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TOBACCO:
ITS
HISTORY, VARIETIES, CULTURE,
MANUFACTURE AND COMMERCE,
WITH
AN ACCOUNT OF ITS VARIOUS MODES OF USE, FROM ITS FIRST
DISCOVERY UNTIL NOW.
BY
E. R. BILLINGS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY POPULAR AETISTS.
My Lord, this sacred herbe which never offendit,
Is forced to crave your favor to defend it.”
BakcLaY.
“But oh, what witchereft of a stronger kind,
Or cause too deep for hnmtan search to find,
Makes earth-born weeds imperial man enslave,—
Not little souls, but e’en the wise and brave!”
AEBUCELE.
HARTFORD, CONN:
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
1875.
7~
ENTERED according to act of Congress, in the year 1875, by the
AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Is it not wondrous strange that there should be
Such different tempers twixt my friend and me?
i burn with heat when I tobacco take,
But he on th’ other side with cold doth shake:
To both "tis physick, and like physick works,
The cause o’ th’ various operation lurks
Not in tobacco, which is still the same,
But in the difference of our bodies frame:
What's meat to this man, poison is to that,
And what makes this man lean, makes that man fat;
‘What quenches one’s thirst, makes another dry;
And what makes this man wel, makes that man dye.
Tuomas WAsHBOURNE, D, D.
Thy 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 wreathes contentment round the humble hearth;
While savage warriors, soften'd by thy breath,
Unbind the captive, hate had doomed to death.
Rev. WALTER CoLTon.
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
My social box attends on me;
It warms my nose in winter's snow,
Refreshes midst midsummer’s glow;
Of hunger sharp it blunts the edge,
And softens grief as some alledge.
Thus, eased of care or any stir,
I broach my freshest canister ;
And freed from trouble, grief, or panic,
I pinch away in snuff balsamic.
For rich or poor, in peace or strife,
Tt smooths the rugged path of life.
Rev. Wii1am Kine.
Hart! Indian plant, to ancient times unknown—
A modern truly thou, and all our own!
Thou dear concomitant of nappy ale,
Thou sweet prolonger of an old man’s tale,
Or, if thou’rt pulverized in smart rappee,
And reach Sir Fopling’s brain (if brain there be),
He shines in dedications, poems, plays,
Soars in Pindarics, and asserts the bays;
Thus dost thou every taste and genius hit—
In smoke thou’rt wisdom, and in snuff thou’rt wit,
Rey. Mr, Prior, ,
TO
‘ CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER,
Whose rare, good gifts have endeared him to ail
lovers of the Hinglish tongue, this volume, histori-
cally and practically treating of one of the greatest
of plants, as well as the rarest of luxuries, is re-
spectfuily:. dedicated by
Tue AUTHOR.
t
PREFACE.
——_+ 0+ —___
Ever since the discovery of tobacco it has been the favorite
theme of many writers, who have endeavored to shed new light
on the origin and early history of this singular plant. Opwards
of three hundred volumes have been written, embracing works in
nearly all of the languages of Europe, concerning the herb and the
various methods of using it. Most writers have confined them-
selves to the commercial history of the plant; while others have
written upon its medicinal properties and the various modes of
preparing it for use. For this volume the Author only claims
that it is at least a more comprehensive treatise on the varieties
and cultivation of the plant than any work now extant. A full
account of its cultivation is given, not only in America, but also
in nearly all of the great tobacco-producing countries of the
world. The history of the plant has been carefully and faithfully
compiled from the earliest authorities, that portion which relates
to its early culture in Virginia being drawn from hitherto unpub-
lished sources. Materials for such a work have not been found
lacking. European authors abound with allusions to tobacco ;
more especially is it true of English writers, who have celebrated
its virtues in poetry and song. All along the highways and by-
paths of our literature we encounter much that pertains to this
‘queen of plants.” Considered in what light it may, tobacco
must be régarded as the most astonishing of the productions of
nature, since it has, in the short period of nearly four centuries,
viii PREFACE.
dominated not one particular nation, but the whole world, both
Christian and Pagan. Ushered into the Old World from the
New by the great colonizers—Spain, England, and France—it
attracted at once the attention of the authors of the period as a
fit subject for their marvel-loving pens. It has been the aim of
the writer to give as much as possible of the existing material
to be had concerning the early persecution waged against it,
whether by Church or State. These accounts, while they invest
with additional interest its early use and introduction, serve as
well to show its triumph over all its foes and its vast importance
to the commerce of the world. This work has been prepared
and arranged, not only for the instruction and entertainment of
the users of tobacco, but for the benefit of the cultivators and
manufacturers as well. As such it is now presented to the public
for whatever meed of praise or censure it is found to deserve.
HartrorD, Conn., 1875.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1, FRONTISPIROE.....
2. ToBacco STALKES.. a2
8. ToBacoo LEAvEs.. 24
4. BUD AND FLOWERS.... 25
5. CAPSULES. (FRUIT BuD. ).. ris
6. SUOKERS........... 28
q. PRIMITIVE PIP. 33
8. NatTIvE SMOKING.. 35
9. OLD ENGRAVING.. - 40
10. THe ConTRAST.. - 44
11. JoHN RoLFE. » 48
12, VIRGINIA TOBACCO FIELD, 1620. . 51
18. BUYING WIVES............- bidisiosaiaisiaisis 57
14. GROWING TOBACCO IN THE STREETS.... 64
15, NaTIvEs GROWING TOBAOOO.... 66
16. DESTROYING SUCKERS . 69
1%. CaRRYING TOBACCO TO MARKET.. . 3
18. ENRICHING PLANT-BED...........+06+ »
19. SHIPPING TOBACCO........ Poet - 8
20. ObD ENGEAVING OF TOBACCO. 86
21. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 89
22. ENGLISH GALLANTS.......... 90
23. SMOKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY.. 94
24, EXHALING THROUGH THE NosE. 7
25, OLD LONDON ALE-HOUSE es + 101
26, PUNISHMENT FOR SNUFF TAKING 104
27, SILVER SPITTOONS... sess 106
108
28. THE NEGRO IMAGE... sceneeseneee crete nance nese eee teen eee esses ee OES eee nee ee EEE ETE eE®
29. TOBACCO AND THEOLOGY... r
30. WEIGHING SMOKE.........
31. INDIAN Prez
$2. SOULPTURED PIPE..
38. Prez OF PEACE...
34. A MopEL CIGAR.......
35. SOUTH AMERICANS SMOKING.........
36. A Wak PIPE.. :
coneensaeaaes sasevarececense 199
- 10
x ILLUSTRATIONS.
88. A TOHUKTCHI PIPE,........++
39.
40.
41.
42,
43.
44. A PERSIAN WATER PIPE.,. - 156
45. SEARCHING FOR AMBER.. 160
46. FaNoY PIPES............ 162
47. CLAY AND REED PIPES. 164
48. Farry PIPES . 166
49. FEMALE SMOKING IN ‘ALGIERS. 168
50. AFRICAN PIPEH........-.0000+ ... 170
51. E@yPTiaN PIPES. ‘
52. JAPANESE PIPES
53. ENGRAVED Boxes.
54. TOBACCO JARS.....
55. TOBACCO STOPPER eet
56. LORD AND LACKEY.. eats eigintegrens w.. 185
57. Top STRANGE YOUTG......... 190
58. SMOKERS READI;G EPIGRaM . 198
59, THE EXPLOSION..........+..++ 195
00. THEORY AGAINST EXPERIENCE... ..ccceenscscccccceciecvesesetaasvedseaes ueeuseecscuesdces
61. A FAITHFUL ATTENDANT
62. NEWTON AND HIS PIPE.
63. TENNYSON, SMOKING
64. MODERN SMOKERS.......
65. THE ARTIST..........
66. THE YANKEE SMOKER............cceeeeeeeeeeeeees
67. A ToBacco GRATER.
68, DEMI-JOURNEES..
69, JAMES Grntmsrre. is
40. Fors TAKING SNUFF. (FROM AN OLD PRINT. Ds
TL; HORN GN URE-BO KRG ys ininrewaiaicatseaiactvennaiiee eis pinta anatase walplnmmaaasleta eh aati Gn acieiniags abies
2. SCOTOH SNUFF-MILLS..........
73. SWEEPING FROM THE PULPIT.
4. SNUFF- “MILL, A CENTURY AGO....
13. PERFUMING SNUFF
%6. FUEGIAN SNUFF-TAKERS.
T. SNUFF-DIPPING..
80. CURING A HEADACHE.
81. HIGHLANDERS..
82, CIGARS.......
88. CIGAR-HOLDERS..
84, LIFE IN MEXICO...
88. A MooNLIGHT REVERIE IN Havana...
89. By THE SEA 27
90. AN AMERICAN SMOKER aoe 29
91. “Liaur, SIR?"...... vee 282
92. BRINGING a Lieu’ «285
OB NEARING CIGAR Sere ccsa nsjeisinjisielntesisreinsiaisic sisieieidis ericitiaye.Siecdisine ayeincinin’e ncayoredsieeleinianndeancran wee 288
94. HAVANAS...... . 801
9%. YaRA CIGARS.. . 803
96. MANILLA CIGAR AND CHEROOT. sbaere . 804
Dh WSS TG OS oases ea NRE TROW ath one dvasamatenaaiasninieslbinailoncearss 806
98. PARAGUAY CIGARS......6000005 306
99, CONNECTICUT TGBACCO FIELD...
ILLUSTRATIONS. xl
101. NEGRO QUARTERS
102. Tue PLANTER’s Homz
108. ‘‘ BURNING THE PATCH.’
106. Onto ToBacco FIELD.
107. ToBacco WAREHOUSE...........
108. Kentucky Tosacco PLANTATION..
109. Tax KENTUCKY PLANTER....... eile
110. FLorrpa Tospacco PLANTATION....
111. Lovistana ToBAcco PLANTATION..
112. MExI0AN ToBacco PLANTATION....
118. St. Dominao ToBacco FIELp, 1535.
114, A CUBAN V6QQ.....6.ccc cence cence ee
115. Kintine Buas py Nieur
116, GOING TO MARKET....
117. GzrMaN ToBACcco FIELD..
118. DuToOM PLANTERS........
119. Success TO Von TROMP..
120. ToBAcco FIELD IN ALGIERS.
121. ToBAcco FIELD IN AFRICA...
122. ToBacco FIELD IN SYRIA..
123. ToBacco FIELD IN INDIA........ 365
1%. TURKISH TOBACCO GOING TO MARKET.
125. Japan Topacco FIELD
126. TRANSPLANTING........... Deratinigia sieicinias
12%. Curnzsz ToBacco FIELD.
128. ToBacco FIELD IN PERsIA
129. GROWING TOBACCO ON THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS...
130. ToBpacco PLow
181. SPANISH PLANTERS..
133. ConNECTIOUT SEED LEAF..
134. Havana TOBACOO...........
135. VIRGINIA TOBAgco......
136. OH10 WHITE TOBACCO......
187%. Larakra ToBacoo (SYRIA),..
188, OxINoco ToBacco (VENEZUELA),
199. SHiRAz ToBAcco (PERSIA).
140. SPANISH TOBACOO..... :
141. JAPAN TOBACCO.......-0.00-000e
142, OLD CoNNECTIOUT ToBaAcco Sup...
143. MODERN CONNECTICUT ToBACCO SHED
144, STRIPPING Room......
145. MopERN VIRGINIA SHED...
146. VIRGINIA SHED, 150 YEARS AGO.
14%. OnI0 ToBacco SHED....
148, Perstam ToBacco SHED..
149. MaKING THE PLANT BED IN CONNEOCTIOUT..
150. COVERING PLANT BED...........ceceeeeees
151. A ToBacco RIDGER
152. DRAWING THE DIRT AROUND THE Foor.
153, TRANSPLANTING.......00:s0000
154. TRANSPLANTING.......
155. AMERICAN TRANSPLANTER. .
156, THz WORMS....
157. WoRMING TOBACCO..
158, TOPPING....... ete
159. SUCKERING...
160. Currine THE PLANTS.
161, PUTTING ON LATH...eeceeeeegeeee
xii ILLUSTRATIONS.
162. CARRYING TO THE BHED.......0.sesceeesseeseee see eeees .
16D: DROK ING » sickis we sieinawie enainne
167. PRIzING IN OLDEN Times
168. ToBaccO PRESS.......... os
169, FIRING...... +++ 470
110. SpanisH SEED ToRacoo... jeeiieainileerea er arotaucfos Sea paid Kem aieinTo Rate aie es AeiriniAbiset 3 ees
CHAPTER I.
THE TOBACCO PLANT.
PAGE
Botanical Description—Ancient Plant-Bed—Description of the Leaves—
Color of Leaves—Blossoms—The Capsules and Seed—Selection for
Seed—Suckers—Nicotine Qualities—Medicinal Properties—Im-
provement in Plants, «sisi y saeco ccc a seeiedeesis vine 000 oo eaereens
CHAPTER II.
TOBACCO. ITS DISCOVERY.
Early Use—Origin of its Name—Early Snuff-Taking—Tobacco in Mex-
ico—Comparative Qualities of Tobacco—Origin of the Plant—
Early Mammoth Cigars—Sacredness of the Pipe—Early Culti-
vation—Proportions of the Tobacco Trade—Variety of Kinds—
Tobacco and Commerce—Original Culture..............ecc0ee0e
CHAPTER III.
TOBACCO IN AMERICA.
First General Planter—State of the Colony—Conditions of Raising
Tobacco—Tobacco Fields, 1620—Increase of Tobacco-Growing—
Restriction of Tobacco-Growing—Tobacco used as Money—King
James opposes Tobacco-Growing—Buying Wives with Tobacco—
Foreign Tobacco Prohibited—King Charles on Tobacco—King
Charles as a Tobacco Merchant—Tobacco Taxed—Planting in
Maryland—Negro Labor—Competition—Growing Suckers—Virgin-
ia Lands—Picture of Early Planters—Large Plantations—Getting
to Market—Virginia Plant-Bed—Maryland Plant-Bed—Tobacco
Growing in New York and Louisiana—New England Tobacco—
Commercial Value of Tobacco—Tobacco a Blessing..............
CHAPTER IV.
TOBACCO IN EUROPE.
Introduction—The Original Importer—W onderful Cures—How the Herb
grew in Reputation—Difference of Opinion—A Smoker’s Rhapsody
17
32
47
xiv
CONTENTS.
—Old Smokers—The Queen Herb—Drinking Tobacco—Tobacco
on the Stage—Shakespeare on Tobacco—Smoking Taught-—-Ben
Jonson on the Weed—Curative Qualities—Modes of Use—Held
up to Ridicule—Tirades against Tobacco—Tobacco Selling—Royal
Haters of Tobacco—Old Customs—A Racy Poem—A Smoking
DEVINE ccsa ssucsetasenayatanavora Gini S6-S.Aaie @ areca sovaeee wise tual a ore: sie AdCahkae>e\'ene: Deo erdee
CHAPTER V.
TOBACCO IN EUROPE.——-Continued.
Popular use of Tobacco—Tobacco Glorified —Weight of Smoke—Anec-
dotes—Triumph of Tobacco—A Government Monopoly—Tobacco a
BICS BING se sesisicis, asjb-2. Sree toe isyeyea dete srlaasieyarcns pusgesaiacasstbe's ale avavanthn epvenTerinets
CHAPTER VI.
TOBACCO PIPES, SMOKING AND SMOKERS.
Indian Pipes--Material for Pipes—-Legend of the Red Pipe—Chippewa
Pipes—Making the Peace Pipes—South American Pipes—Cigar-
ettes—Tobacco on the Amazon River--Brazilian Tobacco—Patago-
80
111
nians as Smokers—Form and Material—Pipe of the Bobeen Indians °
—The War Pipe—Pipe Sculpture—Smoking in Alaska—Smoking
in Russia—Smoking in Peru—Smoking in Turkey—Moderate Smok-
ing—Female Smoking—Early Manufacture of Pipes—French Pipes.
CHAPTER VII.
PIPES AND SMOKERS.—continued.
Meerschaum Pipes—Coloring Meerschaums—The City of Smokers—
Its
Hudson as as moker—Persian Water Pipes—Turkish Pipes—Amber
Mouth Pieces—Obtaining Amber—Its Value—Variety of Pipes—
History of Pipes—Ancient Habit of Smoking—Buried Pipes—
Jasmine Pipes—Smoking in Algiers—Smoking in Africa—Defence
of Smoking—Tea and Tobacco—Chinese Pipes—Smoking in Japan
—Tobacco Boxes—Tobacco Jars—Musings over a Pipe—Sad Fate of
a Chewer—Triumph of the Anti’s—The Smoker’s Calendar—Doc-
tor Parr as a Smoker—Smoking on the Battle-Field—Literary Smok-
ers—Doctor Clarke on Tobacco—Noted Smokers—Pleasant Pipe
Pa World—Cruelty of Smokers—Men like Pipes—Univer-
Sal UGG sail te sacs ects 0 dora wide sedis hrciel sen dag yee Go8 ta ci aes ok
CHAPTER VIII.
SNUFF, SNUFF-BOXES AND SNUFF-TAKERS.
Introduction—Boxes and Graters—Mode of Preparation—Snuff-
Boxes—A Celebrated Manufacturer—The Snuffing Period—The
Monk and his Snuff-Box—A Pinch of Snuff—Pleasures of Smelling
—Frederick the Great—Eminent Snuff-Takers—The Story in
Verse—‘‘ Come to my Nose ”—Snuff Manufacture—Preparation of
Tobacco—Grinding the Leaves—Flavoring the Snuff—Profits Made
—Love of Tobacco—Chewing and Dipping—Advantages of Dipping
—The First Snuffers—Famous Snuff-Takers—Snuff as'a Pacificator
—A National Stimulant—Different Tastes—Rise and Progress of
OME AID soos. coaraitsntens ecannye 02 voce GaseASosnoaneiaieeance ete
124
CONTENTS. Xv
CHAPTER IX.
CIGARS.
New York Cigars—Havana Cigars—Quality of Havana Cigars—Relative
Value and Size—Cigar- Makers—Cuban Cigars—Cigar Manufactories
—Preparation of the Tobacco—Sorting the Leaves—Sales, etc.—
Large Factories—Universal Smoking—Cigar Etiquette—Reveries
—Summer-Day Thoughts—American Smokers—At Home—Senti-
ment—QOde to a Cigar—Cigar-Lighters—Smoking an Art—Science
of Lighting—Age of Fusees—‘‘ Home-Made Cigars”—Female
Cigar-Makers—A Spicy Article—How to Smoke—Smoking Chris-
tians—Lamb’s Poem—Tobacco Compliment—Cigarette Smoking—
Thomas Hood’s Cigar—Lord Byron’s Opinion—Kinds of Cigars—
Selecting Cigars—Yara Cigars—-Manilla Cigars—Swiss Cigars—-
Paraguay Cigars—Brazilian Cigars—American Cigars—Connecticut
Seed Leaf and Havana Cigars—The Exile’s Comfort............. 259
CHAPTER X.
TOBACCO PLANTERS AND PLANTATIONS.
The Connecticut Planter—Intelligence of Tobacco Growers—Best
Connecticut Seed Leaf—Love for the Plant—Virginia Planters—
A Virginia Plantation—The Plant-Patch—Planting, Topping and
Priming—Suckering—Crop-Gathering—Curing and Sorting—To-
bacco Markets—Ohio Tobacco—Mode of Cure—Kentucky Tobacco~-
Growing—The Kentucky Planter—Florida Tobacco—Florida Planta-
tation—Tobacco in Lousiana—California Tobacco Lands—Mexican
Tobacco-—-Plants around Vera Cruz—Tobacco in St Domingo—
Cuba Plantations—Mode of Working—Soil and Climate—Tobacco-
Growing in Germany—Method of Culture—Extent of Culture—
Tobacco-Raising in Prussia—Tobacco in Holland—Dutch Planters—
A Plea for Tobacco—Tobacco Culture in Australia—Arabian Plan-
tations—Tobacco in Africa—Syrian Tobacco—Latakia Tobacco—
Growing Tobacco in India—Curing Tobacco in India—Turks Culti-
vating Tobacco—Japanese Tobacco—Persian Tobacco—Tobacco
Culture, Philippine Islands—Climate of the Islands—Fragrant
Manillas—Tropical Tobacco... ..... ccc cece eee reece ener een eenes 311
CHAPTER XI.
VARIETIES.
Kinds used for Cigars—Dwarf Tobacco—Havana Tobacco—Yara and
Virginia Tobacco—James River Tobacco—Ohio Tobacco—South
American Tobaceo— Celebrated Brands of Tobacco — Russian
Tobacco—Columbian Tobacco—Tobacco of Brazil—The Orinoco
Tobacco—Persian Tobacco—French Tobacco—Spanish Tobacco—
Japanese Tobacco—Manilla Tobacco..........sese eee eeees eres 382
CHAPTER XII.
TOBACCO HOUSES.
Tobacco Sheds—Stripping Houses—Virginia Tobacco Sheds—Ordinary
Sheds—Superior Sheds—Ohio Sheds—Kentucky and Tennessee
Sheds—Foreign Tobacco Sheds........-+++.4+- so abarn shesaapems auue as 405
xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
TOBACCO CULTURE.
Hot Beds—Virginia Plant Patch—Tennessee Plant Bed—Cuban Plant
Bed—Covering Plant Bed—Selection of Soil—The Soil Affecting
Color—Preparing the Soil—Virginia Methods—Burning Brush—
Implements—Transplanting Plants—Setting—Seasons in Mexico
and Persia—The American Transplanter—Pests— W orming—Back-
ward Plants—Topping—Suckers—Maturation—The Harvest—Cut-
ting—Hanging—Cutting time in Cuba—Harvesting in Virginia—
The Season in other Places—Curing—Curing by Smoke—Yellow
Tobacco — Stripping—Assorting—Shading— Stemming—Packing —
Casing—Old Style—Resistance to Dampness—Prizing—Marking—
Baling—Certificates—Firing—W hite Rust—Seed Plants—Maturing
of Seed—Second Growth. ........... 22. ce cece cece nee cence oe 415
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRODUCTION, COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO.
Early History of Tobacco—Cultivation by Spaniards at St. Domingo
Annual Product of Cuba—Amount of Land under Cultivation in
U. S.—Cultivation in the South—Annual Product of Europe, Asia
and Africa—Government Monopoly—Source of Revenue—Manu-
facture of Cigarettes—Increase of Tobacco Culture............. 478
CHAPTER I.
THE TOBACCO PLANT.
© OBACCO is a hardy flowering annual* plant,
growing fr eely i in a moist fertile soil and requiring,
the most thorough culture in order to secure the’
“finest form and quality 0 of leaf. It is a native of the
tropics and under the intense rays of a vertical sun develops
its finest and most remarkable flavor which far surpasses the
varieties grown in a temperate region. It however readily
adapts itself to soil and climate growing through a wide
range of temperature from the Equator to Moscow in Rus-
sia in latitude 56°, and through all the unereening mange
of climate t. wot ete ee
The plant varies in height according to species and locality ;
the largest varieties reaching an altitude of ten or twelve feet,
in others not growing more than two or three feet from the
ground. Botanists have enumerated between forty and fifty
varieties of the tobacco plant who class them all among the
narcotic poisons.. When properly cultivated the plant ripens
in a few weeks growing with a rapidity hardly equaled by
any product either temperate or tropical. Of the large
number of varieties cultivated scarcely more than one-half
are grown to any great extent while many of them are hardly
known outside of the limit of cultivation. Tobacco is a
strong growing plant resisting heat and drought to a far
* The greater number of the species are annual plants; but two at least are perennial; the
Nicotiana fruticosa, which is a shrub, a native of the Cape of Good Hope, and of China; and
WN. urens, a native of South America,
+Tatbam says that the tobacco plant is peculiarly adapted for an agricultural comparison
of climates.
18 BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION.
greater extent than most plants. It isa native of America,
the discovery of the continent and the plant occurring almost
‘simultaneously. It succeeds best in a deep rich loam ina
“climate ranging from forty to fifty degrees of latitude. After
having been introduced and cultivated in nearly all parts of
the world, America enjoys the reputation of growing the
' finest varieties known to commerce. European tobacco is
lacking in flavor and is less powerful than the tobacco of
America. :
The botanical account of tobacco is as follows :—
_ “Nicotiana, the tobacco plant is a genus of plants of the
order of Monogynia, belonging to the pentandria class, order
1, of class V. It bears a tubular 5-cleft calyx; a funnel-
formed corolla, with a plaited 5-cleft border; the stamina
inclined ; the stigma capitate; the capsule 2-celled, and 2 to
4 valved.”
A more general description of the plant is given by an
American writer :—
“The tobacco plant is an annual growing from eighteen
inches (dwarf tobacco) to seven or eight feet in height*. It
‘bears numerous leaves of a pale green color sessile, ovate
lanceolate and pointed in form, which come out alternately
from two to three inches apart. The flowers grow in loose
panicles at the extremity of the stalks, and the calyx is bell-
shaped, and divided at its summit into five pointed segments.
The tube of the corolla expands at the top into an oblong
cup terminating in a 5-lobed plaited rose-colored border.
