
Convinced that all terrestrial things which please us or provoke,
Of ashes come, to ashes go, and only end in smoke.
_Pocosmipo._
Whilst cannon's smoke o'erwhelms with deadly cloud
The soldier's comrades in a common shroud,
And whilst the conflagration in the street,
With crushing roar the ruin makes complete,
Tobacco's smoke like incense seeks the skies--
Blesses the giver, and in silence dies!
_Theta._
Use me well, and you shall see
An excellent servant I will be;
Let me once become your master,
And you shall rue the great disaster!
As coin does to he who borrows,
I'll soothe your cares and ease your sorrows;
Abuse me, and your nerves I'll shatter,
Your heart I'll break, your cash I'll scatter,
_Use, not Abuse._
The savage in his wild estate,
When feuds and discords cease,
Soothes with the fragrant weed his hate,
And smokes the pipe of peace.
Long may the plant good-will create,
And banish strife afar:
Our only cloud its incense sweet,
And this our only jar.
_Scire Facias._
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said;
I'll have to smoke, or I'll be dead?
If so, then let the caitiff dread!
My wrath shall fall upon his head.
'Tis plain he ne'er the Plant hath read;
But "goody" trash, perchance, instead.
Dear Cope, good night!--Yours, Master Fred.
That tobacco in one form or another has been patronized from the
cottage to the throne, no one will deny who is at all acquainted with
the history of the plant. And while it has had many a royal hater, it
can also boast of having many a kingly user. A favorite of king and
courtier, its use was alike common in the palace and the courtyard. It
can claim, also, many celebrated physicians who have been its patrons,
and among them the noted Dr. Parr. We give an anecdote of him showing
his love of weed and wit.
The partiality this worthy Grecian always manifested for smoking is
well known. Whenever he dined he was always indulged with a pipe. Even
His Majesty, when Dr. Parr was his guest at Carlton Palace,
condescended to give him a smoking-room and the company of Colonel
C----, in order that he might suffer no inconvenience. "I don't like
to be smoked myself, doctor," said the royal wit, "but I am anxious
that your pipe should not be put out." One day, Dr. Parr was to dine
at the house of Mr. ----, who informed his lady of the circumstance,
and of the doctor's passion for the pipe. The lady was much mortified
by this intimation, and with warmth said, "I tell you what, Mr. ----,
I don't care a fig for Dr. P.'s Greek; he shan't smoke here." "My
dear," replied the husband, "he must smoke; he is allowed to do so
everywhere." "Excuse me, Mr. ----, he shall not smoke here; leave it
to me, my dear, I'll manage it." The doctor came; a splendid dinner
ensued; the Grecian was very brilliant. After dinner, the doctor
called for his pipes. "Pipes!" screamed the lady. "Pipes! For what
purpose?" "Why, to smoke, madam!" "Oh! my dear doctor, I can't have
pipes here. You'll spoil my room; my curtains will smell of tobacco
for a week." "Not smoke!" exclaimed the astonished and offended
Grecian. "Why, madam, I have smoked in better houses." "Perhaps so,
sir," replied the lady, with dignity; and she added with firmness, "I
shall be most happy, doctor, to show you the rights (rites?) of
hospitality; but you cannot be allowed to smoke." "Then, madam," said
Dr. Parr, looking at her ample person; "then, madam,--I must say,
madam,--" "Sir, sir, are you going to be rude?" "I must say, madam,"
he continued, "you are the greatest tobacco-stopper in all England."
Of the clergy, Whatley was one of the greatest in intellect, and, as a
smoker was devotedly attached to tobacco; his pipes, when out, served
him for a book-marker. In summer-time he might be seen, of an evening,
sitting on the chains of Stephen's Green, thinking of "that," as the
song says, and of much more, while he was "smoking tobacco." In winter
he walked and smoked, vigorously in both cases, on the Donnybrook
road; or he would be out with his dogs, climbing up the trees to hide
amid the branches a key or a knife, which, after walking some
distance, he would tell the dogs he had lost, and bid them look for it
and bring it to him.
[Illustration: Theory against experience.]