The pistil consists of an oval germ, a slender style longer
than the stamen, and a cleft stigma. The flowers are suc-
ceeded by capsules of 2 cells opening at the summit and
containing numerous kidney-shaped seeds.”
Two of the finest varieties of Nicotiana Tobacum that are
cultivated are the Oronoco and the Sweet Scented ; they differ
only in the form of the leaves, those of the latter variety being
shorter and broader than the other. They are annual herba-
ceous plants, rising with strong erect stems to the height of
from six to nine feet, with fine handsome foliage. The stalk
near the root is often an inch or more in diameter, and
“* An old English writer in describing tobacco says :—* When at its just height, it 1s as tall.
fg an ordinary sized man."
ANCIENT DESCRIPTION. 19
surrounded by a hairy clammy substance, of a greenish yellow
color. Theleavesare of alight green; they grow alternately,
at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are
oblong and spear-shaped; those lowest on the stalk are about
twenty inches in length, and they decrease as they ascend.
The young leaves when about six inches, are of a deep
green color and rather smooth, and as they approach maturity
they become yellowish and rougher on the surface. The
flowers grow in clusters from the extremities of the stalk;
they are yellow externally and of adelicate red within. They
are succeeded by kidney shaped capsules of a brown color.
Thompson in his “ Notices relative to Tobacco” describes
the tobacco plant as follows:—
“The species of Nicotiana which was first known, and
which still furnishes the greatest supply of Tobacco, is the
N. tobacum, an annual plant, anative of South America, but
naturalized to our climate. It is a tall, not inelegant plant,
rising to the height of abont six feet, with a strong, round,
villous, slightly viscid stem, furnished with alternate leaves,
which are sessile, or clasp the stems; and are decurrent, lan-
ceolate, entire ; of a full green on the upper surface, and pale
on the under. :
“Tn a vigorous plant, the lower leaves are about twenty
inches in length, and from three to five in breadth, decreasing
as they ascend. The inflorescence, or flowering part of the
stem, is terminal, loosely branching in that form which
botanists term a panicle, with long, linear floral leaves or
bractes at the origin of each division.
“The flowers, which bloom in July and August, are of a
pale pink or rose color : the calyx, or flower-cup, is bell-shaped,
obscurely pentangular, villous, slightly viscid, and presenting
at the margin five acute, erect segments. The corolla is
twice the length of the calyx, viscid, tubular below, swelling
above into an oblong cup, and expanding at the lip into five
somewhat plaited, pointed segments; the seed vessel is an
oblong or ovate capsule, containing numerous reniform seeds,
which are ripe in September and October ; and if not collected,
are shed by the capsule opening at the apex.”
In Stevens and Liebault’s Maison Rustique, or the Country
Farm, (London, 1606), is found the following curious account
of the tobacco plant :—
20 ANCIENT PLANT-BED.
“This herbe resembleth in figure fashion, and qualities,
the great comfrey in such sort as that aman woulde deeme
it to be a kinde of great comfrey, rather than a yellow hen-
bane, as some have thought. Siar
“Jt hath an upright stalke, not bending any way, thicke,
bearded or hairy, and slimy: the leaves are broad and long,
greene, drawing somewhat towards a yellow, bearded or
hoarrie, but smooth and slimie, having as it were talons, but
not either notched or cut in the edges, a great deale bigger
downward toward the root than above: while it is young it
is leaved, as it were lying upon the ground, but rising to a‘
stalke and growing further, it ceaseth to have such a number
of leaves below, and putteth forth branches from half foot to
half, and storeth itselfe, by that meanes with leaves, and still
riseth higher from the height of four or five foote, unto three
or four or five cubits according as is sown in a hot and fat
ground, and carefully tilled. The boughs and_ branches
thereof put out at joints, and divide the stalk by distance of
halfe a foote: the highest of which branches are bigger than
an arme.
“At the tops and ends of his branches and boughs, it put-
teth foorth flowers almost like those of Nigella, of a whitish
and inearnate color, having the fashion of a little bell com-
ming out of a swad or husk, being of the fashion of a small
goblet, which husk becometh round, having the fashion of a
little apple, or sword’s pummell: as soon as the flower is
gone and vanished away, it is filled with very small seedes
like unto those of yellow henbane, and they are black when
they be ripe, or greene, while they are not yet ripe.
“Tn a hot countree it heareth leaves, flowers, and seeds at.
the same time, in the ninth or tenth month of the year it
putteth foorth young cions at the roote, and reneweth itself
by this store and number of cions, and great quantity of
sprouts, and yet notwithstanding: the roots are little, small,
-fine thready strings, or if otherwise they grow a little thick,
yet remaine they still very short, in respect of the height of
the plant. The roots and leaves do yield a glewish and
rosinith kind of juice, somewhat yellow, of a rosinlike smell,
not unpleasant, and of a sharpe, eager and biting taste, which
sheweth that it is by nature hot, whereupon we must gather
that it is no kind of yellow henbane as some have thought.
Nicotiana craveth a fat ground well stird, and well manured
also in this cold countrie (England) that is to say an earth,
wherein the manure is so well mingled and incorporated, as
THE PLANT. 21
that it becometh earthie, that is to say, all turned into earth,
and not making any shew any more of dung: which is like-
wise moist and shadowie, wide and roomy, for in a narrow
and straight place it would not grow high, straight, great and
well-branched. ;
“Tt desireth the South sun before it, and a wall behind it,
which may stand in stead of a broad pair of shoulders to keep
away the northern wind and to beate backe againe the heat of
the sun. It groweth the better if it be oft watered, and
maketh itself sport and jolly good cheer with water when the
time becometh a little dry. It hateth cold, and therefore to
keepe it from dying in winter, it must be either kept in cel-
lars where it may have free benefit of air, or else in some
cave made on purpose within the same garden, or else to
cover it as with a cloak very well with a double mat, making
a penthouse of wicker work from the wall to cover the head
thereof with straw laid thereupon: and when the southern
sun shineth, to open the door of the covert made for the said
herb right upon the said South sun.”
The most ludicrous part of “The discourse on Nicotian”
will be found in that portion which relates to the making of
the plant-bed and transplanting :—
“For to sow it, you must make a hole in the earth with
your finger and that as deep as your finger is long, then you
must cast into the same hole ten or twelve seeds of the said
Nicotiana together, and fill up the hole again: for it is so |
small, as that if you should put in but four or five seeds the
earth would choake it: and if the time be dry, you must
water the place easily some five days after: And when the
herb is grown out of the earth, inasmuch as every seed will
have put up his sprout and stalk, and that the small thready
roots are intangled the one within the other, you must with
a great knife make a composs within the earth in the places
about this plot where they grow and take up the earth and
all together, and cast them into a bucket full of water, to the
end that the earth may be seperated, and the small and ten-_
der impes swim about the water; and so you shall sunder
them one after another without breaking of them.” * *
THE STALK.
The Tobacco stalk varies with the varieties of the plant.
All of the species cultivated in the United States have stalks
of a large size—much larger than many varieties grown in
22 TOBACCO PLANT.
the tropics. Those of some species of tobacco are littlé and
easily broken, which to a certain extent is the case with most
varieties of the plant when maturing very fast. The stalke
hig
fi
of some plants are rough and uneven, fp
while those of others are smooth. |
Nearly all, including most of those
grown in Europe and America, have
erect, round, hairy, viscid stalks, and
large, fibrous roots; while that of
Spanish as well as dwarf tobacco is
harder and much smaller. The stalk
is composed of a wood-like substance
containing a glutinous pith, and is
of about the same shade of color as
the leaves. As the plant develops
in size the stalk hardens, and when oN
fully grown is not easily broken. TOBACCO STALKS.
The size of the stalk corresponds with that of the leaves,
and with such varieties of the plant as Connecticut seed leaf,
Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, St. Domingo, and some others;
both will be found to be larger than Spanish, Latakia, and
Syrian tobacco, which have a much smaller but harder stalk.
It will readily be seen that the stalk must be strong and firm
in order to support the Jarge palm-like leaves which on some
varieties grow to a length of nearly four feet with a corre-
sponding breadth. The stalk does not “cure down” as fast
as the leaves, which is thought now to be necessary in order
to prevent sweating, as well as to hasten the curing. Most
of the varieties of the plant have an erect, straight stalk,
excepting Syrian tobacco, which near the top describes more
of a semi-circle, but not to that extent of giving an idea of.
an entirely crooked plant. The stalk gradually tapers from
the base to the summit, and when deprived of its leaves
presents a smooth appearance not unlike that of a small tree
or shrub deprived of its twigs and leaves.
THE LEAVES.
The Plant bears from eight to twenty leaves according to
DESCRIPTION OF THE LEAVES. 93
the species of the plant. They have various forms, ovate,
lanceolate, and pointed. Leaves of a lanceolate form are the
largest, and the shape of those found on most varieties of the
American plant. The color of the leaves when growing, as
well as after curing and sweating, varies, and is frequently
caused by the condition of the soil. The color while grow-
ing may be either a light or dark green, which changes to a
yellowish cast as the plant matures and ripens. The ground
leaves are of a lighter color and ripen earlier than the rest—
sometimes turning yellow, and during damp weather rotting
and dropping from the stalk. Some varieties of the plant,
like Latakia, bear small but thick leaves, which after cutting
are very thin and fine in texture ; while others, like Connecti-
cut seed leaf and Havana, bear leaves of a medium thickness,
which are also fine and silky after curing. But while the
color of the plant when growing is either a light or dark
green, it rapidly changes during curing, and especially after
passing through the sweat, changing to a light or dark cinna-
mon like Connecticut seed leaf, black like Holland and
Perique tobacco, bright yellow of the finest shade of Virginia
and Carolina leaf, brown like Sumatra, or dark red like that
known by the name of “ Boshibaghli,” grown in Asia Minor.
The leaves are covered with glandular hairs containing a
glutinous substance of an unpleasant odor, which characterizes
all varieties as well as nearly all parts of the plant.
_ The leaves of all varieties of tobacco grow the entire
length of the stem and clasp the stalk, excepting those of
Syrian, which are attached by a long stem. The size of the
leaves, as well as the entire plant, is now much larger than
when first discovered. One of the early voyagers describes
the plant as short and bearing leaves of about the size and
shape of the walnut. In many varieties the leaves grow in a
semi-circular form while in others they grow almost straight
and still others growing erect presenting a singular appear-
ance. The stem or mid-rib running through the leaf is large
and fibrous and its numerous smaller veins proportionally
larger which on curing become smaller and particularly in
24 COLOR OF LEAVES.
those kinds best adapted for cigar wrappers. The leaves
from the base to the center of the plant are of about equal
size but are smaller as they reach the summit, but after
TOBACCO LEAVES.
topping attain about the same size as the others. The color
of the leaf after curing may be determined by the color of
the leaf while growing—if dark green while maturing in the
field, the color will be dark after curing and sweating and
the reverse if of a lighter shade of green.
If the soil be dark the color of the leaf will be darker than
if grown upona light loam. Some varieties of the plant
have leaves of ‘a’ smooth. glossy appearance while others are
rough and the surface uneven—more like a cabbage leaf, a
peculiar feature of the tobacco of Syria. The kind of fertil-
izers applied to the soil also in a measure as well as the soil
itself has much to do with the texture or body of the leaf
and should be duly considered by all growers of the plant.
A light moist loam should be chosen for the tobacco field if
a leaf of light color and texture is desired while if a dark leaf
is preferred the soil chosen should be a moist heavy loam.
THE FLOWER.
The flowers of the tobacco plant grow in a bunch or cluster
on the summit of the plant and are of a pink, yellow, or
purple white color according to the variety of the plant. On
most varieties the color of the flowers is pink excepting
Syrian or Latakia which bears yellow flowers while those of
BLOSSOMS. on
Shiraz or Persian and Guatemala are white while those of the
Japan tobacco, are purple. The segments of the corolla are
pointed but on some varieties unequal, particularly that of
Shiraz tobacco. The flowers impart a pleasant odor doubt-
less to all lovers of the weed but to all others a compound of
villainous smells among which and above all the rest. may be
recognized an odor suggestive of the leaves of the plant.
When in full blossom a tobacco field forms a pleasant
BUD AND FLOWERS,
feature of a landscape which is greatly heightened if the
plants are large and of equal size. The pink flowers are the
largest while those of a yellow color are the smallest. The
plant comes into blossom a few weeks before fully ripe when
with a portion of the stalk they are broken off to hasten the
ripening and maturing of the leaves. After the buds appear
they blossom in a few days and remain in full bloom two or
three weeks, when they perish like the blossoms of other
plants and flowers. The flowers of Havana tobacco are
of a lighter pink than those of Connecticut tobacco but are
not as large—a trifle larger however than those of Latakia
tobacco. Those varieties of. the tobacco plant bearing pink
flowers are the finest flavored and are used chiefly for the
manufacture of cigars while those bearing yellow flowers are
better adapted for cutting purposes and the pipe.
The American varieties of tobacco bear a larger number of
26 ; THE CAPSULE AND SEED.
flowers than European tobaccos or those of Africa or Asia.
The color of the flowers remain the same whether cultivated
in one country or another while the leaves may grow larger
or smaller according to the system of cultivation adopted.
Those varieties of the plant with heart-shaped leaves have
paniculated flowers with unequal cups. The flower stems on
the American varicties are much longer than those of Enro-
pean tobaccos and also larger. The season has much to do
with the size of the flowers; as if very dry they are usually
smaller and not as numerousas if grown under more favorable
circumstances.
THE CAPSULE.
As soon as the flowers drop from the fruit bud the
capsules grow very rapidly until they have attained full
size—which occurs only in those plants which have been
left for seed and remain untopped. When topped they are
not usually full grown—as some growers top the plants when
just coming into blossom, while others prefer to top the
plants when in full bloom and others still when the blossoms
begin to fall. The fruit is described by Wheeler “as a capsule:
of a nearly oval figure. There is a line on each side of it,
and it contains two cells, and opens at the top. The recepta-
cles one of a half-oval figure, punctuated and affixed to the sep-
arating body. The seeds are numerous, kidney-shaped, and
rugose.” :
Most growers of the plant would describe the fruit bud as
follows: In form resembling an acorn though more pointed
at the top; in some species, of a dark brown in others of a
light brown color, containing two cells filled with seeds
similar in shape to the fruit bud, but not rugose as described
by some botanists. Some writers state that each cell contains
about one thousand seeds. The fruit buds of Connecticut.
Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio Tobacco as well as of most of
the varieties grown within the limits of the United States are
much larger than those of Tlavana, Yara, Syrian, and
numerous other species of the plant, while the color of these
last named varieties is a lighter shade of brown. The color
SELECTION FOR SEED. 27
of the seed also varies according to the varieties of the plant.
The seeds of some species are of a dark brown while others
are of alighter shade. The seeds, however, are so small that
the variety to which they belong cannot be determined
except by planting or sowing them.
The plants selected for seed are usually left growing until
late in the season, and at night shoul@ be protected from the
cold and frost by a light covering of some kind—this may
not be absolutely necessary, as most growers of tobacco have
often noticed young plants growing around the base or roots
of the seed stalk—the seeds of which germinated although |
CAPSULES. (FRUIT BUD.)
remaining in the ground during the winter. Strong, healthy
plants generally produce large, well filled capsules the only
ones to be selected by the grower if large, fine plants are
desired. Many growers of tobacco have doubtless examined
the capsules of some species of the plant and frequently
observed that the capsules or fruit buds are often scarcely
more than half-filled while others contain but a few seeds.
The largest and finest capsules on the plant mature first,
while the smaller ones grow much slower and are frequently
several weeks changing from green to brown. Many of the
capsules do not contain any seed at all.
THE SUCKER.
The offshoots or suckers as they are termed, make their
appearance at the junction of the leaves and stalk, about the
roots of the plant, the result of that vigorous growth caused
by topping. The suckers can hardly be seen until after the
a
28 SUCKERS.
plant has been topped, when they come forward rapidly and
in a short time develop into strong, vigorous shoots. Tatham
describing the sucker says:
“ The sucker is a superfluous sprout which is wont to make
its appearance and shoot forth from the stem or stalk, near
to the junction of the leaves with the stems, and about the
root of the plant, and if allowed to grow, injuring the market-
able quality of the tobacco by compelling a division of its
nutriment during the act of maturation. The planter is
therefore careful to destroy these intruders with the thumb
nail, as in the act of topping. This superfluity of vegetation,
like that of the top, has been often the subject of legislative
care; and the policy of supporting the good name of the
Virginia produce has dictated the wisdom of penal laws to
maintain her good faith against imposition upon strangers
who trade with her.”
The ripening of the suckers not only proves injurious to
the quality of the leaf but retards their size and maturity
and if allowed to continue, prevents them from attaining
their largest possible growth.
On large, strong, growing plants the growth of suckers is
SUCKERS.
very rank after attaining a length of from six to ten inches,
and when fully grown bearing flowers like the parent stalk.
After growing for a length of time they become tough and
attached so firmly to the stem of the leaf and stalk that they
ia
fy
NICOTINE QUALITIES. 929
are broken off with difficulty, frequently detaching the leaf
with them. The growth of the suckers, however, determines
the quality as well as the maturity of the plants.
Weak, spindling plants rarely produce large, vigorous.
shoots, the leaves of such suckers are generally small and of
a yellowish color. When the plants are fully ripe and ready
to harvest the suckers will be found to be growing vigorously
around the root of the plant. This is doubtless the best
evidence of its maturity, more reliable by far than any other
as it denotes the ripening of the entire plant. Suckering
the plants hastens the ripening of the leaves, and gives a
lighter shade of color, no matter on what soil the plants are
grown. Having treated at some length of the various parts
of the tobacco plant—stalk, leaves, flowers, capsules and
suckers we come now to its nicotine properties. The
tobacco plant, as is well known, produces a virulent poison
known as Nicotine. This property, however, as well as
others as violent is found in many articles of food, includ-
ing the potato together with its stalk and leaves ; the effects
re which may be experienced by chewing a small quantity
of the latter. The New Edinburgh Encyclopedia says:
“The peculiar effect produced by using tobacco bears some
resemblance to intoxication and is excited by an essential
oil which in its pure state is 80 powerful as to eae life
_even in very minute quantity.”
~~ Chemistry has taught us that nicotine is only. one among
"many principles which are contained in the plant. It is
supposed by many but not substantiated by chemical
research that nicotine is not the flavoring agent which gives
tobacco its essential and peculiar varieties of odor. Such
are most probably given by the essential oils, which vary in
amount in different species of the plant.
An English writer says:
“Nicotine is disagreeable to the habitual smoker, as is
proved by the increased demand for clean pipes or which by
some mechanical contrivance get rid of the nicotine.”
The late Dr. Blotin tested by numerous experiments the
effects of nicotine on the various parts of the organization of
\
$0 MEDICINAL PROPERTIES.
man. While the physiological effects of nicotine may be
interesting to the medical practitioner, they will hardly inter-
est the general reader unless it can be shown that the effects
ef nicotine and tobacco should be proved to be indentical.
We are loth to leave this subject, however, as it is so-
. intimately connected with the history of the plant, without
treating somewhat of its medicinal properties which to many
are of more interest than its social qualities. The Indians
not only used the plant socially, religiously, but. medicinally,
Their Medicine men prescribed its use in various ways for
‘most diseases common among them. The use thus made of
‘the plant attracted the attention of the Spanish and English,
far more than its use either as a means of enjoyment or as a
religious act. When introduced to the Old World, its claims
as a remedy for most diseases gave it its popularity and.
served to increase its use. It was styled “Sana sancta
Indorum—” “ Herbe propre & tous maux,” and physicians
claimed that it was “the most sovereign and precious weed.
that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.” As early
as 1610, three years after the London and Plymouth Compa-
nies settled in Virginia, and some years before it began to be.
cultivated by them as an article of export, it had attracted
the attention of English physicians, who seemed to take as
much delight in writing of the sanitary uses of the herb as
they did in smoking the balmy leaves of the plant.
Dr. Edmund Gardiner, “ Practitioner of Physicke,” issued
in 1610 a volume entitled, “The Triall of Tobacco,” setting
forth its curative powers. Speaking of its use he says:
“Tobacco is not violent, and therefore may in my judge-
ment bee safely put in practise. Thus then yon plainly see
that all medicines, and especially tobacco, being rightly and
rationally used, is a noble medicine and contrariwise not in-
his due time with other circumstances considered, it doth no
more than a nobleman’s shooe doth in healing the gout in
the foot.”
Dr. Verner of Bath, in his Treatise concerning the taking
the fume of tobacco (1637) says that when “ taken moderately
and at fixed times with its proper adjunct, which (as they doe
IMPROVEMENT IN PLANTS. $1
suppose) is a cup of sack, they think it be no bad physick.”
Dr. William Barclay in his work on Tobacco, (1614)
declares “that it worketh wonderous cures.” He not only.
defends the herb but the “land where it groweth.” At this
time the tobacco plant like Indian Corn was very small,
possessing but few of the qualities now required to make it
merchantable; When first exported to Spain and Portugal
from the West Indies and South America, and even by the
English from Virginia, the leaf was dark in color and strong
and rank in flavor. This, however, seems to have been the
standard in regard to some varieties while others are spoken
of by some of the early writers upon tobacco as “sweet.”
The tobacco (uppowoc) grown by the Indians in America,
at the time of its discovery, and more particularly in North
America, would compare better with the suckers of the
largest varieties of the plant rather than with even the small-
est species of the plant now cultivated. At the present time
tobacco culture is considered a science in order to secure the
colors in demand, and that are fashionable, and also the
_ right texture of leaf now so desirable in all tobaccos designed
for wrappers. Could the Indians, who cultivated the plant
on the banks of the James, the Amazon and other rivers of
America, now look upon the plant growing in rare luxuriance
upon the same fields where they first raised it, they could
hardly realize them to be the same varieties that they had
previously planted.
ye
CHAPTER II.
TOBACCO. ITS DISCOVERY.
FeV EARLY four hundred years have passed away
PUN. since the tobacco plant and its use was introduced
to the civilized world. It was in the month of
November, 1492, that the sailors of Columbus in
exploring the island of Cuba first noted the mode of using
tobacco. They found the Indians carrying lighted firebrands
(as they at first supposed) and puffed the smoke inhaled from
their mouths and nostrils.
The Spaniards concluded that this was a method common
with them of perfuming themselves ;,but its frequent use soon
taught them that it was the dried leaves of a plant which
they burned inhaling and exhaling the smoke. It attracted
the attention of the Spaniards no less from its novelty than
from the effect produced by the indulgence.
The use of tobacco by the Indians was entirely new to the
Spanish discoverers and when in 1503 they landed in various
parts of South Anierica they found that both chewing and
smoking the herb was a common custom with the natives.
But while the Indians and their habits attracted the attention
of the Spanish sailors Columbus was more deeply interested |
in the great continent and the luxuriant tropical growth to
be seen on every hand. Columbus himself says of it :—
“Everything invited me to settle here. The beauty of
the streams, the clearness of the water, through which I
could see the sandy bottom; the multitude of palm-trees of —
different kinds, the tallest and finest I had ever seen; and
an infinite number of other large and flourishing trees; the
EARLY USE. . 33
birds, and the verdure of the plains, are so amazingly beauti-
ful, that this country excelles all others as far as the day sur-
passes the night in splendor.”
Lowe, gives the following account of the discovery of
tobacco and its uses :—
' “The discovery of this plant is supposed to have been
made by Fernando Cortez in Yucatan in the Gulf of Mexico,
where he found it used universally, and held in a species of
veneration by the simple natives. He made himself ac-
quainted with the uses and supposed virtues of the plant and
the manner of cultivating it, and sent plants to Spain, as part
of the spoils and treasures of his new-found World.”
Oviedo* is the first author who gives a clear account of
smoking among the Indians of Hispaniolat. He alludes to
\it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce
insensibility. Their mode of using
it was by inhalation and éxpelling’]
the smoke through the nostrils by
means of a hollow forked cane or.
hollow reed. Oviedo describes them
as “about a span long; and when
used the forked ends are inserted in
the nostrils, the other end being ap-
plied to the burning leaves of ‘the
herb, using the herb in this manner
| stupefied them producing a kind of PRIMITIVE PIPR.
intoxication.”
Of the early accounts of the plant and its use, Beckman a
German writer says :—
“In 1496, Romanus Pane, a Spanish monk, whom Colum-
bus, on his second departure from America, had left in that
country, published the first account of tobacco with which he
became acquainted in St. Domingo. He gave it the name of
Cohoba Cohobba, Gioia. In 1585, the negroes had already
habituated themselves to the use of tobacco, and cultivated it ,
in the plantations of their masters. Europeans likewise al-
ready smoked it.” P
An early writer thus alludes to the use of tobacco among
the East Indians :—
*Historia General de los Incios 1526.
tSt. Domingo.
84 ORIGIN OF ITS NAME.
“The East Indians do use to make little balls of the juice
of the hearbe tobaco and the ashes of cockle-shells wrought
up together, and dryed in the shadow, and in their travaile
they place one of the balls between their neather lip and
their teeth, sucking the same continually, and letting down
the moysture, and it keepeth them both from hunger and
thirst for the space of three or four days.”
Oviedo says of the implements used by the Indians in
smoking :—
“The hollow cane used by them is called tobaco and that
that name is not given to the plant or to the stupor caused by
its use.”
A writer alluding to the same subject says :—
\ “The name tobacco is supposed to be derived from the In-
dian tobaccos, given by the Caribs to the pipe in which they
smoked the plant.”
Others derive it from Tabasco, a province of Mexico;
others from the island of Tobago one of the Caribbees; and
others from Tobasco in the gulf of Florida.
Tomilson says :—
“The word tobacco appears to have been applied by the
caribbees to the pipe in which they smoked the herb while
the Spaniards distinguished the herb itself by that name.
The more probable derivation of the word is from a place
called Tobaco in Yucatan from which the herb was first sent
to the New World.”
Humboldt says concerning the name :—
“The word Tobacco like maize, savannah, cacique, maguey
(agave) and manato, belong to the ancient language of Hayti,
or St. Domingo. It did not properly denote the herb, but
the tube through which the smoke was inhaled. It seems
surprising that a vegetable production so universally spread
should have different names among neighboring people. The!
pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt, the pety of the Gua-
ranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and Algonkin (or
Lenni-Lennope) words which denote tobacco may be merely
accidental. The following are the synonymes in five lan-
guages: Aztec or Mexican, yeél; Huron, oyngona; Peruvian,
sayri; Brazil, piecelt; Moxo, sabare.”
Roman Pane who accompanied Columbus on his second
voyage alludes to another method of using the herb. They
EARLY SNUFF-TAKING. 835
make a powder of the leaves, which “they take through a
eane half a cubit long; one end of this they place in the
nose, and the other upon the powder, and so draw it up,
which purges them very much.”
- This is doubtless the first account that we have of snuff-
taking; Fairholt says concerning its use :—
“Tts effects upon the Indians in both instances seem to
have been more violent and peculiar than upon Europeans
since.”
This may be accounted for from the fact of the imperfect
method of curing tobacco adopted by them and all of the
natives up to the period of the settlement of Virginia by the
English. As nearly all of the early voyagers allude to the
plant and especially to its use it would seem probable that it
had been cultivated from time immemorial by all the native
people of the Orinoco ; and at the period of the conquest the
habit of smoking was found to be alike spread over both
North and South America. The Tamanacs and the May-
pures of Guiana wrap maize leaves round their cigars as the
Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortez. The
Spaniards since have substituted paper for the leaves of
maize, in imitation of them.
“The poor Indians of the forests of the Orinoco know as
well as did the great nobles at
the court of Montezuma, that
the smoke of tobacco is an ex-
Tobacco at this period was *
also rolled up in the leaves of ¢
the Palm and smoked. Oolum-
bus found the natives of San Sais saneane
Salvador smoking after this
manner. Lobel in his History of Plants* gives an engraving
* History of Plants, 1576.
36 TOBACCO IN MEXICO.
of a native smoking one of these rolls or primitive cigars
and speaks of their general use by Captains of ships trading
to the West Indies.
But not only was snuff taking and the use of tobacco rolls
or cigars noted by European voyagers, but the use of the pipe
also in some parts of America, seemed to be a common cus-
tom especially among the chiefs. Be Bry in his History of
Brazil (1590) describes its use and also some interesting
particulars concerning the plant. Their method of curing
the leaves was to air-dry them and then packing them until
wanted for use. In smoking he says :—
“When the leaves are well dried they place in the open
part of a pipe of which on burning, the smoke is inhaled
into the mouth by the more narrow part of the pipe, and so
strongly that it flows out of the mouth and nostrils, and by
that means effectually drives out humours.”
Fairholt in alluding to the various uses of the herb among
the Indians says :—
“We can thus trace to South America, at the period when
the New World was first discovered, every mode of using the
tobacco plant which the Old World has indulged in ever
since.”
This statement is not entirely correct—the mode of using
_tobacco in Norway by plugging the nostrils with small pieces
of tobacco seems to have been unknown among the Indians
of America as it is now with all other nationalities, excepting
the Norwegians.
' When Cortez made conquest of Mexico in 1519 smoking.
seemed to be a common as well as an ancient custom among
the natives. Benzoni in his History of the New World*
describing his travels in America gives a detailed account of
the plant and their method of curing and using it. In both
North and South America the use of tobacco seemed to be
universal among all the tribes and beyond all question the
custom of using the herb had its origin among them. The
traditions of the Indians all confirm its ancient source ; they
considered the plant as a gift from the Great Spirit for their
* From 1541 to 1556.
COMPARATIVE QUALITIES OF TOBACCO. 387
comfort and enjoyment and one which the Great Spirit also
indulged in, consequently with them smoking partook of the
character of a moral if nota religiousact. The use of tobacco
in sufficient quantities to produce intoxication seemed to bea
favorite remedy for most diseases among them and was
administered by their doctors or medicine-men in large quan-
tities. Benzoni gives an engraving of their mode of inhaling
the smoke and says of its use :—
“In La Espanola, when their doctors wanted to cure a
sick man, they went to the place where they were to ad-
minister the smoke, and when he was thoroughly intoxicated
by it, the cure was mostly effected. On returning to his
senses he told a thousand stories of his having been at the
council of the gods, and other high visions.”
It can hardly be supposed that while the custom of using
tobacco among the Indians in both North and South America
was very general and the mode of use the same, that the
plant grown was of the same quality in one part asin another.
While the rude culture of the natives would hardly tend to
an improvement in quality; the climate being varied would
no doubt have much to do with the size and quality of the
plant. This would seem the more probable for as soon as its
cultivation began in Virginia by the English colonists it had
successful rivals in the tobacco of the West Indies and South
America. Robertson says :— .
“Virginia tobacco was greatly inferior to that raised by the
Spaniards in the West Indies and which sold for six times as
much as Virginia tobacco.” *
But not only has the name tobacco and the implements
employed in its use caused much discussion but also the
origin of the plant.
Some writers affirm that it came from Asia and that it was
first grown in China having been used by the Chinese long
before the narcotic properties of opium were known. Tatham
in his work on Tobacco says of its origin in substantial
agreement with La Bott :—
“It is generally understood that the tobacco plant of
* West India tobacco sold for 18 shillings per pound and Virginia for 8 a,
38 “ORIGIN OF THE PLANT.
Virginia is a native production of the country; but whether
it was found in a state of natural growth there, or a plant
cultivated by the Indian natives, is a point of which we are
not informed, nor which ever can be farther elucidated than
by the corroboration of historical facts and conjectures. I
have been thirty years ago, and the greatest part of my time
during that period, intimately acquainted with the interior
parts of America; and have been much in the unsettled parts
of the country, among those kinds of soil which are favora-
ble to the cultivation of tobacco; but I do not recollect one
single instance where I have met with tobacco growing wild
in the woods, although I have often found a few spontaneous
lants about the arable.and trodden grounds of deserted
lishitatone: This circumstance, as well as that of its being
now, and having been, cultivated by the natives at the period
of European discoveries, inclines towards a supposition that
this plant is not anative of North America, but may possibly
have found its way thither with the earliest migrations from
some distant land. This might, indeed, have easily been the
case from South America, by way of the Isthmus of Panama;
and the foundation of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations
(who we have reasons to consider as descendants from the
Tloseolians, and to have migrated to the eastward of the
river Mississippi, about the time of the Spanish conquest of
Mexico by Cortez), seems to have afforded one fair oppor-
tunity for its dissemination.”
The first knowledge which the English discoverers had ‘of
the plant was in 1565 when they found it growing in Florida,
one hundred and seventy-three years after it was first dis-
covered by Columbus on the island of Cuba. Sir John
Hawkins says of its use in Florida :—
“The Floridians, when they travel, have a kind of herb
dried, which with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with
fire and the dried herbs put together, do suke through the
cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger,
and therewith they live four or five dayes without meat or
drinke, and this all the Frenchmen used for this purpose: yet
do they holde opinion withall, that it causeth water and
steame to void from their stomacks.”
This preparation might not have been tobacco as the
Indians smoke a kind of bark which they scrape from the
killiconick, an aromatic shrub, in form resembling the willow;
\
EARLY MAMMOTH CIGARS, B9
they use also a preparation made with this and sumach leaves,
or sometimes with the latter mixed with tobacco. Lionel
Wafer in his travels upon the Isthmus of Darien in 1699
saw the plant growing and cultivated by the natives. He
says :—
“These Indians have tobacco amongst them. It grdws as
the tobacco in Virginia, but is not so strong, perhaps for
want of transplanting and manuring, which the Indians do
not well understand, for they only raise it from the seed in
their plantations. When it is dried and cured they strip it
from the stalks, and laying two or three leaves upon one
another, they roll up all together sideways into a long roll,
yet leaving a little hollow. Round this they roll other leaves
one after another, in the same manner, but close and hard,
till the roll be as big as one’s wrist, and two or three feet in
length. Their way of smoking when they are in company
is thus: a boy lights one end of a roll and burns it to a coal,
wetting the part next it to keep it from wasting too fast.
The end so lighted he puts into his mouth, and blows the
smoke through the whole length of the roll into the face of
every one of the company or council, though there be two or
three hundred of them. Then they, sitting in their usual
osture upon forms, make with their hands held together a
Kind of funnel round their mouths and noses. Into this they
receive the smoke as it is blown upon them, snuffing it up
greedily and strongly as long as ever they are able to hold
their breath, and seeming to bless themselves, as it were, with
the refreshment it gives them.”
In the year 1534 James Cartier a Frenchman was com-
missioned to explore the coast of North America, with a view
to find a place for a colony. He observed that the natives
of Canada used the leaves of an herb which they preserved
in pouches made of skins and smoked in stone pipes. It
being offensive to the French, they took none of it with
them on their return. But writing more particularly con-
cerning the plant he says :—
“Tn Hochelaga, up the river in Canada there groweth a
certain kind of herb whereof in Summer they make a great
provision for all the year, making great account of it, and
only men use of it, and first they cause it to be dried in the
Sune,’ then wear it about their necks wrapped in a little
beast’s skine made like a bagge, with a hollow piece of stone
40 SACREDNESS OF THE PIPE.
r wood like a pipe, then when they please they make
Hoar of it, and fnen put it in one of the ends of the said
Cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the other
end and suck so long, that they fill their bodides full of
smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils,
even as out of the Tonnel of achimney. They say that this
doth keepe them warme and in health, they never goe with-
out some of this about them.”
Be Bry in his History of Brazil 1590 gives an engraving
of anative smoking a pipe and a
female offering him a handful of
tobacco leaves. The pipe has a
modern look and is altogether un-
like those found by the English in
use among the Indians in Virginia.
An English writer says of the
" Tobacco using races :—
OLD ENGRAVING. “From the evidence collected by
travellers and archeologists, as to
the native arts and relics connected with the use of Tobacco
by the Red Indians, it would appear that not one tribe has
been found which was unacquainted with the custom,* its
use being as well known to the tribes of the North-west and
the denizens of the snowy wilds of Canada, as to the races
inhabiting Central America and the West India Islands.”
Father Francisco Creuxio states that the Jesuit mission-
aries found the weed extensively used by the Indians of the
Seventeenth Century. In 1629 he found the Hurons smoking
the dried leaves and stalks of the Tobacco plant or petune.
Many tribes of Indians consider that Tobacco is a gift ~
bestowed by the Great Spirit as a means of enjoyment. In
e e . .
consequence of this belief the pipe became sacred, and
smoking became a moral if not a religious act, amongst the
North American Indians. The Iroquois are of opinion that
by burning Tobacco they could send up their prayers to the
Great Spirit with the ascending incense, thus maintaining
* Arnold in his History of Rhode Island refers to the planting of tobacco by the Indians
when the State was first settled. Elliot also saysin his History oF the same State: :—* Tobacco
was universal, every man carrying his pipe and bag; and in its cultivation only, did the
men condescend te Havor, 3 but ocaelons dy all sould. Join the whole neighborhood, men,
a ren, when some one’s field was to be broken
sociable, speedy time of it.” i ia aaa
EARLY CULTIVATION. 41
communication with the spirit world; and Dr, Daniel Wilson
suggests that “the practice of smoking originated in the use
of the intoxicating fumes for purposes of divination, and
other superstitious rites.”
When an Indian goes on an expedition, whether of peace
or war, his pipe is his constant companion; it is to him what
salt is among Arabs: the pledge of fidelity and the seal of
treaties. In the words of a Review:
“ Tobacco supplies one of the few comforts by which men
who live by their hands, solace themselves under incessant
hardship.”
While the presence, and use of tobacco by the natives of
America are among the most interesting features connected
with its history, it can hardly be more so than is its early
cultivation by the Spaniards, English and Dutch, and after-
ward by the French. The cultivation of the plant began in
the West India Islands and South America early in the Six-
teenth Century. In Cuba its culture commenced in 1580, and
from this and the other islands large quantities were shipped
to Europe. It was also cultivated near Varina in Columbia,
while Amazonian tobacco had acquired an enviable reputation
as well as Varinian, long before its cultivation began in Vir-
ginia by the English. At this period of its culture in
America the entire product was sent to Spain and Portugal,
and from thence to France and Great Britain and other
countries of Europe. The plant and its use attracted at
once the attention as well as aroused the cupidity of the
Spaniards, who prized it as one of their greatest discoveries.
As soon as Tobacco was introduced into Europe by the
Spaniards, and its use became a general custom, its sale
increased as extensively as its cultivation. . At this period it
brought enormous prices, the finest selling at from fifteen to
eighteen shillings per pound. Its cultivation by the
Spaniards in various portions of the New World proved to
them not only its real value as an article of commerce, but
also that several varieties of the plant existed; as on
removal from one island or province to another it changed in
size and quality of leaf. Varinas tobacco at this time was
42 PROPORTIONS OF THE TOBACCO TRADE.
one of the finest tobaccos known,* and large quantities
were shipped to Spain and Portugal. The early voyagers
little dreamed, however, of the vast proportions to be
assumed by the trade in the plant which they had dis-.
covered, and which in time proved a source of the greatest
profit not only to the European colonies, but to the dealers in
the Old World.
Helps, treating'on this same subject, says:
“Tt is interesting to observe the way in which a new pro-
duct is introduced to the notice of the Old World—a
product that was hereafter to become, not only an' unfailing
source of pleasure to a large section of the whole part of
mankind, from the highest to the lowest, but was also
to distinguish itself as one of those commodities for revenue,
which are the delight of statesmen, the great financial
resource of modern nations, and which afford a means
of indirect taxation that has perhaps nourished many a war,
and prevented many a revolution. The importance, financi-
ally and commercially speaking, of this discovery of
tobacco—a discovery which in the end proved more produc-
tive to the Spanish crown than that of the gold mines of the
Indies.”
Spain and Portugal in all their colonies fostered and
encouraged its cultivation and then at once ranked as.
the best producers and dealers in tobacco. The varieties
grown by them in the West Indies and South America were
highly esteemed and commanded much higher prices than
that grown by the English and Dutch colonies. In 1620,
however, the Dutch merchants were the largest. wholesale
tobacconists in Europe, and the people of Holland, generally,
the greatest consumers of the weed.
The expedition of 1584, under the auspices of Sir Walter
Raleigh, which resulted in the discovery of Virginia, also
introduced the tobacco plant, among other novelties, to the
attention of the English. Hariot,+ who sailed with this
expedition, says of the plant:
“There is an herb which is sowed apart by itselfe, and is
*Trinidad tob: was then idered the finest.
tA brief and true Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (London, 1588).
QUAINT DESCRIPTION. 43
called by the inhabitants uppowoc. In the West Indies it
hath divers names, according to the severall places and coun-
tries where it groweth and is used; the Spaniards generally
call it Tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought
into powder, they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by
sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomacke.
and heade, from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and
other grosse humors; openeth all the pores and passages of
the body; by which means the use thereof not only preserv-
eth the body from obstructions, but also if any be so that
they have not beene of too long continuance, in short time
breaketh them; wheréby their bodies are notably preserved
in health, and know not many grievous diseases wherewithall
we in England are oftentimes affected. This uppowoc is of
so precious estimation amongest them that they thinke their
gods are marvellously delighted therewith ; whereupon some-
time they make halowed fires, and cast some of the powder
therein for a sacrifise. Being in a storme uppon the waters,
to pacifie their gods, they cast some up into the aire and into
the water: so a weave for fish being newly set up, they cast
some therein and into the aire; also after an escape of danger
they cast some into the aire likewise; but all done with
strange gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of
hands, holding up of hands, and staring up into the heavens,
uttering there withal and chattering strange wordes, and
noises. !
“We ourselves during the time we were there used to suck
it after their manner, as also since our returne, and have
found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues
thereof; of which the relation would require a volume of
itselfe; the use of it by so manie of late, men and women,
of great calling as else, and some learned phisitions also is
sufficient witnes.”
The natives also when Drake* landed in Virginia,
“brought a little basket made of rushes, and filled with an
herbe which they called Tobah;” they “came also the
second time to us bringing with them as before had been
done, feathers and bags of Tobah for presents, or rather
indeed for sacrifices, upon this persuasion that we were
gods.” .
William Stracheyt+ says of tobacco and its cultivation by
the Indians:
*The World Encompassed. London, 1628.
+ The Historie of Travaile into Virginta Britannica."
44 VARIETY OF KINDS.
“Here is great store of tobacco, which the salvages call
apooke: howbeit it is not of the best kynd, it 1s but poor and
weake, and of a byting taste; it grows not fully a yard
above ground, bearing a little yellow flower like to henbane ;
the leaves are short and thick, somewhat round at the upper
end; whereas the best tobacco of Trynidado and the Oro-
noque, is large, sharpe, and growing two or three yardes
from the ground, bearing a flower of the breadth of our bell-
flower, in England; the salvages here dry the leaves of this
apooke over the fier, and sometymes in the sun, and crumble
yt into poudre, stalk, leaves, and all, taking the same in
pipes of earth, which very ingeniously they can make.”
ap It would seem then, if the
account given by Strachey
be correct, that the tobacco
cultivated by the Indians
of North America was of
4 inferior growth and quality
to that grown in many por-
tions of South America, and
more particularly in the
West India islands. As
there are still many varie-
== ties of the plant grown in
SHE CONTRAST: America, so there doubtless
was when cultivated by the Indians. While most probably
the quality of leaf remained the same from generation to
generation, still in some portions of America, owing more to
the soil and climate than the mode of cultivating by them,
they cured very good tobacco. We can readily see how this
might have been, from numerous experiments made with
both American and European varieties. Nearly all of the
early Spanish, French and English voyagers who landed in
America were attracted by the beauty of the country. Ponce
De Leon, who sailed from Spain to the Floridas, was charmed
by the plants and flowers, and doubtless the first sight of
them strengthened his belief in the existence somewhere in:
this tropical region of the fountain of youth.
The discovery of tobacco proved of the greatest advantage
TOBACCO AND COMMERCE. 45
‘
to the nations who fostered its growth,—and increased
the commerce of both England and Spain, doing much to
make the latter what it once was, one of the most powerful
nations of Europe and possessor of the largest and richest
colonies, while it greatly helped the former, already unsur-
passed in intelligence and civilization, to reach its present
position at the commercial head of the nations of. the world.
As Spain, however, has fallen from the high place she once
held, her colonial system has also gone down. And while
England, thanks to her more liberal policy, still retains a
large share of the territory which she possessed at first,
Spain, which once held sway over a vast portion of America,
has been deprived of nearly all of her colonies, and ere long
may lose control of the island on which the discoverer of
America first saw the plant.*
It is an historical fact that wherever in the English and
Spanish colonies civilization has taken the deepest root, so
has also the plant which has become as famous as any of the
great tropical products of the earth. The relation existing
between the balmy plant and the commerce of the world is
of the strongest kind. Fairholt has well said, that “the
revenue brought to our present Sovereign Lady from this
source alone is greater than that Queen Elizabeth received
from the entire customs of the country.”
The narrow view of commercial policy held by her
successors, the Stuarts, induced them to hamper the colonists.
of America with restrictions; because they were alarmed
lest the ground should be entirely devoted to tobacco. Had
not this Indian plant been discovered, the whole history
of some portions of America would have been far different.
In the West Indies three great products—Coffee, Sugar-
Cane, and Tobacco,—have proved sources of the greatest
wealth—and wherever introduced, have developed to a great
extent the resources of the islands. Thus it may.be seen
that while the Spaniards by the discovery and colonization
“Spain has doubtless conquered more of the Earth's surface than any other modern
nation ; and her peculiar national character has also caused her to make the worst use of
them. ‘It was always easier for the Moor to conquer than to make a good use of his con- |
quests; and go it has always been with Spain.”
46 ORIGINAL CULTURE.
of large portions of America strengthened the currency of
the world, the English alike, by the cultivation of the plant,
gave an impetus to commerce still felt and continued
throughout all parts of the globe.
An English writer has truthfully observed that “ Tobacco
is like Elias’ cloud, which was no bigger than a man’s hand,
that hath suddenly covered the face of the earth; the low;
countries, Germany, Poland, Arabia, Persia, Turkey, almost
all countries, drive a trade of it; and there is no commodity
that hath advanced so many from small fortunes to gain great
estates in the world. Sailors will be supplied with it for
their long voyages. Soldiers cannot (but) want it when
they keep guard all night, or upon other hard duties in cold
and tempestuous weather. Farmers, ploughmen, and
almost all labouring men, plead for it. If we reflect upon
our forefathers, and that within the time of less than one
hundred years, before the use of tobacco came to be known
amongst us, we cannot but wonder how they did to subsist
without it; for were the planting or traffick of tobacco now
hindered, millions of this nation in all probability must
perish for the want of food, their whole livelihood almost
depending upon it.”
When first discovered in America, and particularly by
the English in Virginia, the plant was cultivated only
by the females of the tribes, the chiefs and warriors
engaging only in the chase or following the war-
path. They cultivated a few plants around their wig-
wams, and cured a few pounds for their own use. The
smoke, as it ascended from their pipes and circled around
their rude huts and out into the air, seemed typical of the
race—the original cultivators and smokers of the plant.
But, unlike the great herb which they cherished and gave to
civilization, they have gradually grown weak in numbers and
faded away, while the great plant has gone on its way, ever
assuming more and more sway over the commercial and
social world, until it now takes high rank among the leading
elements of mercantile and agricultural greatness.
CHAPTER III.
TOBACCO IN AMERICA.
RYZE do not find in any accounts of the English
voyagers made previous to 1584, any mention of the
discovery of tobacco, or its use among the Indians.
This may appear alittle strange, as Captains Amidas
and Barlow, who sailed from England under the auspices of
“Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, on returning from Virginia, had
brought home with them pearls and tobacco among other
curiosities. But while we have no account of those who
returned from the voyage made in 1602 taking any tobacco
with them, it is altogether probable that those who remained
took a lively interest in the plant and the Indian mode of
use; for we find that in nine years after they landed at
Jamestown tobacco had become quite an article of culture
and commerce.
Hamo in alluding to the early cultivation of tobacco by
the colony, says, that John Rolfe was the pioneer tobacco
planter. In his words:
“T may not forget the gentleman worthie of much com-
mendations, which first took the pains to make triall thereof,
his name Mr. Jobn Rolfe, Anno Domini 1612, partly for the
love he hath a long time borne unto it, and partly to raise
commodities to the adventurers, in whose behalfe I intercede
and vouchsafe to hold my testimony in beleefe that during
the time of his aboade there, which draweth neere sixe years
48 FIRST GENERAL PLANTING.
no man hath laboured to his power there, and worthy incour-
agement unto England, by his letters than he hath done,
ff = iY
pee e
=a
y.
Wy
| y
JOHN ROLFE,
witness his niarriage with Powhatan’s daughter one of rude
education, manners barbarous, and cursed generation merely
for the good and honor of the plantation.”
The first general planting of tobacco by the colony began
according to this writer—“at West and Sherley Hundred
(seated on the north. side of the river, lower than the Ber-
mudas three or four myles) where are twenty-five commanded
by capten Maddeson—who are imployed onely in planting
and curing tobacco.”
This was in 1616, when the colony numbered only three
hundred and fifty-one persons. Rolfe, in his relation of the
state of Virginia, written and addressed to the King, gives
the following description of the condition of the colony in
1616:
STATE.OF THE COLONY. 49
“Now that your highness may with the more ease under-
stand in what condition the colony standeth, I have briefly
sett downe the manner of all men’s several imployments, the
number of them, and the several places of their aboad, which
places or seates are all our owne ground, not so much b
conquest, which the Indians hold a just and lawfull title, but
purchased of them freely, and they verie willingly selling it.
The places which are now possessed and inhabited are sixe :—
Henrico and the lymitts, Bermuda Nether hundred, West
and Sherley hundred, James. Towne, Kequoughtan, and
Dales-Gift. The generall mayne body of. the planters are
divided into Officers, Laborers, Farmors.