Of many warriors, none have been more devoted to the plant than
Napoleon, Frederick of Prussia and Blücher the Bold. The following
anecdote of the latter is one of the best of its kind: "As is
well-known, Field-Marshal Blücher, in addition to his brave young
'fellows' (as he called his horsemen), loved three things above all,
namely, wine, gambling, and a pipe of Tobacco. With his pipe he would
not dispense, and he always took two or three puffs, at least, before
undertaking anything. 'Without Tobacco, I am not worth a farthing,' he
often said. Though so passionately fond of Tobacco, yet old 'Forwards'
was no friend of costly smoking apparatus; and he liked best to smoke
long, Dutch clay pipes, which, as everybody knows, very readily break.
Therefore, from among his 'young fellows' he had chosen for himself a
Pipe-master, who had charge of a chest well packed with clay pipes;
and this chest was the most precious jewel in Blücher's field baggage.
If one of the pipes broke, it was, for our hero, an event of the
greatest importance. On its occurrence, the 'wounded' pipe was
narrowly examined, and if the stem was not broken off too near the
head, it was sent to join the corps of Invalids, and was called
'Stummel' (Stump, or Stumpy). One of these Stumpies the
Field-Marshal usually smoked when he was on horseback, and when the
troops were marching along or engaged in a reconnoissance, and
eye-witnesses record that many a Stumpy was shot from his mouth by the
balls of the enemy--nothing but a piece of the stem then remaining
between his lips. Blücher's Pipe-master, at the time of the Liberation
War, was Christian Hennemann, a Mecklenburg and Rostock man, like
Blücher himself, and most devotedly attached to the Field-Marshal. He
knew all the characteristic peculiarities of the old hero, even the
smallest, and no one could so skillfully adapt himself to them as he.
His duties as Pipe-master, Hennemann discharged with great fidelity;
yea, even with genuine fanatical zeal. The contents of the pipe-chest
he thoroughly knew, for often he counted the pipes. Before every
fierce fight, Prince Blücher usually ordered a long pipe to be filled.
After smoking for a short time, he gave back the lighted pipe to
Hennemann, placed himself right in the saddle, drew his sabre, and
with the vigorous cry, 'Forward, my lads!' he threw himself into the
fierce onset on the foe.
On the ever-memorable morning of the battle of Belle-Alliance
(Waterloo), Hennemann had just handed a pipe to his master, when a
cannon-ball struck the ground near, so that earth and sand covered
Blücher and his gray horse. The horse made a spring to one side, and
the beautiful new pipe was broken before the old hero had taken a
single puff. 'Fill another pipe for me,' said Blücher; 'keep it
lighted, and wait for me here a moment, till I drive away the French
rascals. Forwards, lads!' Thereupon there was a rush forwards; but the
chase lasted not only 'a moment,' but a whole hot day. At the
Belle-Alliance Inn, which was demolished by shot,--the battle having
at last been gained,--the victorious friends, Blücher and Wellington,
met and congratulated each other on the grand and nobly achieved work,
each praising the bravery of the other's troops. 'Your fellows slash
in like the very devil himself!' cried Wellington. Blücher replied,
'Yes; you see, that is their business. But brave as they are, I know
not whether one of them would stand as firmly and calmly in the midst
of the shower of balls and bullets as your English.' Then Wellington
asked Blücher about his previous position on the field of battle,
which had enabled him to execute an attack so fatal to the enemy.
Blücher, who could strike tremendous blows, but was by no means a
consummate orator, and could not paint his deeds in words, conducted
Wellington to the place itself. They found it completely deserted; but
on the very spot where Blücher had that morning halted, and from which
he had galloped away, stood a man with his head bound up, and with his
arm wrapped in a handkerchief. He smoked a long, dazzling white clay
pipe. 'Good God!' exclaimed Blücher, 'that is my servant, Christian
Hennemann. What a strange look you have, man! What are you doing
here?' 'Have you come at last?' answered Christian Hennemann, in a
grumbling tone; 'here I have stood the whole day, waiting for you. One
pipe after another have the cursed French shot away from my mouth.