“The officers have the charge and care as well over the
farmors as laborers generallie—that they watch and ward for
their preservacions; and that both the one and the other’s
busines may be daily followed to the performance of those
imployments, which from the one are required, and the other
by covenant are bound unto. These officers are bound to
maintayne themselves and families with food and rayment
by their owne and their servant’s industrie. The laborers
are of two sorts. Some employed onely in the generall
works, who. are fedd and clothed out of the store—others,
- specially artificers as smiths, carpenters, shoemakers, taylors,
tanners, &c., doe worke in their. professions for the colony,
and maintayne themselves with food ann apparrell, having
time lymitted them to till and manure their ground.
“ The farmors live at most ease—yet by their good endeav-
ors bring yearlie much plentie to the plantation. They are
bound by covenant, both for themselves and servants, to
maintaine your Ma’ties right and title in that kingdom,
against all foreigne and domestique enemies. To watch and
ward in the townes where they are resident. To do thirty-
one dayes service for the colony, when they shalbe called
thereunto—yet not at all tymes, but when their owne busines |
can best spare them. To maintayne themselves and families
with food and rayment—and every farmor to pay yearlie
into the magazine for himself and every man servant, two
barrells and a halfe of English measure.
“Thus briefly have I sett downe every man’s particular
imployment and manner of living; albeit, lest the people—
who generallie are bent to covett after gaine, especially hav-
ing tasted of the sweete of their labors—should spend too
much of their tyme and labor in planting tobacco, known to
them to be verie vendible in England, and so neglect, their
tillage of corne, and fall into want thereof, it is provided for
4
50 CONDITIONS OF RAISING TOBACCO.
—by the providence and care of Sir Thomas Dale—that no
farmor or other, who must maintayne themselves—shall plant
any tobacco, unless he shall yearely manure, set and main-
tayne for himself and every man servant two acres of ground ,
with corne, which doing they may plant as much tobacco as
they will, els all their tobacco shalbe forfeite to the colony—
by which meanes the magazine shall yearely be sure to
receave their rent of corne; to maintayne those who are fedd
thereout, being but a few, and manie others, if need be; they
‘themselves will be well stored to keepe their families with
overplus, and reape tobacco enough to buy clothes and such
other necessaries as are needful for themselves and household.
For an easie laborer will keepe and tend two acres of corne,
and cure a good store of tobacco—being yet the principall
commoditie the colony for the present yieldeth.
“For which as for other commodities, the councell and
company for Virginia have already sent a ship thither, fur-
nished with all manner of clothing, household stuff and such
necessaries, to establish a magazine there, which the people
shall buy at easie rates for their commodities—they selling
them at such prices that the adventurers may be no loosers.
This magazine shalbe yearelie supplied to furnish them, if
they will endeavor, by their labor, to maintayne it—which
wilbe rhuch beneficiall to the planters and adventurers, by
interchanging their commodities, and will add much encour-
agement to them and others to preserve and follow the action
with a constant resolution to uphold the same.”
The colony at this time was engaged in planting corn and
tobacco, “making pitch and tarr, potashes, charcole, salt,”
and in fishing. Of Jamestown he says:
“At James Toune (seated on the north side of the river,
from West and Sherley Hundred lower down about thirty-
seven miles) are fifty, under the command of lieutenant
Sharpe, in the absence of capten Francis West, Esq., brother
to the right ho’ble the L. Lawarre,—whereof thirty-one are
farmors; all theis maintayne themselves with food and ray-
ment. Mr. Richard Buck minister there—a verie good
preacher.”
Rev. Hugh Jones “ Chaplain to the Honourable Assembly,
and lately Minister of James-Towne and in Virginia,” in a
work entitled—“ The Present State of Virginia,” gives the
following account of the cultivation of tobacco: .
“When a tract of land is seated, they clear it by felling
TOBACCO FIELDS, 1620. al
the trees about a yard from the ground, lest they should
shoot again. What wood they have occasion for they carry
off, and burn the rest, or let it lie and rot upon the ground.
The land between the logs and stumps they hoe up, planting
VIRGINIA TOBACCO FIELD, 1620.
tobacco there in the spring, inclosing it with a slight fence of
cleft rails. This will last for tobacco some years, if the land
be good; as it is where fine timber, or grape vines grow.
Land when hired is forced to bear tobacco by penning their
cattle upon it; but cowpen tobacco tastes strong, and that
planted in wet marshy land is called nonburning tobacco,
which smoaks in the pipe like leather, unless it be of a good
e. When land is tired of tobacco, it will bear Indian Corn
or English Wheat, or any other European grain or seed with
wonderful increase.
“Tobacco and Indian Corne are planted in hills as hops,
and secured by worm fences, which are made of rails sup-
orting one another very firmly in a particular manner.
obacco requires a great deal of skill and trouble in the right
management of it. They raise the plants in beds, as we do
Cabbage plants; which they transplant and replant upon
oceasion after a shower of rain, which they call a season.
When it is grown up they top it, or nip off the head, suecour
52 INCREASE OF TOBACCO GROWING.
it, or cut off the ground leaves, weed it, hill it; and when
ripe, they cut it down about six or eight leaves on a stalk,.
which they carry into airy tobacco houses, after it is withered
a little in the sun, there it is hung to dry on sticks, as paper
at the paper-mills; when it is in proper case, (as they call it)
and the air neither too moist, nor too dry, they strike it, or
- take it down, then cover it up in bulk, or a great heap, where
it lies till they have leisure or occasion to strip it (that is pull
the leaves from the stalk) or stem it (that is to take out the
great fibres) and tie it up in hands, or streight lay it; and so
by degrees prize or press it with proper engines into great
Hogsheads, containing from about six to eleven hundred
pounds; fourof which Hogsheads make a tun by dimention,
not by weight; then it is ready for sale or shipping.
There are two sorts of tobacco, viz., Oroonoko the stronger,
and sweet-scented the milder; the first with a sharper leaf
like a Fox’s ear, and the other rounder and with finer fibres:
But each of these are varied into several sorts; much as
Apples and Pears are; and I have been informed by the
Indian traders, that the Inland Indians have sorts of tobacco
much differing from any planted or used by the Europeans.
The Indian Corn is planted in hills and weeded much as
tobacco. This grain is of great increase and most general
use; for with this is made good bread, cakes, mush, and
hommony for the negroes, which with good pork and potatoes
(red and white, very nice and different from ours) with other
roots and pulse, are their general food.”
The cultivation of tobacco increased with the growth of
the colony and the increase of price which at this time was
sufficient to induce most of the planters to neglect the cul-
ture of Corn and Wheat, devoting their time to growing
their “darling tobacco.” The first: thirty years after the
colonization of Virginia by the English, the colony made but
little progress owing in part to private factions and Indian
wars. The horrid massacres by the Indians threatened the
extermination of the colony, and for a time the plantations
were neglected and even tobacco became more of an article
of import than of export, which is substantiated by an early
writer of the colony who says:—“A vast quantity of
tobacco is consumed in the country in smoking, chewing, and
snuff.” Frequent complaints were made by the colony of
want of strength and danger of imminent famine, owing in
RESTRICTIONS ON TOBACCO-RAISING. 53
part to the presence of a greater number of adventurers than
of actual settlers,—such being the case the resources of the
country were in a measure limited.
The demand for tobacco in England increasing each year,
together with the high price paid for that from Virginia (8
s. per lb.), stimulated the planters to hazard all their time
and labor upon one crop, neglecting the cultivation of the
smaller grains, intent only upon curing “a good store of
tobacco.” The company of adventurers at length found it
necessary to check the excessive planting of the weed, and
by the consent of the “ Generall Assemblie” restraining the
plantations to “one hundred plants* ye headd, uppon each
of wich plantes there are to bee left butt onely nyne leaves
weh portions as neare as could be guessed, was generally
conceaved would be agreable with the hundred waight you
have allowed.”
In 1639 the “Grand Assembly” (summoned the sixth of
January) passed a law restricting the growth of the colony
to 1,500,000 Ibs., and to 1,200,000 in the two years next
ensuing. The exporting of the poorer qualities of tobacco
by the colony caused much dissatisfaction as will be seen by
a letter of the Company dated 11th September, 1621:
“We are assured from our Factor in Holland that except
the tobacco that shall next come thence prove to be of more
perfection and goodnesse than that was sent home last, there
is no hope that it vend att all, for albeit itt passed once yett
the wary buyer will not be againe taken, so that we heartily
wish that youe would make some provision for the burninge
of all base and rotten stuff, and not suffer any but very good
to be cured at least sent home, whereby these would certainly
be more advanced in the price upon lesse in the quantity;
howsoever we hope that no bad nor ill conditioned tobacco
shall be by compelling authoritie (abusing its power given
for public good to private benefit) putt uppon or Factor, and
very earnestly desire that he may have the helpe of justice
to constraine men to pay their debts unto him both remain-
ing of the last yeares accompt and what shall this yearse
growth deue, and that in Comodities of the same vallew and
goodness as shalbe by him contracted for.”
,SAnother account Is sixty pounds per head.
54 TOBACCO USED AS MONEY.
At this period it appears that tobacco was used as money,
and as the measure of price and value. The taxes whether
public, county, or parish, were payable in tobacco.
Tatham says, “ Even the tavern keepers were compelled to
exchange a dinner for a few pounds of tobacco.” The law
for the regulation of payments in tobacco was passed in the
year 1640. From these facts and incidents connected with
the culture and commerce of the plant we see how intimately
it was connected with both Church and State. Jones well
said “the Establishment is indeed tobacco ;” the salary of
ministers was payable in it according to the wealth of the
parish. In most parishes 16000 lbs. was the yearly amount,
“and in some 20,000 Ibs. of Tobacco; out of which there is a
deduction for Cask, prizing, collecting, and about which
allowance there are sometimes disputes, as are also differences
often about the place, time, and manner of delivering it ; but
all these things might easily be regulated. Tobacco is more
commonly at 20s. per cent. than at 10; so that certainly it
will bring 12 s. 8 d. a hundred, which will make 16000 (the
least salary) amount to 100£ per Ann. which it must cer-
tainly clear, allowing for all petty charges, out of the lowness
of the price stated which is less than the medium between
ten and twenty shillings; whereas it might be stated above
the medium, since it is oftener at twenty than: ten shillings.
Besides the payment of the salary, the surplice fees want a
better regulation in the payments; for though the allowance
be sufficient, yet differences often and illwill arise about these
fees, whether they are to be paid in money or tobacco, and
when; whereas by a small alteration and addition of a few
laws in these and the like respects, the clergy might live
more happy, peaceable, and better beloved; and the people
would be more easy, and pay never the more dues.
“Some parts of the country make but mean and poor
tobacco so that Clergymen don’t care to live in such parishes ;
but there the payment might be made in money, or in the
produce of those places, which might be equivalent to the
tobacco payments; better for the minister, and as pleasing to
the people.”
We find further complaints from the London Company of
the poor quality of the tobacco “sent home,” in a letter
addressed to the Governor, bearing date 10th June, 1622 i
“The tobacco sent home by the George for the company’
BUYING WIVES WITH TOBACCO. 55
proved very meane and is yett unsold although it hath been
offered at 3s. the pound. This we thought fitt to advise you
concerning the quantity and the manner how it is raised, in
both wich being done contrarie to their directors and
extreamly to theire prejudice, the Companie is very ill sattis-
fied, will write by the next, more largely.” ;
In the year 1620 the difficulties seem first to have been
publicly avowed, (though perhaps before felt,) arising from
attaching men as permanent settlers to the colony without
an adequate supply of women, to furnish the comforts of
domestic life; and to overcome the difficulty “a hundred
young women” of agreeable persons and respectable char-
acters, were selected in England and sent out, at the expense
of the Company, as wives for the settlers. They were very
speedily appropriated by the young men of the colony, who
paid for the privilege of choice considerable sums as. purchase
money, which went to replenish the treasury of the Company,
from whence the cost of their outfit and passage had been
defrayed.
This speculation proved so advantageous to that body, in
a pecuniary sense, that it was soon followed up by sending
out sixty more, for whom larger prices were paid than for
the first consignment; the amount paid on the average for
the first one hundred being 120 pounds of tobacco apiece for
each, then valued at 3s. per lb., and for the second supply of
sixty, the average price paid was 150 Ibs. of tobacco, this being
the legal currency of the colony, and the standard value by
which all contracts, salaries, and prices were paid. In one of
the Companies letters dated in London this 12th of August,
1621, we find this account of a portion of the goods sent over
in the ship Marmaduke :—
““We send you in this ship one widdow and eleven maids
for wives for the people in Virginia ; there hath been especiall
care had in the choise of them for their hath not any one of
them beene received but upon good comendations, as by a
note herewith sent you may perceive: we pray you all there-
fore in generall to take them into yur care, and most espe-
cially we recommend them to you, Mr. Pountes, that at their
first landing they may be housed, lodged and provided for of
diet till they be marryed for such was the haste of sending
56 CARGOES OF WOMEN.
them away, as that straightned with time, we had no meanes
to putt provisions aboard, which defect shalbe supplied by
the magazine shipp; and in case they cannot be presently
marryed we desire they may be putt to several householders
that have wives till they can be provided of husbands. - There
are neare fifty more which are shortly to come, we sent by
our most honoble Lord William the Earle of Southampton
and certain worthy gentlemen who jeer into these consid-
erations, that the Plantation can never flourish till families
be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the
people in the soil; therefore have given this fair beginning
for the reimbursing of whose charges, itt is ordered that eve
man that marries them give 120 lb. waight of best leafe
tobacco for each of them, and in case any of them dye that
proportion must be advanced to make it upp to those that
survive; and this certainly is sett down for that the price
sett upon the bages sent last yeare being 20 Ib. which was so
much money out of purse here, there was returned 66 lb. of
tobacco only, and that of the worst and basest, so that -fraight
and shrinkage reconed together with the baseness of the
comoiitie there was not one half returned, which injury the
company is sensible of as they demand restitution, which
accordingly must be had of them that took uppon them the
dispose of them the rather that.no man may mistake himself,
in accomptinge tobacco to be currant 3s. sterling contrary to
express orders.
“And though we are desirous that marriadge be free accord-
ing to the law of nature, yett undervow not to have these
maids deterred and married to servants, but only to such
freemen or tenants as have means to maintaine them ; we
pray you therefore to be fathers to them in this business, not
enforcing them to marrie against their wills; neither send
we them to be servants, but in case of extremitie, for we
would have their condition so much better as multitudes may
be allured thereby to come unto you; and you may assure
such men as marry those women that the first servants sent
over by the company shall be consigned to them, it being
our intent to preserve families and proper married men before
single persons, The tobacco that shall be due uppon the
marriadge of these maids we desire Mr. Pountes to receive
and returne by the first, as also the little quantities of Pitzarn
Rock and Piece of Oare, the copie of whose bill is here
returned. To conclude, the company for some weighty reasons
too long to relate, have ordered that no man marrying these
VALUABLE CONSIGNMENTS. 57
women expect the proportion of land usually allotted for
each head, which to avoid clamor or other trouble hereafter
you shall do well to give them notice of.”
In another letter written by the company and dated Lon-
don, September 11th, 1621, they write :—
“By this Shipp and Pinace called the Tyger, we also send
as many maids and young women as will make up the num-
ber of fifty, with those twelve formerly sent in the Marma-
duke, which we hope shalbe received with the same Christian
pietie and charitie as they were sent from hence; the pro-
viding for them at their first landing and disposing of them
in marriage (which is our chief intent), we leave to your care
BUYING WIVES.
and wisdom, to take that order as may most conduce to their
good, and satisfaction of the Adventurers, for the charges
disbursed in setting them forth, which coming to twelve
pounds and upwards, they require one hundred and fiftie of
the best leafe tobacco for each of them ; and if any of them
dye there must be a proportionable addition uppon the rest ;
this increase of thirty pounds is weight since those sent in
58 EXCELLENT INSTRUCTIONS.
Marmaduke, they have resolved to make, finding the
ee shrinkage and her losses uppon pod ae pera
ginia will not leave lesse, which tobacco as it s ~ @ ewe ;
we'desire may be delivered to Mr. Ed. Blany, who is to eep
thereof a particular account. We have used extraordinary
care and dilligence in the choice of them, and have received
none of whom we have not had good testimony of their honest
life and cariadge, which together with their names, we send
them inclosed for the satisfaction of such as shall marry
them ; for whose further encouragement we desire you to
give public notice that the next, spring we purpose to send
over as many youths for apprentices to those that shall now
marry any of them and make us due satisfaction.
“This and theire owne good deserts together with your favor
and care, will we hope, marry them all unto honest and suffi-
cient men, whose means will reach to present repayment;
but if any of them shall unwarily or fondly bestow herself
(for the liberty of marriadge we dare not infrindge) uppon such
as shall not be able to give present sattisfaction, we desire that
at least as soon as ability shalbe, they be compelled to pay
the true quantity of tobacco proportioned, and that this debt
may have precedence of all other to be recovered. :
“For the rest, which we hope will not be many, we desire
your best furtherance for providing them fitting services till
they may happen uppon good matches, and are here per-
suaded by many old planters that there will be good maisters
now found there, who will readily lay down what charges
shall be required, uppon assurance of repayment at their
marriadges, which as just and reasonable we desire may be
given them. But this and many other things in this busi-
hess we must refer to your good considerations and fruitful
endeavors in opening a, work begun here out of pity, and
tending so much to the benefitt of the plantation, shall not
miscarry for any want of good will or care on your part.”
In 1622 a monopoly of the importation of tobacco was
granted to the Virginia and Somers Island companies.
“ But now at last it hath pleased God for the confirmation
no doubt of our hopes and redoubling of our and your cour-
age, to incline His Majestie’s Royall heart to grant the sole
importation of Tobacco (a thing long and earnestly desired), to
the Virginia and Somers Island Companies, and that upon such
conditions as the private profit of each man is likely to be
much improved and the general state of the plantation
strongly secured, while'‘his Majestie’s revenue isso closely
KING JAMES OPPOSES TOBACCO-RAISING. 59
joyned as together with the colonie it must rise and faile,
‘ grow and impair, and that not a small matter neither, but of
twenty thousand pounds per annum. (for the offer of so much
in certainty hath his majestie been pleased to refuse in favor
of the Plantations.” .
On Friday the 22d of March 1622 the Indians attacked the
plantations “and attempted in most places under the color
of unsuspected amytie, and by surprise to have cut us all off
and to have swept us all away at once throughout the whole
lande had itt not pleased God of his abundant mercy to
prevent them in many places, for which we can never suffi-
cient magnifie his blessed name.”
But notwithstanding this terrible massacre in which nearly
four hundred persons were slain the colony increased in
wealth and numbers as plantations were laid out and the
colonists developed the various resources of the country.
From the first planting of tobacco in Virginia by the colony
it seemed to meet the royal displeasure of King James the
First who falsely and frivolously sought to establish a
connection between the balmy plant, and the influences of the
Evil One.
In 1622 King James still opposing the cultivation of
tobacco sought by every means in his power to discourage
its growth and culture. He urged the growing of mulberry
trees and the propagation of silk worms, as being of more
value than tobacco. In a letter dated 10th June 1622,
addressed to the Governor and Council of Virginia by the
London Company we find this reproof for neglecting the
cultivation of “ mulberrie trees”:
“ His Mat (Majesty) above all things requires from us a
proof of silke; sharply reproving the neglect thereof, where-
fore we pray you lett that little stock you have be carefully
improved, the mulberrie trees preserved and increased, and,
all other fitt preparations made for, God willing before
Christmas yon snall receive from us one hundred ounces of
Silkworme seed at least, which coming too late from Valen-
tia we have been forced to hatch it here.” ”
In 1623 a letter was prepared for the colony by order of
privy council of the king and addressed to Sir Francis
Wyatt Knight and Captain General of Virginia and to the
60 THE COLONIES ADMONISHED.
rest ot the Council of State in which the colony 8 inten
ished to pay more attention to “Staple Commodities.” That
part relating to it reads:
“The carefull and diligent prosecution of Staple Commo-
dities which we promist; we above all things pray you to
performe so as we may have speedily the real proof of your
cares and endeavors therein, especially in that of Iron, of
Vines and Silk the neglect and delay whereof so long is to us
here cause of infinit grief and discontent, especially in
regard of his Majesties just resentment therein that his Royall
grace and love to the Plantation, which after so long a time
and long a supply of his Majesties favor hath brought forth
no better fruit than Tobacco. —
“Yett by the goodness of God inclyning his princely heart,
we have received not only from the Lords of his Privy
Counsell, but from his Royal mouth such assurance not only
of his tender love and care but also of his Royal intentions
for the advancement of the Plantation; that we cannot
but exceedingly rejoice therein and persuade you with much
more comfort and encouragement to go on in the building up
of his Royal worke with all sincerity, care and diligence, and
that with that perfect love and union amongst yourselves as
may really demonstrate that your intentions are all one, the
advancement of God’s glorie and the service of his Royall
Majestie: for the particularities of his Majesties gratious
intentions for the future good, you may in part understand
them by the courses appointed by the Lords, whereof we
here inclosed send the orders.
“And we are further to signifie unto you that the Lords
of his Majesties Privy Counsell, having by his Majesties order
taken into their considerations the contract made last Som-
mer by the Company have dissolved the same; and signified
that his Majestie out of his gracious and Royall intention
and princely favor to the Plantation hath resolved to grant a
sole Importion of Tobacco to the two Plantations, with an
exception only of 40,000 weight of ye best Spanish Tobacco
to be yearly brought in.
“And it hath also pleased his Majesty in favor of the
Plantation to reduce ye custom and importing of tobacco to
9d. per pound: And’ last of all We are to signifie unto you
that their Lordships have ordered that all the Tobacco shall
be brought in from both Plantations as by their Lordship
order whereof we send you & copy, you may perceive.”
FOREIGN TOBACCO PROHIBITED. 61
In 1624 King James prohibited the importation of foreign
tobacco as well as the planting of tobacco in England or
Ireland. The following is a portion of the proclamation :—
“Whereas our commons, in their last sessions of parlia-
ment became humble petitioners to us, that, for many weighty
reasons, much concerning the interest of our kingdom, and
the trade thereof, we would by our royal power utterly pro-
hibit the use of all foreign tobacco, which is not of the growth
of our own dominions: And whereas we have upon all occa-
sions made known our dislike we have ever had of the use of
tobacco in general, as tending to the corruption both of the
health and manners of our people.
“Nevertheless because we have been often and earnestly
importuned by many of our loving subjects, planters, and.
adventurers in Virginia and the Somer isles; that, as those
colonies are yet but in their infancy, and cannot be brought
to maturity, unless we be pleased, for a time, to tolerate unto
them the planting and vending of their own growth; we
have condescended to their desires: and do therefore hereby
strictly prohibit the importation of any tobacco from beyond
sea, or from Scotland, into England or Ireland other than
from our colonies before named; moreover we strictly pro-’
hibit the planting of any tobacco either in England or
Ireland.”
Thus King James by Proclamation and Prohibition set his
face sternly against the growth and traffic in the plant, which
opposition knew no alteration and continued till his death,
which occurred in 1625. James was succeeded by his son
Charles I. On ascending the throne Charles manifested the
same hostility towards the plant which his father had. He
prohibited the importation of all tobacco excepting that
grown by the colony, and throughout his reign made ‘no
change in the restrictive laws against its growth and sale.
He continued its sale, however, as a kingly monopoly, allow-
ing only those to engage in it who paid him for the privilege.
The Company had now raised a capital of two hundred
thousand pounds, but falling into dispute and disagreeing
one with another, Charles thought best to establish a royal
government.
Accordingly he dissolved the Company in 1626, “redue-
ing the Country and Government into his own immediate
62 KING CHARLES ON TOBACCO.
ordering all patents and processes to issue in his own name,
reserving to himself a quit-rent of two shillings for every
hundred acres of land.”
The first act was by proclamation as follows :—
“That whereas, in his royal father’s time, the charter of
the Virginia Company was by a quo warranto annulled ; and
whereas his said father was, and he himself also is, of opinion,
that the government of that Colony by a company incorpo-
rated, consisting of a multitude of persons of various dispo-
sitions, amongst whom affairs of the greatest moment are
ruled by a majority of votes, was not so proper, for carrying
on, prosperously, the affairs of the colony; wherefore, to
reduce the government thereof to such a course as might
best agree with that form which was held in his royal mon-
archy ; and considering also, that we hold those territories of
Virginia and Somer isles, as also that of New England, lately
planted, with the limits thereof, to be a part of our royal
empire; we ordain that the government of Virginia shall
immediately depend on ourself, and not be committed to any
company or corporation, to whom it may be proper to trust
matters of trade and commerce, but cannot be fit to commit
the ordering of state affairs.
“‘ Wherefore our commissioners for those affairs shall pro-
ceed as directed, till we establish a council here for that
colony; to be subordinate to out council here for that colony.
And at our charge we will maintain those public officers and
ministers and that strength of men, munition, and fortifica-
tion, which shall be necessary for the defence of that planta-
tion. And we will also settle and assure the particular rights
and interests of every planter and adventurer. Lastly,
whereas the tobacco of those plantations (the only present
means of their subsisting) cannot be managed for the good
of the plantations, unless it be brought into one hand, whereby
the foreign tobacco of those plantations may yield a certain
and ready price to the owners thereof : to avoid all differences
between the planters and adventurers themselves, we resolve
to take the same into our own hands, and to give such prices
for the same as may give reasonable satisfaction, whereof we
will determine at better leisure.”