Once even a blue bean (a bullet) made sad work with my head, and my
fist has got a deuce of a smashing. That is the last whole pipe, and
it is a good thing that the firing has ceased; otherwise, the French
would have knocked this pipe to pieces, and you must have stood there
with a dry mouth.' He then handed the lighted pipe to his master, who
took it, and after a few eagerly-enjoyed whiffs, said to his faithful
servant, 'It is true, I have kept you waiting a long time; but to-day
the French fellows could not be forced to run all at once.' With
astonishment, Wellington listened to the conversation. Amazed, he
looked now at the Field-Marshal, now at the 'Pipe-master,' and now at
the branches of trees and the balls scattered all round, which made it
only too evident what a dangerous post this spot must have been during
the battle. The wound in Hennemann's head proved to be somewhat
serious; his hand was completely shattered; and yet, in the midst of
the tempest of shot, he had stood there waiting for his beloved
master."[55]
[Footnote 55: During the conquest of Holland, Louvais
paid more attention to furnishing tobacco than
provisions; and even at this day, as well as in former
times, more care is taken to procure tobacco than bread
to the soldier. Every soldier was obliged to have his
pipe and his matches.]
[Illustration: The faithful attendant.]
Tobacco smoking, however, can boast of many patrons besides warriors,
physicians and statesmen, some of the finest writers of the last three
centuries have indulged in the weed. The following extract from the
"Australasian" entitled, "Tobacco Smoking" refers to many literary
smokers.
"Burke felt himself precluded from 'drawing an indictment
against a whole community.' The critical moralist pauses
before the formidable array of the entire social world,
civilized and savage. The Cockney, leaving behind him the
regalias and meerschaums of the Strand, finds the wax-tipped
clay-pipe in the parlors of Yorkshire: finds dhudeen and
cutty in the wilds of Galway and on the rugged shores of
Skye and Mull. The Frenchman he finds enveloped in clouds of
Virginia, and the Swede, Dane, and Norwegian, of every grade
or class, makes the pipe his travelling companion and his
domestic solace. The Magyar, the Pole and the Russian rival
the Englishman in gusto, perhaps excel him in refinement;
the Dutch boor smokes finer Tobacco than many English
gentlemen can command, and more of it than many of our
hardened votaries could endure; but all must yield, or
rather, all must accumulate, ere our conceptions can
approach to the German. America and the British colonies
round off the picture, adding Cherokees, Redmen and
Mongolians _ad libitum_. The Jew whether in Hounds ditch,
Paris Hamburgh, or Constantinople, ever inhales the choicest
growths, and the Mussulman's 'keyf' is proverbial. India and
Persia dispute with us the palm of refinement and intensity,
but the philosopher of Australia is embarrassed when he asks
himself to whom shall I award that of zealous devotion?
"Dr. Adam Clarke, who could never reconcile himself to the
practice, deemed it due to his piety to find a useful
purpose in the creation of tobacco by all-seeing Wisdom, and
as that discovered by the instincts of all the nations of
the planet, and practiced by mankind for three centuries, is
wrong, the benevolent Wesleyan of Heydon, applied himself
diligently and generously to correct the world, and to
vindicate its Author. 'In some rare cases of internal injury
tobacco may be used but not in the customary way.' Be it
known, then, that the Creator has not created it in vain.
Dr. Clarke must have been a very good-natured man. He
tortured his brains to find a hope of pardon for Judas
Iscariot, and held that the creature (Nachash) who tempted
Eve was not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture
of _patella_ and _podex_; therefore doomed to crawl! But I
fear, if the present form of using tobacco be not the true
one, we must despair of ever finding it, and people will go
on smoking and 'hearing reason' as long as the world goes
round. Robert Hall received a pamphlet denouncing the pipe.
He read it, and returned it. 'I cannot, sir, confute your
arguments, and I cannot give up smoking,' was his comment.
It is loosely asserted that smoking is more prevalent among
scholars, intellectualists, and men who live by their
brains, than among artisans and subduers of the soil. This
is an error. Tobacco is less a fosterer of thought than a
solace of mental vacuity. The thinker smokes in the
intervals of work, impatient of _ennui_ as well as of
lassitude, and the ploughman, the digger, the blacksmith or
the teamster, lights his cutty for the same reason. No true
worker, be he digger, or divine, blends real work with
either smoking or drinking. Whenever you see a fellow drink
or smoke during work, spot him for a gone coon; he will come
to grief, and that right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and
sometimes a pipe will bring sleep, but trust it not of
itself for either thought or strength. It combats _ennui_,
lassitude, and intolerable vacuity, soothing the nerves and
diverting attention from self. Sam Johnson came very near
the mark: 'I wonder why a thing that costs so little
trouble, yet has just sufficient semblance of doing
something to break utter idleness, should go out of fashion.
To be sure, it is a horrible thing blowing smoke out; but
every man needs something to quiet him--as, beating with his
feet.'
"Life is really too short for moralists and medici who have
read Don Quixote, to attack a verdict arrived at and acted
upon by the combined nations of the entire world, during the
experience of three centuries, and apparently deepened by
their advancing civilization. Give us rules and
modifications, give us guides and correctives, give us
warnings against excess, precipitancy, and neglect of other
enjoyments, or of important duties, if you will. The urbane
æstheticism that regulates pleasure also limits it; and true
refinement ever modifies the indulgence it pervades. But it
is emulating Mrs. Partington and her mop to attempt to
preach down a world. When they do agree, their unanimity is
irresistible. Prohibition may give zest to enjoyment, and
provocation to curiosity, but can never overcome the
instincts of nature or cravings of nervous irritability, and
he who rises in rebellion against her absolute decree will
respect the limits and study the laws of a recognized and
regulated enjoyment.
"Let, then, the moralist point out what social duties may be
imperilled; let the physician apprise us of the disorders to
be guarded against; and let the lover of elegance see that
no neglect or slight awaits her. Of abstract arguments we
have seen the futility, of moral and medical crusades even
the most patient are weary, and we gladly turn to something
real, in the suffrages of a by-gone great man of
acknowledged fame--Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson loved the 'durne
weed,' and describes its every accident with the gusto of a
connoisseur. Hobbes smoked, after his early dinner, pipes
innumerable. Milton never went to bed without a pipe and a
glass of water, which I cannot help associating with his:
'Adam waked,
So custom'd, for his sleep was æry light, of pure digestion bred
And temperate vapors bland!'
"Sir Isaac Newton was smoking in his garden at Woolsthorpe
when the apple fell. Addison had a pipe in his mouth at all
hours, at 'Buttons.' Fielding both smoked and chewed. About
1740 it became unfashionable, and was banished from St.
James' to the country squires and parsons. Squire Western,
in _Tom Jones_, arriving in town, sends off Parson Supple to
Basingstoke, where he had left his Tobacco-box! The
snuff-box was substituted. Lord Mark Kerr, a brave officer
who affected the _petit maitre_ (_à la_ Pelham, in Lord
Lytton's second novel), invented the invisible hinges, and
it was this 'going out of fashion' that Jonson alluded to in
1774.
[Illustration: Newton and his pipe.]
"We next find Tobacco rearing its head under the auspices of
Paley and Parr. Paley had one of the most orderly minds ever
given to man. A vein of shrewd and humorous sarcasm,
together with an under-current of quiet selfishness, made
him a very pleasant companion. 'I cannot afford to keep a
conscience any more than a carriage,' was worthy of Erasmus,
perhaps of Robelais. 'Our delight was,' said an old
Jonsonian to the writer, 'to get old Paley, on a cold
winter's night, to put up his legs, wrap them well up, stir
the fire, and fill him a long Dutch pipe; he would talk
away, sir, like a being of a higher sphere. He declined
any punch, but drank it up as fast as we replenished his
glass. He would smoke any given quantity of Tobacco, and
drink any _given_ quantity of punch.'
"Parr smoked ostentatiously and vainly, as he did
everything. He used only the finest Tobacco, half-filling
his pipe with salt. He wrote and read, and smoked and wrote,
rising early, and talking fustian. He was a sort of
miniature Brummagem Johnson. Except his preface to
_Bellendenus_, you might burn all he has written. His 'Life
of Fox' is beneath contempt. His letters are simply
laughable, especially his characters of contemporaries. He,
however, was an amiable and good-natured man, and had
sufficient humanity to regard dissent as an impediment to
his recognition of intellectual or moral worth. Parr was an
arrogant old coxcomb, who abused the respectful kindness he
received, and took his pipe into drawing-rooms. I pass over
the Duke of Bridgewater, because he was early crossed in
love by a most beautiful girl, could not bear the sight of a
flower even growing, and passed life in a pot-house with a
pipe, listening to Brindley, whose intellect and dialect
must have been alike incomprehensible to him.