From this time forward the Plantation seemed to prosper,
Charles granted lands to all the planters and adventurers
who would till them, upon paying the annual sum of two
shillings payable to the crown for each hundred acres.
KING CHARLES AS A TOBACCO MERCHANT. 63
direction, appointing the Governor and Council himself, and
Before the death of King James, however, the cultivation
of tobacco had become so extensive that every other product
seemed of but little value in comparison with it, and the
price realized from its sale being so much greater than that
obtained for “ Corne,” the latter was neglected and its culture
almost entirely abandoned.
Arthur and Carpenter, in their History of Virginia, give
a graphic and truthful picture of its cultivation during the
reign of King James :—
“The first articles of commerce to the production of which
the early settlers almost exclusively devoted themselves, were
potash, soap, glass and tar. Distance, however, and a want
of the proper facilities to enable them to manufacture cheaply,
rendered the cost of these commodities so great, that exports
of a similar character from Russia and Sweden were still
enabled to maintain their old ascendency in the markets of
Europe. After many fruitless and costly experiments in the
cultivation of the vine, the growing demand for tobacco
enabled the planters to turn their labor into a profitable
channel. As the demand increased the profits became corre-
spondingly great, and every other species of labor was aban-
doned for the cultivation of tobacco.
“The houses were neglected, the palisades suffered to rot
down, the fields, gardens and public squares, even the very
streets of Jamestown were planted with tobacco. The towns-
people, more greedy of gain than mindful of their own
security, scattered abroad into the wilderness, where they
broke up small pieces of rich ground and made their crop
regardless of their proximity to the Indians, in whose good
faith so little reliance could be placed.”
During the reign of Charles I. many families of respect-
able connection joined the colony, and from this time
forward the colony increased in wealth as well as numbers.
King Charles, to use the language of another, had now com-
menced “as a tobacco merchant and monopolist,” and in 1627
issued a proclamation renewing his already strong monopoly
more effectually, by appointing certain officers of London
“to seize all foreign tobacco, not of the growth of Virginia
or Bermudas, for his benefit, agreeable to a former commis-
sion: also to buy up for his use all the tobacco coming from
64. TOBACCO TAXED.
our said plantations, and to sell the same again for his benefit.”
Again in 1630 King Charles issued another proclamation,
GROWING TOBACCO IN THE STREETS.
and among other restrictions limited the importation of it
from the colony. Quickly following this the King issued in
1632 another proclamation regulating the retailing of tobacco.
In 1634 he also prohibited the landing of tobacco any where
except at the quay near the custom house in London.
In 1636 Charles appoined Sir John Harvey to be continued
governor of the Plantation. In 1643 parliament laid a tax
for the year 1644, calling it Excise, and also laid a duty of
four shillings per pound on foreign, and two shillings per
pound on English tobacco. From what has already been
written, it will be seen that both King James and his son
PLANTING IN MARYLAND. 65
Charles I. enacted the most stringent laws against its import-
ation, nearly suppressing the trade, which caused the
English farmers to cultivate it for home use; but another
law was now added to suppress its growth on English soil.
Fairholt in speaking of the hostility of King James to the
plant says:
“When Kings make unnecessary and unjust laws, subjects
naturally study how to evade them: it is a mere system of
self-defence ; and as James nearly suppressed the importation
of tobacco the English began to grow it on their own land.
But the Scottish Solomon who was on the alert, added
another law restraining its cultivation ‘to misuse and mis-
employ the soil of this fruitful Kingdom.’ As this enforced the
trade with the English colony of Virginia alone, it was soon
found that Spanish and Portuguese tobacco might be brought
into port on the payment of the old duty of twopence a
pound; thus a large trade was carried on with their planters -
to the injury of the British colonists.
“Tts use increased in spite of all legislative laws and
enactments and James ended by prohibiting any person from
- dealing in the article who did not hold his letters patent.
By this means the trade was monopolized, the consumers
oppressed, importation diminished, and the London Company
of Virginia traders ultimately ruined. Those who are fond
of excusing the evil acts of one of the worst of English
Kings, pretend to see James’ care for his subjects’ health and
wealth in these restrictions, totally regardless of the fact
that James cared for neither when the monopoly brought
large sums into his own pocket.”
In 1632 Charles I. granted to Sir George Calvert (who
about this time was made Lord Baltimore) the territory now
known as Maryland; soon after receiving the grant he died,
when his son took the grant in his own name. The next
year he sailed from England with two hundred persons and
settled in his new possessions. The colony from the first,
‘ prospered far better than the colony of Virginia and soon
laid the foundation of a strong and substantial government.
Like the Virginians they soon engaged in the cultivation of
tobacco which seemed as well adapted to the soil as the
other products, corn and English wheat. The Indians were
found here as in the Plantation of Virginia planting tobacco
5 i
Missing Page
IMPORTATION OF NEGROES. 67
arrived in the Ship Treasurer “being manned by the best
men of the colony who set out on roving in ye Spanish
dominions in the West Indies” and after a successful cruise
against the Spaniards returned with their spoils including a
certain number of Negroes. Rolfe in alluding to the impor-
tation of Negroes says:
“ About the last of August came in, a Dutch man-of-warre
that sold us twenty negars.” ;
Most writers are of the opinion that this was in 1620, one
of whom says “in the same year that the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth, slaves landed in Virginia.” Another writer says
of the introduction of slave labor into the Plantations, “Is
there not a probability that the vessel was under control of
Argall, if not the ship Treasurer? If twenty negroes came
in 1619, as alleged, their increase was very slow, for accord-
ing to a census of 16th of February, 1624, there were but
twenty-two then in the colony, distributed as follows: eleven
at Flourdiew Hundred, three at James City, one at James
Island, one at the plantation opposite James City, four at
Warisquoyok, and two at Elizabeth City.”
About the same time that “negars” landed in the colony,
commenced the arrival of starving boys and girls picked up
out of the streets of London. The “ negars” are described |
as follows by an early writer of the colony. “The negroes
live in small cottages called quarters, in about six in a gang,
under the direction or an overseer or baliff; who takes care
that they tend such land as the owner allots and orders, upon
which they raise Hogs and Cattle, plant Indian Corn (or
maize) and Tobacco for the use of their Master; out of which
the overseer has a dividend (or share) in proportion to the
number of hands including himself; this with several privi-
leges in his salary, and is an ample recompense for his
pains, and encouragement of his industrious care, as to the
abor, health, and provision of the negroes. The negroes are
very numerous, some gentlemen having hundreds of them of
all sorts, to whom they bring great profit; for the sake of
which they are obliged to keep them well, and not over-
work, starve, or famish them, besides other inducements to
favor them, which is done in a great degree, to such espe-
cially that are laborious, careful, and honest ; though indeed
some Masters, careless of their own interest and reputation,
are too cruel and negligent.
68 COMPETITION.
“The negroes are not only increased by fresh supplies from
Africa and the West India Islands, but also are very prolific
among themselves; and they that are born there talk good
English, and effect our language, habits, and customs ;. and
tho’ they be naturally of a barbarous and cruel temper, yet
are they kept under by severe discipline upon occasion, and
by good laws are prevented from running away, injuring
the ‘English or neglecting their business. Their work (or
chimerical hard slavery) is not very laborious; their greatest
hardship consisting in that they and their posterity are not
at their own liberty or disposal, but are the property of their
owners; and when they are free they know not how to
provide so well for themselves generally ; neither did they
live so plentifully nor (many of them) so easily in their own
country where they are made slaves to one another, or taken
captive by their enemies. Their work is to take care of the
stock, and plant Corn, Tobacco, Fruits and which is not
harder than thrashing, hedging, or ditching; besides, though
they are out in the violent heat, wherein they delight, yet
in wet or cold weather there is little occasion for their
working in the fields, in which few will let them be abroad,
lest by this means they might get sick or die, which would
prove a great loss to their owners, a good Negroe being
sometimes worth three (nay four) score pounds sterling,
if he be a tradesmen; so that upon this (if upon no other
account) they are obliged not to overwork them, but to clooth
and feed them sufficiently, and take care of their health.”
The planters, supplied with greater facilities for the work,
now increased the size of their tobacco plantations, “ taking
up new ground” (clearing the land) and planting a much
larger area. ‘The first exportation of the colony’s tobacco
was brought into competition with that of much finer flavor,
which had acquired an established reputation long before
the English began the culture of the plant in the New World.
The Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese had long monopolized
its culture and trade, and brought from St. Domingo,-
Jamaica, St. Thomas, the Phillippine Islands, West Florida,
and various parts of South America, several varieties of
tobacco of excellent quality, and which sold at an exorbitant
Price. On testing the tobaceo grown by the London and
Plymouth companies it was found to be sweet and mild in
flavor, of a light color, and well adapted for smoking. On
GROWING SUCKERS. 69
its first introduction into England it sold for 3s. per pound,
but as its culture increased the price lessened, until it was
sold at one-half this amount.
The. planters, who at first. cultivated small patches, now
planted large fields of tobacco, and such was the greed for
gain that some planters gathered a second crop upon the same
field from the suckers left growing upon the parent stalk.
Tatham* says in regard to it :—
“Tt has been customary in former ages to rear an inferior
plant from the sucker which a ba rom the root after the
cutting of an early plant; and thus a second crop has often
been obtained from the same field by one and the same course
of culture; and although this scion is of a sufficient quality
for smoking, and ‘might become preferred in the weaker
kinds of snuff, it has been (I think very properly) thought
eligible to prefer a prohibitory law, to a risk of imposition
by means of similitude. The practice of cultivating suckers
is on these accounts not only discountenanced as fraudulent,
but the constables are strictly enjoyned ex officio to make
diligent search, and to employ the posse commitatus in
destroying such crops; a law indeed for which, to the credit
ener
ams WS OLLIE,
DESTROYING SUCKERS.
of the Virginians, there is seldom occasion; yet some few
instances have occurred, within my day, where the consta-
bles have very honorably carried it into execution in a
. *Easay on Tobacco, London, 1800.
70 VIRGINIA LANDS.
manner truly exemplary, and productive of public good.”
Fairholt says of the same subject :—
“Jt was sometimes the custom with planters to reset the
suckers, and thus grow a double crop on one field, such con-
duct was disallowed ; for the reason that the crop was inferior,
and the more honest grower, who conscientiously cleared his
slants, and gave them abundance of room to grow, was dis-
lionextly competed with; and the first rate character of the
Virginian crop prejudiced by the action.”
Fairholt makes a mistake in speaking of the planter as
re-setting the suckers, and his statement shows him to be
entirely unacquainted with the habits of the plant. As soon
as the plants are harvested, the stump of the plant remaining
in the ground. puts forth one or more vigorous suckers or
shoots, which often in a good season grow almost as high as
the parent stalk. In some tobacco-growing sections one or
two crops of suckers are gathered besides the first crop.
The Creole planters in Louisiana are said to grow three
crops in this manner, the first or parent crop and two growths
of suckers. The quality of leaf, however, is greatly inferior,
as it is small and thin and lacking in all the qualities neces-
sary for a fine leaf. The planters now adopted new methods
of culture, and cultivated several species of the plant known
as Oronoko and little Frederick, although they did not fer-
tilize the fields, even when the soil became impoverished, but
simply took new fields for its culture.
_ Hugh Jones says of the kinds of tobacco grown in
Virginia :—
“The land between the James and York rivers seemes
nicely adapted for sweet scented tobacco; for ’tis observed
that the goodness decreaseth the farther you go to the north-
ward of the one, and the southward of the other; but this
may be (I believe) attributed in some measure to the seed and
management, as well as to the land and latitude: For on
York river in a small tract of land called Diggens neck, which
1s poorer than a great deal of other land in the same latitude,
by a particular seed and management, is made the famous
crop known by the name of E Dees, remarkable for its mild
taste and fine smell.” He speaks of the planters and their
plantations as follows :—“Neither the interests nor inclina-
tions of the Virginians induces them to cohabit in towns: 80
PICTURE OF EARLY PLANTERS, vel
that they are not forward in contributing their assistance
towards the making of particular places, every plantation
affording the owner the provision of a little market ; where-
fore they most commonly build upon some convenient spot
or neck of land in their own plantation, though towns are
laid out and established in each county.
“The whole country is a perfect forest, except where the
woods are cleared for plantations, and old fields, and where
have been formerly Indian towns, and poisoned fields and
meadows, where the timber has been burnt down in fire
hunting and otherwise; and about the creeks and rivers are
large rank morasses or marshes, and up the country are poor
savannahs. The gentlemen’s seats are of late built for the
most part of good brick, and many of timber very handsome,
commodious, and capacious; and likewise the common
lanters live in pretty timber houses, neater than the farm
houses are generally in England: With timber also are
built houses for the overseers and out-houses; among which
is the kitchen apart from the dwelling house, because of the
smell of hot victuals, offensive in hot weather.
“The habits, life, customs, computations of the Virginians,
are much the same as about London, which they esteem
their home; and for the most part have contemptible notions
of England, and wrong sentiments of Bristol, and the other
out-posts, which they entertain from seeing and hearing the
common dealers, sailors, and servants that come from those
towns, and the country places in England and Scotland,
whose language and manners are strange to them; for the
a and even the native negroes generally talk good
nglish without idiom and tone, and can discourse handsomely
upon most common subjects: and conversing with persons
belonging to trade and navigation from London, for the
most part they are much civilized, and wear the best of
clothes according to their station ; nay, sometimes too good
for their circumstances, being for the generality, comely hand-
some persons of good features and fine complexions (if they
take care) of good manners and address.
“They are not very easily persuaded to the improvement
of useful inventions (except a few, such as sawing mills)
neither are they great encouragers of manufactures, because
of the trouble and certain expense in attempts of this kind,
with uncertain prospect of gain; whereas by their staple
commodity, tobacco, they are certain to get a plentiful
provision; nay, often very great estates. Upon this account
they think it folly to take off their hands ie negroes) and
72 LARGE PLANTATIONS.
employ their care and time about anything that may make them
lessen their crop of tobacco. So that though they are apt to
learn, yet they are fond of and will follow their own ways,
humors and ‘notions, being not easily brought to new
projects and schemes; so that I question if they would have
been improved upon by the Mississippi or South sea, or any
other such monstrous bubbles. The common planters lead-
ing easy lives without much labor, or any manly exercise,
except horse-racing, nor diversion, except cock-fighting, in
which some greatly delight.
“This easy way of living, and the heat of the summer.
makes some very lazy, who are then said to be climate-struck
They are such lovers of riding, that almost every ordinary
person keeps a horse; and I have known some spend the
morning in ranging several miles in the woods to find and
catch their horses to ride only two or three miles to the Church,
to the Court-House or to a Horse-Race, where they generally
appoint to meet upon business ; and are more certain of finding
those that they want to speak or deal with, than at their
home. No people can entertain their friends with better cheer
and welcome; and stranger and traveler is here treated in the
most free, plentiful, and hospitable manner; so that a few
Inns or Ordinaries on the road are sufficient.”
This is no doubt a correct picture of the early planters of
Virginia. Many of them became the owners of large plant-
ations and all those who were successful growers of tobacco
became wealthy in proportion to the quality of leaf produced.
The merchants, factors or store-keepers bought up the
tobacco of the planters paying in goods or “current Spanish
money, or with sterling bills payable in Great Britain.” At
first the cultivation of tobacco by the colony was confined to
Jamestown and the immediate vicinity, but as the colony
increased and the country became more densely populated,
plantations were laid out in the various counties and a large
quantity was produced some ways from the great center
Jamestown ; accordingly various methods were adopted to
get the tobacco to market, some of which was sent by boats
or canoes down the rivers, while some was conveyed in carts
and wagons while another method was by rolling in hoops.
Tatham in his interesting work on tobacco, gives the fol-
lowing description of the method: |
GETTING TO MARKET. 73
‘“T believe rolling tobacco the distance of many hundred
miles, is a mode of conveyance peculiar to Virginia; and
for which the early population of that country deserve a
very handsome credit. Necessity (that very prolific mother
of invention), first suggested the idea of rolling by hand;
time and: experience have led to the introduction of horses,
and have ripened human skill, in this kind of carriage, to a
degree of perfection which merits the adoption of tle mother
country, but which will be better explained under the next
head of this subject. by
“The hogsheads, which are designed to be rolled in com-
mon hoops, are made closer in the joints than if they were
intended for the wagon; and are plentifully hooped with
strong hickory hoops (which is the toughest kind of wood),
with the bark upon them, which remains for some distance a
CARRYING TOBACCO TO MARKET,
protection against the stones. Two hickory saplings are
affixed to the hogshead, for shafts by boring an auger-hole
through them to receive the gudgeons or pivots, in the man-
ner of a field rolling-stone; and these receive pins of wood,
with square tapered points, which are admitted through
square mortises made central in the heading, and.driven a
considerable depth into the solid tobacco. Upon the hind
part of these shafts, between the horses and the hogshead, a
few light planks are nailed, and a kind of little cart body is
constructed of a sufficient size to contain a bag or two of
74 VIRGINIA PLANT-BED.
provender and provision, together with an axe, and such
other tools as may be needed upon the road, in case of
accident. In this manner they set out to the inspection in
companies, very often joining society with the wagons, and
always pursuing the same method of encamping.”
The methods of making the plant bed, cultivating and
harvesting, by the early planters may be interesting to all
growers of the plant and are here described as showing the
progress made in cutting tobacco from that time until now.
“In spring red seed, in preference to the white, is put into
a clean pot; milk or stale beer is poured upon it, and it is
left for two or three days in this state; it is then mixed with
a quantity of fine fat earth, and set aside in a hot chamber,
till the seeds begin to put out shoots. They are then sown
in a hot-bed. When the young plants have grown to a
finger’s length, they are taken up between the fifteenth and
twenty-second of May, and planted in ground that has been
reviously well manured with the dung of doves or swine.
hey are placed at square distances of one and a half-foot
from one another. In dry weather, they are now to be
watered with lukewarm water softly showered upon them,
between sunset and twilight. When these plants are full
two feet high, the top of the stems are broken off, to make
the leaves grow thicker and broader. Here and there are
left a few plants without having their tops broken off, in
order that they may afford seeds for another year. Through-
out the summer the other plants are from time to time,
pruned at the top, and the whole field is carefully weeded to
make the growth of the leaf so much the more vigorous.
“Tn the month of September, from the sixteenth day, and
between the hours of ten in the morning and four in the
afternoon, the best leaves are to be taken off. It is more
advantageous to pluck the leaves when they are dry than
when they are moist. When plucked they are to be immedi-
ately brought home, and hung upon cords within the house
to dry, in as full exposure as is possible to the influence of
the sun and air; but so as to receive no rain. In this expo-
sure they remain till the months of March and April follow-
ing; when they are to be put up in bundles, and conveyed
to the store-house, in which they may be kept, that they
may be there till more perfectly dried by a moderate heat.
Within eight days they must be removed to a different
place, where they are to be sparingly sprinkled with salt
water, and left till the leaves shall be no longer warm to the
MARYLAND PLANT-BED. a5
feeling of the hand. A barrel of water with six handfuls of
salt are the proportions. After all this the tobacco leaves
may be laid aside for commercial exportation. They will
remain fresh for three years.”
In Maryland they formerly prepared the land for a plant-
bed by burning upon it a great quantity of brush-wood,
ENRICHING PLANT-BED,
afterwards raking the surface fine; the seed was then sowed
broadcast. The young plants were kept free from weeds,
and were transplanted when about two inches high.
The cultivation of tobacco gradually spread from one State
to another. From Virginia it was introduced into North
Carolina and Maryland and finally Kentucky which is now
the largest producing tobacco State in the Union. The
demand for Virginia tobacco continued to increase and long
before the Revolutionary war, Virginia exported annually
thousands of hogsheads of leaf tobacco. Half a century
ago the plant began to be cultivated in Ohio and from the
first grew remarkably well, producing a leaf adapted for both
cutting and cigar purposes.
Tobacco was planted in New Netherland (New York) by
4
76 TOBACCO-GROWING IN NEW YORK AND LOUISIANA.
the early Dutch settlers and in 1638 “had become a staple
production.” In 1639 “from Virginia numbers of persons
whose terms of service had expired, were attracted to Man-
hattan, where they introduced improved modes of cultivating
tobacco.” Wan Twiller was himself a grower of the plant
and had his tobacco farm at Greenwich. Soon after its
cultivation began it was subjected to Excise ; and regulations
were published to check the abuses which injured “the high
name” it had gained in foreign countries. *
Wailes says of the early cultivation of tobacco in
Mississippi :
“When the country came under the dominion of Spain, a
market was opened in New Orleans; a trade in tobacco was
established, and a fixed and remunerating price was paid for
it, delivered at the king’s warehouses. Tobacco thus became
the first marketable staple production of Missisippi.” +
An English writer has the following account of the culture
of tobacco in Louisiana by the French:
“Tobacco is another plant indigenous to this part of
America; the French colonists cultivated it with such success
that had they received any encouragement from their
government they might soon have rivalled Virginia and
Maryland; but instead of this they were taxed heavily for
cultivating it, by duties laid on the trade; what they pro-
duced was of so excellent a quality, as to sell some at five
shillings a pound. There is one advantage in this culture
here which ought not to be forgotten; in Louisiana the
French planters after the tobacco is cut, weeded and cleaned
the ground on which it grew the roots, push forth fresh
shoots, which are managed in the same manner as the first
crop. By this means a second crop is made on the same
_ground, and sometimes a third. These seconds indeed, as
they are called, do not usually grow so high as the first plant,
but notwithstanding they make very good tobacco.”
During the reign of the Stuarts, the plant was first culti-
vated in New England but only in small quantities + and
*Jacob van Chnrlerand David Provoost Were appointed inspect th
tobacco. “In 1652the commonally ut Manhuttan Was informe Saree he aalliy
intentions, the Amsterdam directors had determined to take off the export duty of tobacco.”
Peiea aes Reh eae wrlttas ae ane Bou oe Natchez i particularly favorable for
«3 overseers there, who will almost enga;
and three hogsheads to the hand besides provisions." Sado Ebro gio you: Debweentwe
¢ “Every farmer plants a quantity of tobacco near his house in roportion to the size of
his family. It is ikewiac very necessary that they should plant Topieco, because It is a
universally by the beople."—Hailm's travels in North America, 1772.
NEW ENGLAND TOBACCO. 4”
used solely for smoking. About 1835 the plant received
more attention from the farmers living in the Connecticut
valley containing some of the finest tobacco land in the coun-
try. They found by repeated trials that the soil was well
adapted to the production of a finer leaf tobacco than any
they had ever seen. At this time Kentucky and Havana
tobacco were used in the manufacture of cigars, but on testing
American tobacco or as it is now known * Canmentient seed
leaf” it was found to make the finest wrappers yet produced,
and consequently the best looking cigars. From that time
its reputation has kept pace with its cultivation, until it now
enjoys a world wide popularity. As a wrapping tobacco it
towers far above the seed products of other states and can
never have a successful competitor in the other varieties now
cultivated in the Middle and Western States. Doubtless
America furnishes the finest varieties of the plant now culti-
vated, suited for all kinds of manufacturing, and adapted to
all the various forms in which it is used.
The great diversity of soil and climate renders this prob-
able while actual experiments and improved methods of cul-
ture have demonstrated it to a certainty. Thousands of
hogsheads, cases, and bales are annually shipped to all parts
of the world and the demand for American tobacco is greater
than for the varieties grown in the Old World. More than
two hundred and fifty years have passed since the London
and Plymouth Companies began its cultivation in the Old
Dominion, and on the same soil where the red man grew his
“uppowac.” Virginia leaf still continues to flourish, and
to-day it is the great agricultural product of the State.
From a small beginning, like the plant itself it has
developed into a great and increasing industry and its culture
become a source of wealth unprecedented in agricultural
history. Could the sapient James I. and his successors the
Stuarts, now look upon this cherished production of. the
world, they would discover a commercial prosperity connected
with those nations which have fostered and encouraged its
growth far in advance of those who have frowned upon the
48 COMMERCIAL VALUE OF TOBACCO.
plant and prohibited or hindered its cultivation. Saint
Pierre alluding to the beneficence of nature and of the folly
and cruelty of man as contrasted says:
“When the princes of Europe went Gospel in hand, to
SHIPPING TOBACCO.
lay waste Asia, they brought back the plague, the leprosy
and the small-pox, but nature showed to a Dervish the coffee
tree in the mountains of Yemen, and at the moment when
nature brought curses on us through the Crusaders, it
brought delights to us through the cup of a Mohammedan
Monk. The descendants of those princes took possession of
America, and transmitted to us by this conquest, an inex-
haustible succession of wars and maladies. While they
were exterminating the inhabitants of America with cannon,
a Carib invited sailors to smoke his Calumet as a signal of
peace. The perfume of the tobacco vanquished their torments
and their tronbles, and the use of tohacco was spread all over
the earth. While the afflictions of the two worlds came
from artillery, which kings call their last resort, the consola-
tions of civilized nations flowed from the pipe of a savage.”