"The cigar appeared about 1812; it received the countenance
of the Regent, who had hitherto confined himself to macobau
snuff, scented with lavender and the tonquin bean. Porson
smoked many bundles of cheroots, which nabobs began to
import. After 1815 the continental visits were resumed, and
the practice of smoking began steadily to increase. The
German china bowl with globular receiver of the essential
oil, the absorbent meerschaum, the red Turkish bell-shaped
clay, the elaborate hookah,--a really elegant ornament, and
perhaps the most healthful and rational form of
smoking,--pipes of all shapes, began to fill the shops of
London. Coleridge, when cured of opium, took to snuff. Byron
wrote dashingly about 'sublime Tobacco,' but I do not think
he carried the practice to excess. Shelley never smoked, nor
Wordsworth, nor Keats. Campbell loved a pipe. John Gibson
Lockhart was seldom without a cigar. Sir Walter Scott smoked
in his carriage, and regularly after dinner, loving both
pipes and cigars. Professor Wilson smoked steadily, as did
Charles Lamb. Carlyle, now somewhat past seventy, has been a
sturdy smoker for years. Goethe did not smoke, neither did
Shakespeare. I cannot recall a single allusion to Tobacco in
all his plays; even Sir Toby Belch does not add the pipe to
his burnt sack. But Shakespeare hated every form of
debauchery. The penitence of Cassio is more prominent than
was his fun. 'What! drunk? and talk fustian and speak
parrot, and discourse with one's shadow?' Shakespeare held
drunkenness in disgust. Even Falstaff is more an
intellectual man than a sot. What actor could play Falstaff
after riding forty miles and being well thrashed? Yet, when
Falstaff sustains the evening at the Boar's Head, he has
ridden to Gadshill and back, forty-four miles! No palsied
sot, he. Hamlet's disgust at his countrymen is well known.
'Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!' is the
comment on the drunken Kit Sly. In short, when you look at
the smooth, happy, half-feminine face of Shakespeare, you
see one to whom all forms of debauchery were ungenial. A
courtier certainly, and a lover of money. The king had
written against Tobacco, and Will Shakespeare set his watch
to the time. Raleigh and Coliban Jonson might smoke at the
Mermaid--Will kept his head clear and his doublet sweet.
[Illustration: Tennyson, smoking.]
"Alfred Tennyson is a persistent smoker of some forty years.
Dickens, Jerrold and Thackeray all puffed. Lord Lytton loves
a long pipe at night and cigars by day. Lord Houghton smokes
moderately. The late J. M. Kemble, author of 'The Seasons in
England,' was a tremendous smoker. Moore cared not for it;
indeed, I think that Irish gentlemen smoke much less than
English. Wellington shunned it; so did Peel. D'Israeli loved
the long pipe in his youth, but in middle age pronounced it
'the tomb of love.' While I am writing, it is not too much
to aver that 99 persons out of 100, taken at random, under
forty years of age, smoke habitually every day of their
lives. How many in Melbourne injure wealth and brain, I
leave to more skilled and morose critics. But my mind
misgives me. Paralysis is becoming very frequent.
"I have seen stone pipes from Gambia, shaped like the letter
U consisting each of one solid flint, hollowed through,
also hookahs made by sailors with cocoanut shells. All,
however, now agree that it is impossible to have either
comfortable, cool, or safe smoking, unless through a
substance like clay, porous and absorbent, especially as
portable pipes are the mode. Those of black charcoal are not
handsome; indeed, I always feel like a mute at a funeral
while smoking one, but they are delightfully cool, absorbing
more essential oil of nicotine, and more quickly than any
meerschaum. I caution the smoker to have an old glove on; as
these pipes 'sweat,' the oil comes through, and nothing is
more pertinacious than oil of tobacco when it sinks into
your pores, or floats about hair or clothes. My own taste
inclines to the German receiver, long cherry tube and amber,
and to my own garden, for all street smoking is unæsthetic,
and the traveller by coach, boat, or rail has the tastes of
others to consult. Surely it is not urbane to throw on
another the burden of saying that he likes not the smell or
the inhaling of burning tobacco. Better postpone your solace
to more fitting time and place--the close of day and your
own veranda. Indoor smoking is detestable. Life has few
direr disenchanters than the morning smells of obsolete
tobacco, relics though they be of hesternal beatitude. Give
me, in robe or jacket, a hookah, or German arrangement,
Chinese recumbency in matted and moistened veranda, and the
odors of fresh growing beds of flowers wafted by the
southern breeze. Nor be wanting the fragrant perfume of
coffee. 'Meat without salt,' says Hafiz, 'is even as tobacco
without coffee.' The tannin of the coffee corrects the
nicotine. And it may not be amiss to learn that a plate of
watercress, salt, and a large glass of cold water should be
at hand to the smoker by day; the watercress corrects any
excess, and is at hand in a garden. Smoke not before
breakfast, nor till an hour has elapsed after a good meal.