It seems hardly possible to draw a more graphic picture of
the blessings diffused by the balmy plant, than that just given.
Its peculiar charms and soothing influence are well calculated
TOBACCO A BLESSING. 79
to inspire in the breast of man, feelings of peace and happi-
ness, rather than elements of discord and strife. The pipe
of a king burns not more freely the shreds of the plant, than
it does the last remnant of hostile feelings and the recollec-
tions of bitter wrongs; while the snuff-box of the diplomat
contains the precious dust that has soothed the fierce hatred of
rival houses and cemented the divided factions of a tottering
throne.
CHAPTER IV.
TOBACCO IN EUROPE.
“HE discovery of the tobacco plant in America by
European voyagers aroused their cupidity no less
than their curiosity. They saw in its use by the
Indians a custom which, if engrafted upon the civil-
ization of the Old World, would prove a source of revenue
commensurate with their wildest visions of power and wealth.
This was particularly the case with the Spanish and Portu-
guese conquerors, whose thirst for gold was gratified by its
discovery. The finding by the Spaniards of gold, silver, and
the balmy plant, and by the Portuguese of valuable and
glittering gems, opened up to Spain and Portugal three
great sources of wealth and power. But while the Spaniards
were the first discoverers of the plant there seems to be con-
flicting opinions as to which nation first began its culture, and
whether the plant was cultivated first in the Old World or
in the New. Humboldt says:—
“Tt was neither from Virginia nor from South America,
but from the Mexican province of Yucatan that Europe
received the first tobacco seeds about the year 1559.* The
Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India
Islands at the end of the 15th Century, and the cultivation
of Tobacco preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe
more than one hundred and twenty years. When Sir Walter
Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586,
26)
a
*Mussey in his Eesay on Tobacco records “ That Cortez sent a specim if the
wing oe pain in 1519." Yucatan was discovered by Hernandez Corlova Mr istte as aS: was
INTRODUCTION. ‘81
whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal.* It
was also previously known in France.”
Another author says of its introduction into Europe :—
“The seeds of the tobacco plant were first brought to
Europe by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo, who introduced
it into Spain, where it was first cultivated as an ornamental
plant, till Monardest extolled it as possessed of medicinal
virtues.” ¢
Murray says of the first cultivation of tobacco and potatoes
in the Old World :—
“ Amidst the numerous remarkable productions ushered
into the Old Continent from the New World, there are two
which stand pre-eminently conspicuous from their general
adoptien. Unlike in their nature, both have been received
as extensive blessings—the one by its nutritive powers tends
to support, the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe and
comfort the human frame—the potato and tobacco; but very
different was the favor with which these plants were viewed.
The one long rejected, by the slow operation of time, and,
perhaps, of necessity, was at length cherished, and has become
the support of millions, but nearly one hundred and twenty
years passed away before even a trial of its merits was
attempted ; whereas, the tobacco from Yucatan, in less than
seventy years after the discovery, appears to have been exten-
sively cultivated in Portugal, and is, perhaps, the most gen-
erally adopted superfluous vegetable product known; ‘for
sugar and opium are not in such common use. The potato
by the starch satisfies the hunger ; the tobacco by its morphia
calms its turbulence of the mind. The former becomes a
necessity required, the latter a gratification sought for.”
It would appear then that the year 1559 was about the
period of the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Phillip
II. of Spain sent Oviedo to visit Mexico and note its produc-
tions and resources; returning he presented “ His Most
Catholic Majesty” with the seeds of the plant. In the fol-
lowing year it was introduced into France and Italy. It was
first brought to France by Jean Nicot of Nismes in Langue-
doc, who was sent as ambassador to Sebastian, King of
" *$pain began its culture in Mexico on the coast of Caraccas at the islands of St. Dominga
and Trinidad, and particularly in Louisiana.
¥Pourchat declares that the Portuguese brought it into Europe trom Tobago, an island in
ane eet Indies; but this is hardly probable, as the island was never under the Portuguese
lominion.
fMonardes wrote upon it only from the small account he had of it from the Brazilians.”
32 THE ORIGINAL IMPORTER.
Portugal, and who obtained while at Lisbon some tobacco
seed froma Dutch merchant who had brought it from Florida,*
Nicot returned to France in 1561, and presented the Queen,
Catherine de Medicis, with a few leaves of the plant.
As the history of Nicot is so intimately connected with
that of the plant, a short sketch of this original importer will
doubtless be interesting to all lovers of the weed :—
“John Nicot, Sieur de Villemain, was born at Nismes in
1530, and died at Paris in 1600. He was the son of a notary
at Nismes, and started in life with a good education, but
with no fortune. Finding that his native town offered no
suitable or sufficient field for his energies, he went to Paris
and strove hard to extend his studies as a scholar and his
_ connections as an adventurer. He made the acquaintance of
some courtiers, who felt or affected an interest in learning
and in learned men. His manners were insinuating; his
character was pliable. When presented at court he succeeded
-in gaining the esteem and confidence of Henry IL, the hus-
band of Catherine de Medicis. Francis IJ., the son of Henry
IL, and the first husband of Mary Stuart, continued to Nicot
the favor of which Henry II. had deemed him worthy, and
sent him in 1560 as ambassador to Sebastian, King of Portu-
gal. He was successful in his mission. But it was ncither
his talents as a diplomatist, nor his remarkable mind, nor his
solid erudition, which made Nicot immortal. It was by
popularizing tobacco in France that he gained a lasting fame.
“Tt is said that it was at Lisbon that Nicot became
acquainted with the extraordinary properties of tobacco.
But it is likewise stated with quite as much confidence, that
a Flemish merchant, who had just returned from America,
offered Nicot at Bordeaux, where they met, some seeds of
the tobacco, telling him of their value. The seeds Nicot
‘sent to Catherine de Medicis, and on arriving in Paris he
-gave her some leaves of tobacco. Hence, when tobacco began
to creep into use in France it was called Queen’s Herb or
Medicean Herb.t The cultivation of tobacco, except as 4
fancy plant, did not begin in France till 1626; and John
*Parkinson in h
thie eatneon An : 1s Herball (London, 1640] says:—“It is thought by some that John Nicot,
pray ones oe other to the French Queene, and is called therefore herba Regina, and
wh .
iors of Brazile at “hich je probably because the Portugalls and uot the Spaniards were mas:
; Sir John Nicot sent some seeds of it into France, to Kinz Francis II., the Queen Mother,
eee Governor of Rochel, and several others of the French tore" .
edited bbe Jacques Gohory, the author of the first book written on tobacao, proposed to
the plant erinaine or Medicee, to record the name of Medicis and the medicinal virtues of
3; but the name of Nicot supersede ay
genus Nicotiana ory oot super peged these, and botanists have perpetuated it in the
being agent in Portugall for the French King. sent this surt_of tobacco -.
A QUAINT DESCRIPTION. 83
Nicot could have had no presentiment of the agricultural,
eommercial, financial and social importance which tobacco
was ultimately to assume. Nicot published two works.
The first was an edition of the History of France or of the
Franks, in Latin, written by a Monk called Aimonious, who
lived in the tenth century. The second was a ‘ Treasury of
the French Language, Ancient and Modern.’”
Stevens and Liebault in the “Country Farm”* give the
following account of its early introduction into France and
the wonderful cures produced by its use:
“ Nicotiana though it have (has) beene but a while knowne
in France yet it holdeth the first and principal] place amongst
Physicke herbs, by reason of his singular and almost diuine
(divine) vertues, such as you shall heare of hereafter, whereof
(because none either of the old or new writers that have
written of the nature of plants, have said anything), I am.
willing to lay open the whole history, as I have come by it
through a deere friend of mine, the first author, inventor,
and bringer of this herb into France: as also of many both
Spaniards, Portugals, and others which have travelled into
Florida, a country of the Indians, from whence this herbe
came, to put the same in writing to relieve such griefe and
travell, as have heard of this herbe, but neither know it nor
the properties thereof. ‘This herbe is called Nicotiana of the
name of an ambassador which brought. the first knowledge
of it into this realme, in like manner as many plants do as
yet retaine the names of certaine Greekes and Romans, who
being strangers in divers countries, for their common-wealth’s
service, have from thence indowed their own countree with
many plants, whereof there was no knowledge before. Some
call it the herbe of Queen mother, because the said ambassa-
dor Lord Nicot did first send the same unto the Queen
mother, + (as you shall understand by and by) and for being
afterwards by her given to divers others to plant and make
to grow in this country. Others call it by the name of the
herbe of the great Prior, because the said Lord a while after
sailing into these western seas, and happening to lodge neere
unto the said Lord ambassador of Lisbone, gathered divers
lants thereof out of his garden, and set them to increase
hers in France, and there in greater quantitie, and with
* London 1606.
t George Buchanan, the Scotch Philosopher and poet tutor of James I., had a strong aver-
sion to Catherine of Medicis, and in one of his Latin eptgrams, alludeato the herb being
called Medicie, advising all who yalued their health to shun it, not_so much from its being
naturally hurtful, but that it needs must become poisonous if called by so hateful a namie.
84 WONDERFUL CURES.
more care than any other besides him, he did so highly
esteeme thereof for the exceeding good qualities sake. ;
“The Spaniards call it Tobaco, it were better to eall it
Nicotiana, after the name of the Lord who first sent it into
France, to the end that we may give him the honor which he _
hath deserved of us, for having furnished our land with so -
rare and singular an herbe: and thus much for the name,
now listen unto the whole historie: Master John Nicot, one
of the king’s oe ambassador for his Maiestie
(Majesty) in the realme of Portiugall, in the yeere of our
Lord God, 1559. 60. and 61. went on a day to see the
monuments and northie places of the said king of Portiugall:
at which time a gentleman keeper of the said monuments
resented him with this herbe as a strange plant brought
hort Florida. The nobleman Sir Nicot having procured it
to growe in his garden, where it had put forth and multiplied
very greatly, was aduertifed (notified) on a daie by one of
his pages, that a yoong boie kinsman of the said page, had
laide (for triall sake) the said herbe, pressed, the substance
and juice and altogether, upon an ulcer which he had upon
his cheeke, neere unto his nose, next neighbor to a Voli me
tangere, (a cancer) as having already seazed upon the cartil-
ages, and that by the use thereof it was become marvellous
well: upon this occasion the nobleman Nicot called the boie
to him, and making him to continue the applying of this
herbe for eight or ten days, the Voli me tangere became
thoroughly kild: nowe they had sent oftetimes unto one of
the king’s most famous phisitions, the said boie during the
time of this worke and operation to make and see the pro-
ceeding and working of the said Nicotiana, and having in
charge to do the same until the end of ten days, the said
phisition then beholding him, assured him that the Vole me
tangere was dead, as indeed the boie never felt anything of
it at any time afterward.
“Some certain time after, one of the cooks of the said
ambassador having almost all his thombe (thumb) cut off
from his hand, with a great kitchin knife, the steward
running unto the said Nicotiana, made to him use of it five or
six dressings, by the ende of which the wounde was healed.
From this time forward this herbe began to become famous
in Lisbon, where the king of Portiugal’s court was at that
time, and the vertues thereof much spoken of, and the
common people began to call it the ambassador’s herbe.
Now upon this occasion there came certain days after, a
THE “HERBE GREWE IN REPUTATION.” 85
gentleman from the fields being father unto one of the pages
of the said Lord ambassador, who was troubled with an ulcer
in his legge of two years continuance, and craved of the said
Lord some of his herbe, and using it in manner afore men-
tioned, he was healed by the end of ten or twelve daies.
After this yet the herbe grewe still in greater reputation,
inasmuch as that many hasted out of all corners to get some
of this herbe. And among the rest, there was one woman
which had a great ring worme, covering all her face like a
mask, and having taken deepe roote, to whom the said Lord
caused this Petum to be given, and withall the manner of
using it to be told her, and at the end of eight or ten daies,
this woman being thoroughly cured, came to shewe herself
moto the said Lord, and "ioe that she was cured. There
came likewise a captain bringing with him his son diseased
with the king’s evill, unto the said Lord Ambassador, for to
send him into France, upon whom there was some triall
made of the said herbe, whereupon within four daies he
began to show great signs and tokens of healing, and in the
end was thoroughly cured of his king’s evil.”
Italy received the first plant from Santa Croce,* who, like
Nicot, obtained the seed in Lisbon. In 1575 first appeared a
figure of the plant in Andre Theret’s “ Cosmographie,”
which was but an imperfect representation of the plant. It
was supposed by many on its discovery to grow like the
engraving given—in form resembling a tree or shrub rather
than an herb. Tobacco was first brought to England by Sir
John Hawkins, who obtained the plant in Florida in 1565,
and afterwards by Sir Francis Drake.t The first planters of
it in England were said to be Captain Grenfield and Sir
Francis Drake. One account of its introduction into Eng-
land is as follows:
“The plant was first used by Sir Walter Raleigh and
others, who had acquired a taste for it in Virginia.t| Among
while Moll Cat Puree, a neted plekpockes whe fourigued ts the time of Charies Iie ts ssid
to have been the first Englishwoman who smoked tobacco.
tlt was introduced, about 1520, into Portugal and Spain by Doctor Hernandez of Toledo;
into Italy by Thornabon ahd the Cardinal de Sainte-Croif, into England by Captain Drake!
re en b f eh Theret, a gray friar.”—Le Mao us and Decaisne's General System
$Short says of its introduction into England: “Sir Walter Raleigh's Marriners, under Mr.
thal famous Propiicter of this Plantation fereesiy. Bod reasone to. ineroduee the use of It,
however King James might afterwards, through his own personal Distaste both of it and,
, Wrote his Counterbiast against it; a work surely consistent with thc Pen of no Prince,
but one of hig Politicks.”
86 DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS.
the natives the usual mode employed in smoking the plant
was by means of hollow canes, and pipes made of woo and
decorated with copper.
and green stones. Mo
deprive it of its acidity,
some of the natives
were wont to pass the
smoke through bulbs
containing water, in
which aromatic and me-
dicinal herbs had been
infused.”
Neander ascribes this
invention to the Per-
sians; but Magnenus
rather attributes it to the
Dutch and English, to
the latter of whom at-
taches the credit of
having invented the clay.
pipes of modern times.
Some writers have con-
cluded that the plant
served as a narcotic in
some parts of Asia.
Liebaut thinks it was
known in Europe*
OLD ENGRAVING OF TOBACCO. many years before the
discovery of the New World, and asserts that the plant
had been found in the Ardennes. Magnenus, however,
claims its origin as transatlantic and affirms as his belief that
the winds had doubtless carried the seeds from one continent
to the other. Pallos says that among the Chinese, and
among the Mongol tribes who had the most intercourse with
them, the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent, and
has become so indispensable a luxury;: the tobacco purse
affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress; the form
of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the
* James the First also in
which (though un clines to this belief, declaring tobacco to be ‘a common herb
der divers names) grows almost everywhere.”
A SMOKER’S RHAPSODY. 87
model of theirs, so original; and, finally, the preparation of
the leaves so peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all
this from America by way of Europe, especially as India,
where the practice of smoking is not so general, intervenes
between Persia and China. Meyen also states that the con-
sumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense
extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, “for
on very old sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco
pipes which are still used.” Besides, we now know that the
plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco is evén said to
grow wild in the East Indies.
“Tobacco,” says Loudon, “ was introduced into the county
of Cork, with the potatoe, by Sir Walter eee A
quaint writer of this period says of the plant: “Tobacco,
that éxcellent plant, the use whereof (as of fifth element) the
world cannot want, is that little shop of Nature, wherein her
whole workmanship is abridged; where you may see earth
kindled into fire, the fire breathe out an exhalation, which
entering in at the mouth walks through the regions of a
man’s brain, drives out all ill vapors’ but itself, draws down
all bad humors by the mouth, which in time might breed a
scab over the whole body, if already they have not; a plant
of singular use; for, on the one side Nature being an enemy
to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being so
many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall
Nature’s course be continued? How shall those empty
brains be filled but with air, Nature’s immediate instrument
to that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume;
what fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so
sovereign as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a
man’s wit, as they but judge that have been present at a
feast of tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled ;
what variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it
yields?” *
The name of Sir Walter is intimately connected with the
history of tobacco, and is associated with many of the bril-
liant exploits and explorations during the reign of the
illustrious Elizabeth.t His name has come down to us as
*A writer in the “New England Magazine” saysin a diffcrent strain: “Thisis the enemy that
men put in their mouths, to steal away their health. This has filled the camp, the court, the
grove. It is found in the pulpit, the senate, the bar and the boudoir.”
{Thorpe, in his “History and Mystery of Tobacco,” relates the following anecdote: “Tra
dition siys, that in the time of Queen Elizabeth Sir Walter Raleigh used to sit at his door
with Sir Hugh Middleton and smoke.” j
88 OLD SMOKERS.
being that of the first smoker of tobacco in England,* and
many amusing anecdotes are told of him and the new cus-
tom which he introduced and sanctioned. Dixon has given
us the following vivid picture of the great Elizabethan
navigator :
“In a pleasant room of Durham House, in the Strand,—a
room overhanging a lovely garden, with the river, the old
bridge, the towers of Lambeth Palace, and the flags of Paris
Garden and the Globe in view,—three men may have often
met and smoked a pipe in the days of Good Queen Bess, who
are dear to all readers of English blood; because, in the first
place, they were the highest types of our race in genius and
in daring; in the second place because the work of their
hands has shaped the whole after-life of their countrymen in
every sphere of enterprise and thought. That splendid Dur-
ham House, in which the nine-days queen had been married
to Guilford Dudley, and which had afterwards been the
town-house of Elizabeth, belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, by
whom it was held on leave from the queen. Raleigh, a
friend of William Shakespeare and the players, was also a
friend of Francis Bacon and the philosophers. Raleigh is
said to have founded the Mermaid Club; and it is certain
that he numbered friends among the poets and players. The
proofs of his having known Shakespeare, though indirect, are
strong. Of his long intercourse with Bacon every one is
aware. Thus it requires no effort of the fancy to picture
these three men as lounging in a window of Durham House,
puffing the new Indian weed from silver bowls, discussing
the highest themes in poetry and science, while gazing on
the flower-beds and the river, the darting barges of dames
and cavalier, and the distant pavilions of Paris Garden and
the Globe.”
Its use by so distinguished a person as Raleigh was equiv-
alent to its general introduction.t Aubrey says:
_ “He was the first that brought tobacco into England, and
into fashion. In our part—Malmsbury Hundred—it came
*Dr. Thomas Short, in his work “Discourses on Tea, Tobacco, Punch, é&c.,”” (London 1750,
pays of the original smoker: “ Sir Walter was the first that brought the Cagtom of nat
it into Britain, upon his return from America; for he saw the natives of Florida, Brazil an
other places of the Indies, smoak it thus, they hung about their Necks little Pipes or Horns‘
eer, fates notes the Date res or or pends or Rushes 3, and at the ends of them they
ves twisted an ‘ok
sucked ins tauch of the moa LW they and bre en,and set the ends of them on fire, ani
m was the ulgence that in 1600, only seventeen years after Sir F is Drake
returned pron. America, and Bet the example of using tobaceo, the French "Embassador
ris, tha! @ peers, while engaged th
Southampton, deliberated upon their verdicts with pipes inetvelr mouths ae acc
THE “QUEEN'S HERB.” 89
first into fashion by Sir Walter Long. They had first silver
pipes. The ordinary sort made use of a walnut shell and a
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
strawe. I have heard my grandfather Lyte say that one pipe
was handed from man to man round the table. Sir Walter
Raleigh standing in a stand at Sir Ro. Poyntz parke at
‘Acton tooke a pipe of tobacco, which made the ladies quitte
it till he had donne.”
A writer has truthfully said in regard to associating the
name and use of the plant with the primitive users of it.
“The ambitious sought fame by asscciating themselves
with the introduction of the plant and its cultivation; hence
we find it named after cardinals, legates, and embassadors,
while in compliment to Catherine, wite of Henry the Second,
it was called the Queen’s herb.”
Kings now rushed into the tohacco trade. Those of Spain
took the lead, and became the largest manufacturers of snuff
*Savary says that tobacco has been known among the Persians for upwards of 400 years
and supposes that they received it from Egypt, and not from the East Indies, sf ‘
90 DRINKING TOBACCO.
and cigars in Christendom, and the royal workshops of
Seville are still the most extensive in Europe. Other mon-
archs monopolized the business in their dominions, and all
began to reap enormous profits from it, as most do at this
day. In the year 1615 tobacco was first planted in Holland ;
and in Switzerland in 1686. As soon as its cultivation
became general in Spain and Portugal the tobacco trade was
“farmed out,” bringing an enormous revenue to those king-
doms. About the beginning of the Seventeenth Century the
Portuguese introduced into \Hindostan and Persia* two
things, pine-apples and tobacco. To the pine-apples no
objection seems to have been made; but to the tobacco the
most strenuous resistance was offered by the sovereigns of
the two countries. Spite, however, of .punishments and pro-
hibitions the use of tobacco spread with the rapidity of
lightning.
In England, tobacco taking soon became a favorite custom
not only with the loiterers about taverns and other public
places, but among the courtiers of Elizabeth. Smoking was
called drinking tobacco, as the fashionable method was to
“put it through the nose” or exhale it through the, nostrils.
At this period tobacco seemed to have nearly the same effect
as it did upon the Indian, producing a sort of intoxication;
thus in “The Perfuming of Tobacco” (1611) it is said:
“The smoke of tobacco drunke or drawen by a pipe, filleth
the membranes of the braine, and astonisheth and filleth
many persons with such joy and pleasure, and sweet losse of
senses, that they can by no means be without it.”
The term “drinking tobacco” was not confined to Eng-
land, but was used in Holland, France, Spain and Portugal,
as the same method of blowing the smoke through the nos-
trils, seemed to be everywhere in vogue. .
The use of tobacco increased very rapidly soon after its
importation from Virginia. The Spaniards and Portuguese
had hitherto monopolized the trade, so that it brought
enormous prices, some kinds selling for its weight in silver.
As soon as its culture commenced in Virginia the demand for
West India tobacco lessened and Virginia leaf soon came
ENGLISH GALLANTS.
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 91
into favor, owing not more to the lowering of price than to
the quality of the leaf.* This was about 1620, which some
writers have called the golden age of tobacco. It had now
become a prime favorite and was used by nearly all classes.
Poets.and dramatists sung its praises, while others wrote of
its wonderful medicinal qualities} Fops and knaves alike
indulged in its use.
“ About the latter end of the. sixteenth century, tobacco
was in great vogue in London, with wits and ‘ gallants,’ as
the dandies of that age were called. To wear a pair of vel-
vet breeches, with panes or slashes of silk, an’ enormous
starched ruff, a gilt handled sword, and a Spanish dagger;
to play at cards or dice in the chambers of the groom-porter,
and smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard or at the play-house, were
then the grand characteristics of a man of fashion. Tobac-
conists’ shops were then common ; and as the article, which
appears to have been sold at a high price, was indispensable
to the gay ‘man about town,’ he generally endeavored to
keep his credit good with his tobacco-merchant. Poets and
pamphleteers laughed at the custom, though generally they
seem to have no particular aversion to an occasional treat to
a sober pipe and a poute of sack. Your men of war, who
had served in the Low Countries, and who taught young
gallants the noble art of fencing, were particularly fond of
tobacco; and your gentlemen adventurers, who had served
in a buccaneering expedition against the Spaniards, were no
less partial to it. Sailors—from the captain to the ship-boy
—all affected to smoke, as if the practice was necessary to
their character; and to ‘take tobacco’ and wear a silver
whistle, like a modern boatswain’s mate, was the pride of a
man-of-war’s man.
“Ben Jonson, of all our early dramatic writers, most
frequently alludes to the practice of smoking. In his play
of ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ first acted in 1598, Captain
Bobadil thus extols in his own peculiar vein the virtues of
tobacco; while Cob, the water carrier, with about equal
truth, relates some startling instances of its pernicious effects.
,
*Neander, in his work on “‘Tobacologia” (London, 1622), mentions eighteen varieties of
tobacco, or at least localities from whereit was shipped to London, among which are the
following: Varinas (considered the best), Brazil, Maracay, Orinoco, Margarita, Caracas,
Cumana, Amazon, Virginia, Phillipines, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and St. Domingo.
+“ The first author (says an Eng ish writer) who wrote of this Plant was Charles Stepha-
nus, in 1564. This was a mean, short, inaccurate Draught, till Dr. John Liebault wrote a
whole Discourse of it next year, and put it into his second Book of Husbandry, which was
every year reprinted with additions and alterations, for twenty years after. He had a large
Correspondence, a good Intelligence, and wrote the best of the age, and gathered the great-
‘est stock of experience about this new Plant.”
92 ; HUMOROUS QUOTATIONS.
«“< Bobadil. Body o’ me, here’s the remainder of seven
pound since yesterday was seven-night! °Tis your right
Trinadado! Did you never take any, Master Stephen? —
«“<¢ Stephen. No, truly, Sir; but I'll learn to take it since
ou commend it so. ;
“¢ Bobadil. Sir, believe me upon my relation,—for what
I tell you the world shall not reprove. I have been in the
Indies where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor
a dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge, have received
the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space
of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only.
Therefore, it cannot be but ’tis most divine. Further, take
it, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you
taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should
expel it and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And
for your greenwound, your balsamum, and your St. John’s-
wort, are all mere gulleries and trash to it, especially your
Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too. I could say what I
know of it for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours,
erudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind, but I
rofess myself no quack-salver: only thus much, by Hercules;
i do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe,
to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the
earth tendered to the use of man.’
Cob. “* By gad’s me, I mar’! what pleasure or felicity they
have in taking this roguish tobacco! It’s good for nothing
but to choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers.
Theré were four died out of one house last week with takin
of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight ; one of
them, they say, will ne’er ’scape it: he voided a bushel of
soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks! an’
there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping,
man or woman that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe ;
why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it’s
little better than rats-bane or rosaker.’” *
_ _ From the first announcement that English navigators had
discovered tobacco in Virginia, until the London and Ply-
mouth companies sailed for the New World, the deepest
interest was taken in the voyagers. Drayton, the poet, wrote
of “The Virginian Voyage,” while Chapman and other
dramatists wrote plays in which allusions were made to Vir-
ginia. In the “Mask of Flowers,” performed at White Hall
* A preparation of arsenic,
TOBACCO ON THE STAGE. 93
upon Twelfth Night, 1613-14, one of the characters chal-
lenges another, and asserts that wine is more worthy than
tobacco. The costumes were exceedingly grotesque and
suggestive of the New rather than of fhe Old World. Kawosha
one of the principal characters rode in, wearing on his head
a cap of red-cloth of gold, from his ears were pendants, a
glass chain was about his neck, his body and legs were
covered with olive-colored stuff, in his hands were a bow and
arrows, and the bases of tobacco-colored stuff cut like
tobacco leaves. The play abounds with allusions to the
“Indian weed.” —
“6 Silenus.— Kawosha comes in majestie,
Was never such a God as he;
He’s come from a far countrie
To make our nose a chimney.
Kawosha.—The wine takes the contrary way
To get into the hood;
But good tobacco makes no stay
But seizeth where it should.
More incense hath burned at
Great Kawoshae’s foote
‘Than to Silen and Bacchus, both,
And take in Jove to boote.
Silenus.—The worthies they were nine tis true,
And lately Arthur’s knights I knew;
But now are come up Worthies new,
The roaring boys Kawoshae’s crew.
Kawosha.—Silenus toppes the barrel, but
Tobacco toppes the braine
And makes the vapors fire and soote,
That mon revise againe.
Nothing but fumigation
Doth charm away ill sprites,
Kawosha and his nation
Found out these holy rites.”
The writers of this period abound in allusions to tobacco
and its use. The poets and dramatists found in it a fertile
field for the display of their satire, and from 1600 to 1650
stage plays introduced many characters as either tobacco
94 SHAKESPEARE ON TOBACCO.
drinkers or sellers. It had now become s0 great a custom
and had increased so fast after the importation of Virginia
tobacco that it afforded them no insignificant theme for the
display of their geniu®* The plays of Jonson, Decker,
Rowland, Heywood, Middleton, Fields, Fletcher, Hutton,
Lodge, Sharpham, Marston, Lilly (court poet to Elizabeth),
the Duke of Newcastle and others are full of allusions to
the plant and those who indulged in its use. Shakespeare,t
however, does not once allude to its use, and his silence on
this then curious custom has provoked much conjecture and
inquiry. Some affirm that he wrote to please royalty, but if
so why did he not condemn the custom to appease the wrath
of a sapient king. Others say he kept silence because he
was the friend of Raleigh, and though he would have gladly
held up the great smoker and his favorite indulgence, feared
to add to the popularity of the custom by displeasing his
royal master. Another class affirm that as the stories of his
plays are all antecedent to his own time, therefore he never
mentions either the drinking of tobacco, or the tumultuous
scenes of the ordinary which belonged to it, and which are
so constantly met with in his contemporary dramatists. Says
one:
“How is it that our great dramatist never once makes
even the slightest allusion to smoking? Who can suggest a
reason? Our great poet knew the human heart too well, and
kept too steadily in view, the universal nature of man to be
afraid of painting the external trapping and ephemeral
customs of his own time. Does he not delight to moralize
on false hair, masks, rapiers, pomandens, perfumes, dice,
bowls, fardingales, ete? Did he not sketch for us, with
enjoyment and with satire, too, the fantastic fops, the pomp-
ous stewards, the mischievous pages, the quarrelsome revellers,
the testy gaolers, the rhapsodizing lovers, the siy cheats, and
the ruffling courtiers that filled the streets of Elizabethan
London, persons who could have been found nowhere else
* “Never did nature prodnee a Plant that ina short Time became so universally used, for it
wabibut gc short seb ile Know) in Europe. till it wns taken siniost everywhere, either chewed
: snuffed. pipe of tobacco is now the general a : o i
Mug. Bottle, or Puneh-bow wus ‘Short. ioe nd most Irequent Companion Ofe
t Gifford has also remarked that Shakspeare fs the only one of the dramatic writers of the
age of Janes who does not condescend to notice tobacco; all the others abound in allusions
poli Chitzuoin, on the atng and ae the Otdonr ie world of Loudon was tics Wivided
5 + on the stage. and at the ordinary, The world of London was then divide
into two classes—the tobaccu-lovers and the tobacco-haters, : i
SMOKING IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
SMOKING TAUGHT. 95
nor in any other age? No one can dispute that he drew the
life that he saw moving around him. He sketched these
creatures because they were before his eyes and were his
enemies or his associates; they live still because their creator’s
genius was Promethean, and endowed them with immortality.
Bardolph, Moth, Slender, Abhorson, Don Armado, Mercutio,
etc., are portraits, as everyone knows and feels who is con-
versant with the manners of the Elizabethan times as
handed down in old plays.
“If Shakespeare’s contemporaries were silent about the
then new fashion of smoking, we should not so much wonder
at Shakespeare’s taciturnity. But Decker’s and Ben Jon--
son’s works abound in allusions to tobacco, its uses and
abuses. The humorist and satirist lost no opportunity of.
deriding the new fashion and its followers. The tobacco
merchant was an important person in London of James the
First’s time—with his Winchester pipes, his maple cutting-
blocks, his juniper-wood charcoal fires, and his silver tongs
with which to hand the hot charcoal to his customers,
although he was shrewdly suspected of adulterating the
precious weed with sack lees and oil. It was his custom to
wash the tobacco in muscadel and grains, and to keep it
moist by wrapping it in greased leather and oiled rags, or by
burying it in gravel. The Elizabethan pipes were so small
that now when they are dug up in Ireland the poor call them
‘fairy pipes’ from their tininess. These pipes became known
by the nickname of ‘the woodcock’s heads.’ The apotheca-
ries, who sold the best tobacco, became masters of the art,
and received pupils, whom they taught to exhale the smoke.
in little globes, rings, or the ‘Euripus.’ ‘The slights’ these
tricks were called. Ben Jonson facetiously makes these
professors boast of being able to take three whifis, then to
take horse, and evolve the smoke—one whiff on Hounslow, a
second at Staines, and a third at Bagshot. \
“The ordinary gallant, like Mercutio, would smoke while
the dinner was serving up. Those who were rich and
foolish carried with them smoking apparatus of gold or
silver—tobacco-box, snuff-ladle, tongs to take up charcoal, and
ee irons. There seems, from Decker’s ‘Gull’s Horn-
ook,” to have been smoking clubs, or tobacco ordinaries as
they were called, where the entire talk was of the best shops
for buying Trinidado, the Nicotine, the Cane, and the Pud-
ding, whose pipe had the best bore, which would turn
blackest, and which would break in the browning. At the
theatres, the rakes and spendthrifts who, crowded the stage
96 ‘BEN JONSON ON THE “WEED.”
of Shakespeare’s time sat on low stools smoking; they sat
with their three sorts of tobacco beside them, and handed
each other lights on the points of their swords, sending out
their pages for more Trinidado if they required it. any
gallants ‘took’ their tobacco in the lords room over the stage,
and went out to (Saint) Paul’s to spit there privately.
Shabby sponges and lying adventurers, like Bobadil, bragged
of the number of packets of ‘the most divine tobacco’ they
had‘ smoked in a week, and told enormous lies of living
for weeks in the Indies on the fumes alone. They affirmed
it was an antidote to all poison; that it expelled rheums, sour
‘humours, and obstructions of all kinds. Some doctors were
of opinion that it would heal gout* and the ague, neutralise
the effects of drunkenness, and remove weariness and hunger.
The poor on the other hand, not disinclined to be envious
and detracting when judging rich men’s actions, laughed at
men who made chimneys of their throats, or who sealed up
their noses with snuff.
“ Ben Jonson makes that dry, shrewd, water carrier of his,
Cob, rail at the ‘ roguish tobacco :’ he would leave the stocks
for worse men, and make it present whipping for either man
or woman who dealt with a tobacco-pipe. But King James,
in his inane ‘Counterblast,’ is more violent than even Cob.
He argues that to use this unsavory smoke is to be guilty of
a worse sin than that of drunkenness, and asks how men, who
cannot go a day’s journey without sending for hot coals to
kindle their tobacco, can be expected to endure the privations
of war. Smoking, the angry and fuming king protests, had
-made our manners ag rude as those of the fish-wives of
Dieppe. Smokers, tossing pipes and puffing smoke over the
dinner-table, forgot all cleanliness and modesty. Men now,
he says, cannot welcome a friend but straight they must be
in hand with tobacco. He that refused a pipe in company
was accounted peevish and unsociable. ‘Yea,’ says the royal
coxcomb and pedant, ‘the mistress cannot in a more mannerly
kind entertain her servant than by giving him out of her fair
hand a pipe of tobacco.’ The royal reformer (not the most
virtuous or cleanly of men) closes his denunciation with this
tremendous broadside of invective :
‘Have you not reason, then’ he says, ‘to be shamed and
to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely rounded, so foolishly
received, and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof?
*“ Some hold it fora singular remedie against the gowt
the leaves of Petum (tobacco), because it voideth ereat WeoREue OF thd her oe the
] t.
mouth, hindering the same from fa u high
oa ‘ ior Mesnted a soling pon the joints, which is the very cause of the
CURATIVE QUALITIES. OF
To your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming yourself
both in persons and goods, aud taking also thereby the notes
and marks of vanity upon you by the custom thereof, makin
yourselves to be wondered at by all, foreign civil nations an
by all strangers that come among you, and’ be scorned, and
contenimed ; a custom both fulsome to the eye, hateful to the
nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the
black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible
Stigian smelle of the pit that is bottomless.”
The supposed curative virtues of the tobacco plant had
much to do with its use in Europe while the singular mode
of exhaling through the nostrils added to its charms, and
EXHALING THROUGH THE NOSE.
doubtless led to far greater indulgence. Spenser in his Fairy
Queen makes one of the characters include it with other
herbs celebrated for medicinal qualities.
“Into the woods thence-forth in haste she went,
To seek for herbes that mote him remedy ;
For she of herbes had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymph which from her infancy,
Had nursed her in true nobility :
There whether it divine Tobacco were,
Or Panachz, or Polygony,
She found and brought it to her patient deare,
Who 7; this while lay bleeding out his heart-blood neare.”
98 MODES OF USE.
Lilly also a little later, in his play of The Woman in the
Moone (1597(, speaks of it (through one of the characters) as
being a medicinal herb—
“¢ Gather me balme and cooling violets
And of our holy herbe nicotian,
And bring withall pure honey from the hive
To heale the wound of my unhappy hand.”
Barclay, in his tract on “ The Vertues of Tobacco,” recom-
mends its use as a medicine. The following is one of the
modes of use:
“Take of leafe Tobacco as much as, being folded together,
may make a round ball of such bignesse that it may fill the
patient’s mouth, and inclyne his face downwards toward the
ground, keeping the mouth open, not mouthing any whit
with his tongue, except now and then to waken the medica-
ment, there shall flow such a flood of water from his brain
and his stomacke, and from all the parts of his body that it
shall be a wonder. This must he do fasting in the morning,
and if it be for preservation, and the body be very eaco-
chyme, or full of evil humors, he must take it once a week,
otherwise once a month. He gives the plant the name of
‘Nepenthes,’ and says of it, that ‘it is worthy of a more
loftie name.’” He writes the following verse addressed to:
“Tur Axpusers or Tosacco.”
** Why do you thus abuse this heavenly plant,
The hope of health, the fuel of our life ?
Why do you waste it without fear of want,
Since fine and true tobacco is not ryfe ?
Old Enclio won’t foul water for to spair,
And stop the bellows not to waste the air.”
He also alludes to the quality of tobacco and says: “The
finest Tobacco is that which pearceth quickly the odorat with
a sharp aromaticke smell, and tickleth the tongue with acri-
monie, not unpleasant to the taste, from whence that which
draweth most water is most veituous, whether the substance
of it be chewed in the mouth, or the smoke of it received.”
He speaks of the countries in which the plant grows, and
prefers the tobacco grown in the New World as being supe-
rior to that grown in the Old. In his opinion, “ only that
HELD UP TO RIDICULE, 99
which is fostered in the Indies, and brought home by
Mariners and Traffiquers, is to be used.” But not alone
were Poets and Dramatists inspired to sing in praise or dis-
praise of tobacco, Physicians and others helped to swell in
broadsides, pamphlets and chap-books, the loudest praises or
the most bitter denunciation of the weed. Taylor, the water
poet, who lost his occupation as bargeman when the coach
came into use, thought that the devil brought tobacco into
England in a coach. One of the first tracts wholly devoted
to tobacco is entitled Nash’s “ Lenten Stuffe.” The work is
dedicated to Humphrey King, a tobacconist, and is full of
curious sayings in regard to the plant. Another work,
er.titled “ Metamorphosis of Tobacco,” and supposed to have
been written by Beaumont, made its appearance about this
time. Samuel Rowlands, the dramatist, wrote two works on
tobacco ; the first is entitled “ Look to it, for I'll Stabbe Ye,”
written in 1604; the other volume is a small quarto, bearing
this singular title: “ A whole crew of Kind Gossips, all met
to be Merry.” This is a satire on the time and manners of
the period, and is written in a coarse style worthy of the
author. In 1605 there appeared a little volume bearing for
its title, “Laugh and Lie Down, or the World’s Folly.”
This work describes the fops and men of fashion of its time,
and shows how popular the custom of tobacco taking had
become. In 1609, in “The Gull’s Horne Book,” a gallant is
described as follows:
“ Before the meate comes smoaking to the board our Gal-
lant must draw ont his tobacco box, the ladle for the cold
snuff into his nostrils, the tongs and the priming iron. All
this artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the
price of it; it will be a reasonable, useful pawn at all times
when the current of his money falles out to rune low. And
here you must observe to know in what state tobacco is in
town, better than the merchants, and to discourse of the
pose where it is to be sold as readily as the potecary
imself.”
“One of the severest tirades against tobacco appeared in
1612, “The Curtain Drawer of the World.” In speaking of
the users of the weed, and especially noblemen, he says:
100 TIRADES AGAINST TOBACCO.
“Then noblemen’s chimneys used to smoke, and not their
noses; Englishmen without were not Blackamoores within,
for then Tobacco was an Indian, unpickt and unpiped,—now
made the common ivy-bush of luxury, the curtaine of dis-
honesty, the proclaimer of vanity, the drunken colourer of
Drabby solacy.”
In the “Soule’s Solace, or Thirty-and-One Spiritual
Emblems,” by Thomas Jenner, occurs the following verses:
‘The Indian weed, withered quite,
Greene at noone, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay; all flesh is hay;
’ ‘Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
The Pipe that is so lily-white,
Show thee to-be a mortal wight,
And even such, gone with a touch,
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
' And when the smoake ascends on high,
Thinke thou beholdst the vanity
Of worldly stuffe, gone with a puffe,
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
And when the Pipe grows foul within,
Thinke on thy soul defiled with sin,
And then the fire it doth require;
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
The ashes that are left behind,
May serve to put thee still in mind,
That unto dust return thou must;
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.”
Buttes, in a little volume entitled « Dyets Dry Dinner,”
(1599) says that “Tobacco was translated out of India in the
seede or roote; native or sative in our own fruitfullest soils.
It cureth any griefe, dolour, imposture, or obstruction pro-
ceeding of colde or winde, especially in the head or breast.
The fume taken in a pipe is good against Rumes, ache in the
head, stomacke, lungs, breast ; also in want of meate, drinke,
sleepe, or rest.” :
The introduction of tobacco from the colony of Virginia
was followed soon after by a reduction of price that led to
more frequent use among the poorer classes, such as grooms
ALE AND TOBACCO, 101
and hangers on at taverns and ale-houses, who are alluded to
in Rich’s. “ Honestie of this Age:
“There is not so base a groome that comes into an ale-
house to call for his pott, but he must have his pipe of
tobacco ; for it is a commodity that is nowe as vendible in
every tavern, wine and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale or beare ;
OLD LONDON ALE-HOUSE.
and for apothecaerie’s shops, grocer’s shops, chandler’s shops,
they are never without company, that from morning till
night, are still taking of tobacco. What a number are there
besides, that doe keepe houses, set open shoppes, that have
no other trade to live by, but by selling of tobacco. I have
heard it told, that now very lately there hath been a cata-
logue of all those new erected houses that have sett up that
-trade of selling tobacco in London, and neare about London;
and if a man may believe what is confidently reported, there
are found to be upwards of seven thousand of houses that
doth live by that trade.
“Tf it be true that there be seven thousand shops in and
about London, that doth vend tobacco, as & is credibly
reported that there be over and above that number, it may
well be supposed to be but an ill customed shop, that taketh
not five shillings a day, one day with another throughout the
whole year; or, if one doth take lesse, two other may take
more; but let us make our account, but after two shillings
sixpence a day, for he that taketh lesse than that would be
ill able to pay his rent, or to keepe open his shop windows;
neither would tobacco houses make such a muster as they do,
and that almost in every lane, and in every by-corner round
about London.”
“A Tobacco seller is described after this manner by
102 TOBACCO SELLING.
Blount in a volume “ Micro-Cosmographie; Or A Piece of
of the World discovered; in Essays and Characters” (1628),
“ A tobacco seller is the only man that finds good in it
which others brag of, but doe not, for it is meate, drinke, and
clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater serious-
ness, or challenges your judgment more in the operation. His
Shop is the Randenvous of spitting, where men dialogue with
their noses, and their conversation is smoke. It is the place
only where Spain is commended, and preferred before Eng-
land itself.
“He should be well experienced in the World; for he has
daily tryall as men’s nostrils, and none is better acquainted
with humour. His is the piecing commonly of some other
trade, which is bawd to his Tobacco, and that to his wife,
which is the flame that follows the smoke.”
_ Early in the Seventeenth Century began the persecution by
royal haters of the plant, others, however, had denounced’
the weed and its use and users, but venting nothing more
than a tirade of words against it, had, but little effect in
breaking up the trade or the custom.* James I. sent forth
his famous “Counterblast ” and in the strongest manner con-
demned its use. A portion of it reads thus:
“Surely smoke becomes a kitchen fane better than a dining
chamber: and yet it makes a kitchen oftentimes in the
inward parts of men, soyling and injecting with an unctuous
oyly kind of roote as hath been found in some great tobacco
takers, that after death were opened. A custom loathsome
to the eye, harmful to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and
the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the
horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” +
Quaint old Burton in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,”
recognizes the virtues of the plant while he anathematizes its
abuse. He says :—
“Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes
far beyond all their panacetas, potable gold, and philosophers’
stones, a soveraign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I
* Elizabeth during her reign, published an edict against its use, assigning as a reason
Poa Parpeupsects, by employing the same luxuries as barbarians, were iiely" to degenerate
“From the first introduction of the weed, the votartes of the pipe have enjoyed all the
Diceeines of persecution. Kings have punished, priests have Te Here Fae > Satirists
bal rized and women scolded; but still the weed, with its divers shapes and different names,
ee othaw me. mong narcotics in every region of the globe."—Emerson's Magactne.
ist not ler writer in the same censorious manner says of the use of tobacco. ‘Smoking
Pagan Wrestiviias Muster att oot pearaers.and the grand entertainment of idolatrous
as Use it can hardly find Muinteneee foeue ie use of it to their servants or slaves and suc!
TOBACCO IN KUROPE. 103
confesse, a vertuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely
taken, and medicinally used; but, as it is commonly abused
by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a
mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish,
divclish and damned tobacco, the ruine and overthrow of
body and soul.”
‘The duty on importation had been only twopence per
pound, a moderate sum in view of the prices realized by the
eale of it. -
The King now increased it to the enormous sum of two
shilling and ten pence. James termed the custom of using
tobacco an “evil vanitie” impairing “the health of a great
number of people their bodies weakened and made unfit for
labor, and the estates of many mean persons so decayed and
consumed, as they are thereby driven to unthriftie shifts
only tomaintain their gluttonous exercise thereof.” * Brodi-
gan says of the “ Counterblast:”
“ Tlowever absurd his reasoning may appear, it unfortu-
nately happened that he possessed the power to reduce his
aversion to practice, and le may be considered as the author
of that unwarrantable persecution of the tobacco plant, which
under varying circumstances, has been injudiciously continued
to the present time.”
Other royal haters of the plant issued the most strenous
lawst and affixed penalties of the severest kind, of these may
be mentioned the King of Persia, Amuroth IV. of Turkey,
the Emperor Jehan-Gee and Popes Urban VIII. and
Innocent XII., the last of whom sho-ved his dislike to many
other custoins beside that of tobacco taking.
One of the edicts which he issued was against the taking
of snuff in St. Peters, at Rome; this was in 1690; it was,
however, revoked by Pope Benedict XIV., who himself had
aequired the indulgence.
Tarly in the Seventeenth Century tobacco found its way to
Constantinople. To punish the habit, a Turk was seized and
a pipe transfixed through his nose.
*“King James violent prejadiccs azainst all use of tobacco arose from his aversion to
Sir Walter Raleigh, i:s first Importer into England whom! he intended a sacrifice to the grat-
ification of the King of Bpain.”
¢The Empress Flizibeth was leas severe, She decreed that the anuff-hoxes of those who
nade usc of them in church should be confiscated Lo the use of the beadle.
PUNISHMENT! FOR, SNUFF-TAKING.,
ROYAL HATERS OF TOBACCO. 105
The death of King James, followed by its occupancy of
the throne by his son Charles L., did not lessen the persecu-
tion against tobacco.* In 1625, the year of his accession, he
issued a proclamation against all tobaccos excepting only the
growth of Virginia and Somerites. Charles II. also probib-
ited the cultivation of tobacco. in England and Ireland,
attaching a penalty of 10£ per rood. Fairholt, in alluding
to the Stuarts and Cromwell as persécutors of tobacco, says:
“Cromwell disliked the plant, and ordered his troops to
trample down the crop wherever found.”
It is an historical fact that both James I. and the two
Charleses as well as Cromwell had the strongest dislike against
the Indian weed.
With such powerful foes it seems hardly possible that the
custom should have increased to such an extent that when
William ascended the throne the custom was said to be
almost universal.t “Pipes grew larger and ruled by a
Dutchman, all England smoked in peace.” From this time
forward the varieties-used served only to increase the demand
for the tobacco of the colonies, and as its culture became
better understood the leaf grew in favor, until the demand
for it was greater than the production.
During the reign of Anne, the custom of smoking appears
to have attained its greatest height in England ; the consump-
tion of tobacco was then proportionably greater, considering
the population, than it is at the present time. Spooner, in
his “ Looking-Glass for Smokers,” 1703, says of the custom:
“The sin of the kingdom in the intemperate use of tobacco,
swelleth and increaseth so daily, that I can compare it to
nothing but the waters of Noah, that swell’d fifteen enbits
above the highest mountains. So that if this practice shall
continue to increase as it doth, in an age or two it will be as
hard to find a family free, as it was so long time since one
that commonly took it.”
*Tobacco has been able to survive such attacks as these—nay, has raised up a hoat of
defenders ns wellas opponents. The Polish Jesuits published a work entitled Anti-Miso-
capnus," in answer to King James. In 1628. Raphael Thorius wrote a_pvem “ Hymnus-
Tobici.” A host of names appear in the field: Lesus, Braum and Simon Pauli, Portal, Pia,
Vanquelin, Gardaune, Posselt, Reimann, and De Morveau. ;
+Says an enthusiastic writer on tobacco, “If judged by the vicissitudes through which it
has traveled, it must indeed be acknowledged a hero among plants; and if human pity,
respect, or love should be given it for ‘the dangers it has passed,’ the pepiration of Desde-
monia's love for Othello, then might its most eloquent opponent be dumb, or yield it no
inconsiderable meed of homage.”
106 OLD CUSTOMS.
When tobacco was first introduced into England its sale
was confined to apothecaries, but afterwards it was dealt in
by tobacconists, who sold other goods besides tobacco.