Smoke not with or before wine, you destroy the wine-palate.
If you love tea, postpone pipe till after it; no man can
enjoy fine tea who has smoked. In short, smoke not till the
day is done, with all its tasks and duties.
"I have seen men of pretension and position treat carpets
most contumeliously, trampling on the pride of Plato with a
recklessness that would bring a blush to the cheek of
Diogenes himself. Can they forget the absorbent powers of
carpet tissues, and the horrors of next morning to
non-smokers, perhaps to ladies? Surely this is unæsthetic
and illiberal: it is in an old man most pitiable, in a young
one intolerable, in a scholar inexcusable, from an
uncleanness that seems willful. Let the young philosopher
avoid such practice, and give a wide berth to those who
follow them. Take the following rules, tyro, _meo
periculo_:--
1. Never smoke when the pores are open: they absorb, and you
are unfit for decent society. Be it your study ever to
escape the noses of strangers. First impressions are
sometimes permanent, and you may lose a useful acquaintance.
2. Learn to smoke slowly. Cultivate 'calm and intermittent
puffs.'--_Walter Scott._
3. On the first symptom of expectoration lay down the pipe,
or throw away the cigar; long-continued expectoration is
destructive to yourself and revolting to every spectator.
4. Let an interval elapse between the filling of succeeding
pipes.
5. Clean your tube regularly, and your amber mouthpiece with
a feather dipped in spirits of lavender. Never suffer the
conduit to remain discolored or stuffed.
6. A German receiver can be washed out like a teacup, and
the oil collected is of value, but a meerschaum should never
be wetted. A small sponge at the end of a wire dipped in
sweet oil should be used carefully and persistently round
and round, coaxing out any hard concretions, till the inside
be smooth in its dark polished grain, of a rich mahogany
tint. The outside, also, well polished with sweet oil and
stale milk, then enveloped in chamois leather. The rich dark
coloring is the pledge of your safety--better there than
darkening your own brains.
"The pale gold c'noster and Turkey have now given way to the
splendid varieties of America, and my knowledge halts behind
the age. The black sticks resembling lollipops are said to
be compounds of rum, bullocks' blood and tobacco lees. A
taste for them, when once contracted, is abiding. Fine
volatile tobacco, with aromatic delicacy, requires a long
tube; used in a short pipe of modern fashion, they parch and
shrivel the tongue. In short, what is true of all other
pleasures is also true of tobacco-smoking. Fruition is
sometimes too rapid for enjoyment, as the dram-drinker is
less wise than the calm imbiber of the fragrant vintage of
the Garonne. With Burke's common sense I began, and with it
I end. Depurate vice of all her offensiveness, and you prune
her of half her evil. Let not your love of indulgence be so
inordinate as to purchase short pleasure by impairing
health, neglecting duty, or, while promoting your own
self-complacency, allow yourself to become permanently
revolting to society, by offending more senses as well as
more principles than one.'"
[Illustration: Modern smokers.]
Mantegazza, one of the most brilliant of all writers on tobacco, in
alluding to the enchantment of the "weed," says:--
"If a winged inhabitant of some remote world felt the
impulse to traverse space, and, with an astronomical map, to
fly round our planetary system, he would at once recognize
the earth by the odor of tobacco which it exhales, forasmuch
as all known nations smoke the nicotian herb. And thousands
and thousands of men, if compelled to limit themselves to a
single nervous aliment, would relinquish wine and coffee,
opium and brandy, and cling fondly to the precious narcotic
leaf. Before Columbus, tobacco was not smoked except in
America; and now, after a lapse of a few centuries in the
furthest part of China and in Japan, in the island of
Oceanica as in Lapland and Siberia, rises from the hut of
the savage and from the palace of the prince, along with the
smoke of the fireplace, where man bakes his bread and warms
his heart, another odorous smoke, which man inhales and
breathes forth again to soothe his pain and to vanquish
fatigue and anxiety.
"In the early times of the introduction of tobacco, smokers
in many countries were condemned to infamous and cruel
punishments; had their noses and their lips cut off, and
with blackened faces and mounted on an ass, exposed to the
coarse jests of the vilest vagabonds and the insults of the
multitude. But now the hangman smokes, and the criminal
condemned to death smokes before being hanged. The king in
his gilt coach smokes; and the assassin smokes who lies in
wait to throw down before the feet of the horses the
murderous bomb. The human family spends every year two
thousand six hundred and seventy millions of francs (about a
hundred millions in English money) on tobacco, which is not
food, which is not drink, and without which it contrived to
live for a long succession of ages.
"In the discomfitures and disasters which befell the Army of
Lavalle, in the civil wars of the Argentine Republic, the
poor fugitives had to suffer the most horrible privations,
which can be imagined. By degrees the tobacco came to an
end, and the Argentines smoked dry leaves. One man, more
fortunate than his comrades, continued to use with much
economy the most precious of all his stores--tobacco. A
fellow soldier begged to be allowed to put the economist's
pipe in his own mouth, and thus to inhale at second-hand the
adored smoke, paying two dollars for the privilege. What is
more striking still, when, in 1843, the convicts in the
prison of Epinal, France, who had for some time been
deprived of tobacco, rose in revolt, their cry was 'tobacco
or death!' When Col. Seybourg was marching in the interior
of Surinam against negro rebels, and the soldiers had to
bear the most awful hardships, they smoked paper, they
chewed leaves and leather, and found the lack of tobacco the
greatest of all their trials and torments."
Elsewhere, inquiring what nervous aliments harmonize the one with the
other, he says:--
"The only, the true, the legitimate companion of coffee is
the nicotian plant; and wisely and well the Turkish epicures
declare that for coffee--the drink of Heaven--tobacco is the
salt. The smoke of a puro, of a manilla, or of real Turkish
tobacco, which passes amorously through the voluptuous tip
of amber, blends magnificently with the austere aroma of the
coffee, and the inebriated palate is agitated between a
caress and a rebuke."
From a Southern paper we extract these whimsical lines.
"On the Great
Fall in the Price of Tobacco in 1801," by Hugh Montgomery,
Lynchburgh, Va.,
"Lately a planter chanced to pop
His head into a barber's shop--
Begged to be shaved; it soon was done,
When Strap (inclined oft-times to fun,)
Doubling the price he'd asked before,
Instead of two pence made it four.
The planter said, 'You sure must grant,
Your charge is most exhorbitant.'
'Not so,' quoth Strap, 'I'm right and you are wrong,
For since tobacco fell, your face is twice as long.'"
Another quaint whim in the form of an advertisement for a lost
meerschaum is from an Australian paper:
"To Honest men and others,--Driving from Hale Town to
Bridgetown, on Sunday, last, the advertiser lost a cigar
holder with the face of a pretty girl on it. The intrinsic
value of the missing article is small, but as the owner has
been for the last few months converting the young lady from
a blonde into a brunette, he would be glad to get it back
again. If it was picked up by a gentleman, on reading this
notice, he will, of course, send it to the address below. If
it was picked up by a poor man, who could get a few
shillings by selling it, on his bringing it to the address
below, he shall be paid the full amount of its intrinsic
value. If it was picked up by a thief, let him deliver it,
and he shall be paid a like amount, and thus for once can do
an honest action, without being a penny the worse for it."
A humorous writer thus discourses on man, who he denominates as
"common clays":
"Yet we are all common clays! There are long clays and
short clays, coarse clays and refined clays, and the latter
are pretty scarce, that's a fact. To follow out the simile,
life is the tobacco with which we are loaded, and when the
vital spark is applied we live; when that tobacco is
exhausted we die, the essence of our life ascending from the
lukewarm clay when the last fibre burns out, as a curl of
smoke from the ashes in the bowl of the pipe, and mingling
with the perfumed breeze of heaven, or the hot breath
of--well, never mind; we hope not. Then the clay is cold,
and glows no more from the fire within; the pipe is broken,
and ceases to comfort and console. We say, 'A friend has
left us,' or 'Poor old Joe; his pipe is out.' We have all a
certain supply of life, or, if we would pursue the
comparison, a share of tobacco. Some young men smoke too
rapidly, even voraciously, and thus exhaust their share
before their proper time,--then we say they have 'lived too
fast,' or 'pulled at their pipes too hard.' Others, on the
contrary, make their limited supply go a long way, and when
they are taking their last puffs of life's perfumed plant
their energy is unimpaired; they can run a race, walk a mile
with any one, and show few wrinkles upon their brow.
[Illustration: The artist.]
"A delicate person is like a pipe with a crack in the bowl,
for it takes continued and careful pulling to keep his light
in; and to take life is like willfully dashing a lighted
pipe from the mouth into fragments, and scattering the
sparks to the four winds of heaven. An artist is a good
coloring pipe; an attractive orator is a pipe that draws
well; a communist is a foul pipe; a well-educated woman
whose conversation is attractive is a pipe with a nice
mouthpiece; a girl of the period is a fancy pipe, the
ornament of which is liable to chip; a female orator on
woman's rights is invariably a plain pipe; an old toper is a
well-seasoned pipe; an escaped thief is a cutty pipe, and
the policeman in pursuit is a shilling pipe, for is he not a
Bob?"
From these ingenious "conceits" we turn to a few thoughts on the
present condition and history of the plant.
[Illustration: The Yankee smoker.]
The calumet or pipe of peace, decorated with all the splendor of
savage taste, is smoked by the red man to ratify good feeling or
confirm some treaty of peace. The energetic Yankee bent upon the
accomplishment of his ends, puffs vigorously at his cigar and with
scarcely a passing notice, strides over obstacles that lie in his path
of whatever nature they may be. The dancing Spaniard with his eternal
castanets whispers but a word to his dark-eyed senorita as he hands
her another perfumed cigarette. The lounging Italian hissing intrigues
under the shadow of an ancient portico, smokes on as he stalks over
the proud place where the blood of Cæsar dyed the stones of the
Capitol, or where the knife of Virginius flashed in the summer sun.
The Turk comes forth from the Mosque only to smoke. The priest of
Nicaragua with solemn mien strides up the aisle and lights the altar
candles with the fire struck from his cigar. The hardy Laplander
invites the stranger to his hut and offers him his pipe while he
inquires, if he comes from the land of tobacco. The indigent Jakut
exchanges his most valuable furs and skins for a few ounces of the
"Circassian weed." Its charms are recognized by the gondolier of
Venice and the Muleteer of Spain. The Switzer lights his pipe amid
Alpine heights. The tourist climbing Ætna, or Vesuvius' rugged side,
puffs on though _they_ perchance have long since ceased to smoke.
Tobacco, soothed the hardships of Cromwell's soldiers and gave novelty
to the court life of the daughters of Louis XIV, delighted the
courtiers of Queen Elizabeth and bidding defiance to the ire of her
successors, the Stuarts, has never ceased to hold sway over court and
camp, as well as over the masses of the people.
In nothing cultivated has there been so remarkable a development.
Originally limited to the natives of America, it attracted the
attention of Europeans who by cultivation increased the size and
quality of the plant. But not alone has the plant improved in form and
quality, the rude implements once used by the Indians have given away
(even among themselves) to those of improved form and modern style.
These facts are without a doubt among the most curious that commerce
presents. That a plant primarily used only by savages, should succeed
in spite of the greatest opposition in becoming one of the greatest
luxuries of the civilized world, is a fact without parallel. It can
almost be said, so universally is it used, that its claims are
recognized by all. Though hated by kings and popes it was highly
esteemed by their subjects. Their delight in the new found novelty was
unbounded and doubtless they could sing in praise as Byron did in
later times of:
"Sublime tobacco which from East to West
Cheers the tar's labor and the Turkman's rest."