About the middle of the Seventeenth Century the
culture of tobacco commenced in England; it continued,
however, only for a short time, for the rump parliament in
1652 prohibited the planting of it, and two years later Crom-
well and his council appointed commissioners for strictly
putting this act in execution: and in 1660 it was legally
enacted, that from the first of January, 1660-1, no person
whatever should sow or plant any tobacco in England, under
certain penalties. -
In England drinking or smoking tobacco seems to: have
met with more success (as a mode of use) rather than
chewing (now so popular). It was principally confined to
the lower classes, and was common among soldiers and sailors.
“Ni
$3
Wane ak
SILVER SPITTOONS.
When used by gentlemen it was common to carry a silver
basin to spit in.
The habit of smoking or using tobacco in any form was
A RACY POEM. 107
then more constant than now, and its use was common in
almost all places of public gathering. It was the custom to
smoke in theatres; stools being provided for those who paid
for their use and the privilege of smoking on the stage.
Tobacco was also sold at some of the play-houses, and proved
a source of profit, doubtless, beyond even the representation
of the plays. We should infer also from some of the early
stage plays, that the “players” used the weed even when
acting their parts. Rowlands gives the following poem on
tobacco in his “ Knave of Clubs,” 1611 :—
‘* Who durst dispraise tobacco whilst the smoke is in my nose,
Or say, but fah! my pipe doth smell, I would I knew but those
Durst offer such indignity to that which I prefer.
For all the brood of blackamoors will swear I do not err,
In taking this same worthy whif with valiant cavalier,
But that will make his nostrils smoke, at cupps of wine or beer.
When as my purse can not afford my stomach flesh or fish, :
I sop with smoke, and feed as well and fat as one can wish.
Come into any company, though not a cross you have,
Yet offer them tobacco, and their liquor you shall have.
They say old hospitalitie kept -chimnies smoking still;
Now what your chimnies want of that, our smoking noses will.
Much vituals serves for gluttony, to fatten men like swine,. i
But he’s a frugal man indeed that with a leaf can dine,
And needs no napkins for his hands, his fingers’ ends to wipe,
But keeps his kitchen ina box, and roast meat in a pipe.
This is the way to help down years, a meal a day’s enough :
Take out tobacco for the rest, by pipe, or else by snuff,
And you shall find it physical; a corpulent, fat man,
Within a year shall shrink so small that one his guts shall span.
It’s full of physic’s rare effects, it worketh sundry ways,
The leaf green, dried, steept, burnt to dust, have each their several praise,
It makes some sober that are drunk, some drunk of sober sense,
And all the moisture hurts the brain, it fetches smoking thence.
All the four elements unite when you tobacco take.
For earth and water, air and fire, do a conjunction make.
The pipe is earth, the fire’s therein, the air the breathing smoke;
Good liquor must be present too, for fear I chance to choke.
Here, gentlemen, a health to all, Tis passing good and strong.
I would speak more, but for the pipe I cannot stay so long.
In 1602 appeared a sweeping tirade entitled, “ Work for
Chimney Sweepers, or a Warning against Tobacconists.” It
108 GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS.
abounds with threats against all who indulge in tobacco.
The most singular work, how-
ever, appeared in 1616, bearing
the following singular title:
“©The Smoking Age, or the Man
in the Mist; with the Life and
Death of Tobacco. Dedicated
to Captain Whiffe, Captain Pipe,
and Captain Snuffe.” A frontis-
” Piece is given representing a
© tobacconist’s shop with shelves,
< counters, pipes and tobacco; a
= carved figure of a negro stands
' upon the counter, which shows
how soon such figures were used
by dealers in pipes and tobacco.
The title-page contains the following epigram :
“‘ This some affirme, yet yield I not to that,
’Twill make a fat man lean, a lean man fat;
But this I’m sure (howse’ere it be they meane)
That many whiffes will make a fat man lean.”
~ The following effusion resembles many of the verses of
the day on the fruitful subject :
“‘ Tobacco’s an outlandish weed,
Doth in the land strange wonders breed,
It taints the breath, the blood it dries,
It burns the head, it blinds the eyes;
It dries the lungs, scourgeth the lights,
It numbs the soul, it dulls the sprites;
I brings a man into a maze,
And makes him sit for other’s gaze;
It makes a man, it mars a purse,
A lean one fat, a fat one worse;
A sound man sick, a sick man sound,
A bound man loose, a loose man bound;
A white man black, a black man white,
A night a day, a day a night;
The wise a fool, the foolish wise,
A sober man in drunkard’s guise;
LESSONS TAUGHT US. 109
A drunkard with a drought or twain,
A sober man it makes again;
A full man empty, and an empty full,
A gentleman a foolish gull;
It turns the brain like cat in pan,
And makes a Jack a gentleman.”
The well-known song of “Tobacco is an Indian Weed,”
was written must probably the last half of the Seventeenth
Century, Fairholt gives the best copy we have seen of it.
It is taken from the first volume of “Pills to Purge’ Melan-
choly,” and reads thus:
‘* Tobacco’s but an Indian weed,
Grows green at morn, cut down at eve,
_It shows our decay, we are but clay;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
** The pipe, that is so lily white,
Wherein so neany take delight,
Is broke with a touch—man’s life is such;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
‘¢ The pipe, that is so foul within,
Shews how man’s soul is stained with sin,
And then the fire it doth require;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
‘ The ashes that are left behind
Do serve to put us all in mind
That unto dust return we must;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
‘« The smoke, that does so high ascend,
Shews us man’s life must have an end,
The Vapor’s gone—man’s life is done;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.”
One of the strongest objections against the use of the
“Tndian novelty ” was its rninous cost at this period. During
the reign of James The First and Charles The Second,
Spanish tobacco sold at from ten to eighteen shillings per
pound while Virginia tobacco sold for a time for three
shillings. In no age and by no race excepting perhaps the
Indians was the habit so universal or carried to such a length
110 A SMOKING DIVINE.
as in the Seventeenth Century—its supposed virtues as a
medicine induced many to inhale the smoke constantly.
This was one reason why tobacco was condemned by so
many of the writers and playwrights of the day yet many
of them used the weed in some form from Ben Johnson to
Cibber the one fond of his pipe the other of his snuff.
In 1639 Venner published a volume entitled “ A Treatise”
concerning the taking of the fume of tobacco. His advice
is “to take it moderately and at fixed times.” Many of the.
clergy were devoted adherents of the pipe. Lilly says of its
use among them: 5
“In this year Bredon vicar of Thornton a profound divine,
but absolutely the most polite person for nativities in that
age, strictly adhering to Ptolemy, which he well understood;
he had a hand in composing Sir Christopher Heydon’s
defence of judicial astrology, being that time his chaplain ; he
was so given over to tobacco and drink,’ that when he had no
tobacco, he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them.”
CHAPTER V.
TOBACCO IN EUROPE. (CONTINUED.)
~~ EANDER in his work “ Tobacologia,” (1622) gives
a list of the various kinds of tobacco then used and
where they were cultivated, among them are the
following well known now as standard varieties of
tobacco: Brazilian, St. Domingo, Orinoco, Virginia, and
Trinidad ‘tobacco. Fairholt says of the latter that it was
most popular in England and is frequently named by early
authors.* Tobacco when prepared for us was made into
long rolls or large balls which often answered for the
tobacconist’s sign. What we now call cut tobacco was not
as popular then as roll. Smokers carried a roll of tobacco,
a knife and tinder to ignite their tobacco. At the close of
the Sixteenth Century tobacco was introduced into the East.
In Persia and Turkey where at first its use was opposed by
the most cruel torture it gained at length the sanction and
approval of even the Sultan himself. Pallas gives the fol-
lowing account in regard to its first introduction into Asia:
“In Asia, and especially in China, the use of tobacco for
smoking is more ancient than the discovery of the New
World, I too scarcely entertaina doubt. Among the Chinese,
and among the Mongol tribes who had the most intercourse
with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent,
and become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco purse
affixed to their belt, so necessary an article of dress; the
form of the pipes from which the Dutch seem to have taken
the model of theirs so original; and, lastly the preparation of
the yellow leaves, which are merely rubbed to pieces and
* Neander says that Varinas tobacco was iM
.
112 POPULAR USE OF TOBACCO,
then put into the pipe, so peculiar, that we cannot possibly
derive all this from America by way of Europe; especially
as India, (where the habit of smoking is not so general,) inter-
venes between Persia and China. May we not expect to find
traces of this custom in the first account of the Voyages of
the Portugese and Dutch to China? To investigate this
subject, I have indeed the inclination but not suflicient
leisure.”
We find by research that smoking was the most general
mode of using tobacco in England when first introduced.
In France the habit of snuffing was the most popular mode
and to this day the cus-
tom is more general
than elsewhere. In the
days of the Regency
snuff-taking had attained
more general popularity
than any other mode of
using the plant leaves;
the clergy were fond of
the “dust” and carried
the most expensive snuff
boxes, while many loved
the pipe and indulged in
tobacco-smoking. The
old vicar restored to his living enjoyed a pipe when seated
in his chair musing on the subject of his next Sunday’s dis-
course, “with a jug of sound old ale and a huge tome of
sound old divinity on the table before him, for the occasional
refreshment as well of the bodily as the spiritual man.”
The cultivation of tobacco in Europe was begun in Spain
and Portugal. Its culture in these kingdoms as well as by
their colonies brought to the crown enormous revenues. In
1626, its culture began in France and is still an important
product. A little later it began to be cultivated in Germany
where it had already been used as a favorite luxury. From
this time its use and cultivation extended to various parts of
Europe. The Persecutors whether kings, popes, poets, or
courtiers at length gave up their opposition while many of
TOBACCO AND THEOLOGY.
MORE POETRY 113
them joined in the use and spread of the custom. It has
been said with much truth:
“History proves that persecution never triumphs in its
attempted eradications. ‘Tobacco was so generally liked that
no legislative measures could prevent its use.”
At first the use of tobacco was confined to fops and the
hangers on at ale houses and taverns but afterwards by the
“chief men of the realm.” Soon after the importation of
the “durned weed” from Virginia the tobacco muse gave
forth many a lay concerning the custom. The following
verses describe the method of smoking then in vogue:
Nor did that time know
To puff and to blow
In a peece of white clay,
As they do at this day
With fier and coole,
And a leafe in a hole;
As my ghost hath late seen,
As I walked betwene
Westminister Hall
And the church of St. Paul,
And so thorow the citie
Where I saw and did pitty
My country men’s cases,
With fiery-smoke faces,
Sucking and drinking
A filthie weede stinking,
‘Was ne’r known before
Till the devil and the More
In th’ Indies did meete,
And each other there greete
With a health they desire,
Of stinke, smoke and fier.
But who e’re doth abhorre it.
The citie smookes for it ;
Now full of fier shop,
And fowle spitttng chop,
So sneezing and coughing,
That my ghost fell to scoffing.
And to myself said :
Here’s filthie fumes made;
Good phisicke of force
To cure a sicke horse.”
114 FROM “OLD SALT.”
The Puritans, from the first introduction of the plant,
were sincere haters of tobacco, not only in England but in
America. Cromwell had as strong a dislike of the plant as
King James, and ordered the troopers to destroy the crops
by trampling them under foot. Hutton describes a Puritan
as one who
*¢ Abhors a sattin suit, a velvet cloak,
And sayes tobacco is the Devill’s smoke.”
Probably no other plant has ever met with such powerful
determined opposition, both against its use and cultivation,
as the tobacco plant. It was strenuously opposed by all
possible means, governmental, legislative, and literary. When
tea and coffee were first introduced both were denounced in
unmeasured terms, but the opposition was not so bitter or as
lasting.
The following verses bearing the nom de plume of an“ Old
Salt,” record much of the history of the plant:—
‘Oh muse! grant me the power
(I have the will) to sing
How oft in lonely hour,
When storms would round me lower,
Tobacco’s prov’d a King!
* Philanthropists, no doubt
With good intentions ripe,
Their dogmas may put out,
And arrogantly shout
The evils of the pipe. a
“ Kind moralists, with tracts,
Opinions fine may show:
Produce a thousand facts—
How ill tobacco acts
Man’s system to o’erthrow.
“* Learn’d doctors have employed
Much patience, time and skill,
To prove tobacco cloyed
With acrid alkaloid,
With power the nerves to kill
‘* B’en Popes have curst the plants
Kings bade its use to cease;
TOBACCO GLORIFIED. 115
But all the Pontiff’s rant
And Royal Jamie’s cant
Ne’er made its use decrease.
*¢ Teetotallers may stamp
And roar at pipes and beer;
But place them in a swamp,
When nights are dark and damp—
Their tune would change, I fear.
“* No advocate am I
Of excess in one or t’other,
And ne’er essayed to try
In wine to drown a sigh,
Or a single care to smother.
** Yet, in moderation pure,
A glass is well enough;
But, a troubled heart to cure,
Kind feelings to insure,
Give me a cheerful puff.
*¢ How oft a learn’d divine
His sermons will prepare,
Not by imbibing wine,
But, ’neath th’ influence fine
Of a pipe of ‘‘ baccy” rare!
“ How many a pleasing scene,
How many a happy joke,
How many a satire keen,
Or problem sharp, has been
Evolved or born of smoke!
« How oft, amidst the jar
Of storms on ruin bent,
On ship-board, near or far,
To the drenched and shiv’ring tar
Tobacco’s solace lent!
«¢ Oh! tell me not ’tis bad,
Or that it shortens life.
Its charms can soothe the sad,
And make the wretched glad,
In trouble and in strife.
s¢ "Tis used in every clime,
By all men, high and low;
It is praised in prose and rhyme,
So let the kind herb grow!
116 ‘WEIGHT OF SMOKE.
“ *Tis a friend to the distress’d,
Tis a comforter in need;
It is social, soothing, blest;
Tt has fragrance, force, and zest;
Then hail the kingly weed!”
While Raleigh * and many of Elizabeth’s courtiers indulged
frequently in a pipe, some have imagined that even Queen
Bess herself tested the rare virtues of tobacco. This is
hardly based upon sufficient proof to warrant a very strong
belief in it; but the following account of “How to weigh
smoke” taken from Tinsley’s Magazine shows that the-Queen
was acquainted at least with Raleigh’s use of the weed:
“One day it happened that Queen Elizabeth, wandering
about the grounds and alleys at Hampton with a single maid
of honour, came upon Sir Walter Raleigh indulging in a
pipe. Smoking now is as common as eating and drinking,
and to smoke amongst ladies isa vulgarity. But not so then:
it was an accomplishment, it was a distinction; and one of
the feathers in Sir Walter’s towering cap was his introduction
of tobacco. The all-accomplished hero rose and saluted the
Queen in his grand manner, and the Queen, who was in her
daintiest humour, gave him her white hand to kiss, and took
the seat he had left.
“Now, Sir Walter, I can puzzle you at last.” “TI suppose
I must not be so rude as to doubt your Majesty.” “You are
bold enough for that, but your boldness will not help you,
Sir Walter, this time. You cannot tell me how much the
smoke from your pipe weighs.” “ Your Majesty is mistaken.
I can tell you toa nicety. Will your Majesty allow me to
call yonder page, and send for a pair of scales and weights?’.
“ By my honour,” said the Queen, “were any other subject
in our realm to make request so absurd, we should very
positively deny it. But you are the wisest of our fools, and,
though we expect to see but little use made of these weights
when brought, your request shall be granted. And, suppos-
ing you fail to weigh the smoke, what penalty will you pay?”
“T will be content,” said Sir Walter, “to lose my head.”
“You may chance to lose it on a graver count than this;”
answered the Queen. “If the head shall have done some
* It is said that Raleigh ia communicating the art to his friends, gave smoking parties at
his house, where his fueste were treated with nothing but a Bie & mug 0: fe, and &
mneneess Says an a vest writer ‘ inh ae me Aa related respecting the weight of
Le aa: pip ly not throw a cloud over the brilliant wit of the
e
FIRE! FIRE! 117
slight service to your Majesty and the realm,” replied
courteous knight, “thee will be well content revdtblen
“But your Majesty will soon see that I fail not. First
madam, I place this empty pipe in the scales, and I find that
it weighs exactly 2 ounces. tage fill it with tobacco, and
the weight is in- .
creased to 2 1-10th
ounce. I must now
ask your Majesty to
allow me to smoke
the pipe out. I shall
then turn out the
ashes, and place them
together with the
pipe in the scale once
more. The differ-
ence between the
weight of the pipe
with the unsmoked
tobacco, and weight
of the pipe with the
ashes, will be the
weight of the smoke.”
“You are too clever
for us, Sir Walter. We shall expect you to-night at supper,
and if the conversation grow dull, you shall tell our cour-
tiers the story of the pipe.”
Many other anecdotes have been told of the adventures of
Raleigh with his pipe. One is that while taking a quiet
smoke his servant entered and becoming alarmed on seeing
the smoke coming from his nose threw a mug of ale in his
face.
The same anecdote is also related of others including
‘Tarlton. He gives an account of it in his Jests 1611. it is
told in this manner:
“Tarlton as other gentlemen used, at the first coming up
of tobacco, did take it more for fashion’s sake than otherwise,
and being in a roome, sat betweene two men overcome with
wine, and they never seeing the like, wondered at it, and
seeing the vapour come out of Tarlton’s nose, cryed out,
‘Fire, fire!’ and threw a cup of wine in Tarlton’s face.
‘Make no more stirre,’ quoth Tarlton, ‘the fire is quenched ;
if the sheriffs come, it will turne a fine as the custom is.’
WEIGHING SMOKE,
118 ANECDOTES.
And drinking that againe, ‘Fie,’ says the other: ‘what a
stinke it makes. I am almost poysoned.’ ‘If it offend,
quoth Tarlton, ‘let’s every one take a little of the smell, and
go the savor will quickly go; but tobacco whiffes made them
leave him to pay all.” =
Rich gives the following account of a similar scene :—
“I remember a pretty jest of tobacco which was this: A
certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding
one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not
knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke
so fast, and supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried
out, ‘O Jhesu, thea man, for the passion of Cod hold, for
by Cod’s splud ty snowt’s on fire,’ and having a bowle of
beere in his hand, threw it at the other’s face, to quench his
smoking nose.”
The following anecdote is equally ludicrous. Before
tobacco was much known in Germany, some soldiers belong-
ing to a cavalry regiment were quartered in a German village
One of them, a trumpeter, happened to be a negro. A
peasant, who had never seen a black man before, and who
knew nothing about tobacco, watched, though at a safe dis-
tance, the trumpeter, while the latter groomed and fed his
horse. As soon as this business was dispatched, the negro
filled his pipe and began to smoke it. Great had been the
peasant’s bewilderment before; great was his terror now.
The terror reached an intolerable point when the negro took
the pipe from his mouth, offered it to the peasant, and asked
him, in the best language he could command, to take a whiff.
“No, no!” cried the peasant, in exceeding alarm; “no, nol
Mr. Devil; I do not wish to eat fire.”
Henry Fielding, in “The Grub Street Opera” written
_ about a century ago, has the following verses on Tobacco :—
“ Let the learned talk ot books,
The glutton of cooks,
The lover of Celia’s soft smack—O!
No mortal can boast
So noble a toast,
As a pipe of accepted tobacco.
“Let the soldier for fame,
And a general’s name,
In battle get many a thwack—-O!
MORE SONGS. 119
is
Let who will have most
Who will rule the rooste,
Give me but a pipe of tobacco.
“ Tobacco gives wit
To the dullest old cit,
And makes him of politics crack—O!
The lawyers i’ th’ hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.
“The man whose chief glory
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack—O!
Between every heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.
“« The doctor who places
Much skill in grimaces,
And feels your pulse running tic tack—O!
Would you know his chief skill?
It is only to fill
And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.
“ The courtiers alone
To this weed are not prone;
Would you know what *tis makes them so slack—O?
*Twas because it inclined
‘To be honest the mind,
And therefore they banished tobacco.”
x
One of the most curious pieces of verse ever written on
tobacco is the following by Southey, entitled “Elegy ona
Quid of Tobacco :’—
‘6 It lay before me on the close-grazed grass,
Beside my path, an old tobacco quid:
And shall I by the mute adviser pass
Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid!
* Perhaps some idle drunkard threw thee there—
Some husband spendthrift of his weekly hire ;
One who for wife and children takes no care,
But sits and tipples by the ale-house fire.
120 CURIOUS VERSES.
« Ah! luckless was the day he learned to chew!
Embryo of ills the quid that pleased him first;
Thirsty from that unhappy quid he grew,
Then to the ale-house went to quench his thirst.
“ So great events from causes small arise—
The forest oak was once an acorn seed;
And many a wretch from drunkenness who dies,
Owes all his evils to the Indian weed.
¢ Let no temptation, mortal, ere come nigh!
Suspect some ambush in the parsley hid;
From the first kiss of love ye maidens fly,
Ye youths, avoid the first Tobacco-quid!
“< Perhaps I wrong thee, O thou veteran chaw,
And better thoughts my musings should engage;
That thou wert rounded in some toothless jaw,
The joy, perhaps of solitary age.
“ One who has suffered Fortune’s hardest knocks,
Poor, and with none to tend on his gray hairs;
Yet has a friend in his Tobacco-box,
And, while he rolls his quid, forgets his cares.
*¢ Even so it is with human happiness—
Each seeks his own according to his whim;
One toils for wealth, one Fame alone can bless,
One asks a quid—a quid is all to him.
‘OQ, veteran chaw! thy fibres savory, strong,
While aught remained to chew, thy master chewed,
Then cast thee here, when all thy juice was gone,
Emblem of selfish man’s ingratitude!
**O, happy man! O, cast-off quid! is he
Who, like as thou, has comforted the poor;
Happy hi§ age who knows himself, like thee,
Thou didst thy duty—man can do no more.”
Another well known song of the Seventeenth Century is
entitled “The Tryumph of Tobacco over Sack and Ale:”—
** Nay, soft by your leaves,
Tobacco bereaves
You both of the garland; forbear it;
You are two to one,
Yet tobacco alone
Is like both to. win it, and weare it.
TRIUMPH OF TOBACCO, 191
Though many men crack,
Some of ale, some of sack,
And think they have reason to do it;
Tobacco hath more
That will never give o’er
The honor they do unto it.
Tobacco engages
_ Both sexes, all ages,
The poor as well as the wealthy;
From the court to the cottage,
From childhood to dotage,
Both those that are sick and the healthy.
It plainly appears
That in a few years
Tobacco more custom hath gained,
Than sack, or than ale,
Though they double the tale
Of the times, wherein they have reigned.
And worthily too,
For what they undo
Tobacco doth help to regaine,
On fairer conditions
Than many physitians,
Puts an end to much griefe and paine;
It helpeth digestion,
Of that there’s no question,
The gout and the tooth-ache it easeth:
Be it early, or late,
Tis never out of date,
He may-safely take it that pleaseth.
Tobacco prevents
Infection by scents,
That hurt the brain, and are heady.
An antidote is,
Before you’re amisse,
As well as an after remedy.
The cold it doth heate,
Cools them that do sweate,
And them that are fat maketh lean:
The hungry doth teed,
And if there be need,
Spent spirits restoreth again.
The poets of old,
Many fables have told,
Of the gods and their symposia;
But tobacco alone,
Had they known it, had gone
122 A GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY.
For their nectar and ambrosia.
It is not the smack
Of ale or of sack,
That can with tobacco compare:
For taste and for smell,
It beares away the bell
From them both, wherever they are:
For all their bravado,
It is Trinidado,
That both their noses will wipe
Of the praises they desire,
Unless they conspire
To sing to the tune of his pipe.
The history of the rise and progress of tobacco in England,
is one of the most interesting features connected with the
use and cultivation of the plant. In Spain, Portugal,
Germany and Holland the plant was sustained and encour-
aged by the throne, and royalty was the strongest and most
devoted defender it had. It saw in the encouragement
of its use, an income of revenue and a source of profit far
greater than that received from any other product. Soon
after its cultivation began in France, Spain, and Portugal,
the tobacco trade was farmed out.
From its first cultivation in these countries it has been a
government monopoly. In 1753, the King of Portugal
farmed out the tobacco trade, and from that time until now,
the annual amount received has been one of the principal
sources of revenue to the crown. In France, as early as
1674, a monopoly of the trade was granted to Jean Breton
for six years, for the sum of 700,000 francs.
In 1720 the Indian Company paid for the privilege
1,500,000 francs per annum; and in 1771 the price was
increased to 25,000,000 francs. Besides France there are
thirteen other Eurovean states where the tobacco trade is a
government monopoly, namely, Austria, Spain, Sicily, Sar-
dinia, Poland, Papal States, Portugal, Tuscany, Modena,
Parma, San Marino, Lichtenstein.
* From the first cultivation of the plant, its growers saw in
the tobacco trade a vast and constantly increasing source of
TOBACCO A BLESSING. 123
wealth. They doubtless in some measure comprehended the
close relation existing between it and commerce and realized
how extensive would be its use.
From the nature of the plant, it affords states and nations
an opportunity to engage either in its culture or commerce
with the prospect of the largest success. In this respect it is
far different from any other tropical plant, and unlike them
is capable of being cultivated in portions of the earth far
remote from the tropics. In Switzerland and in the Caucas-
sias it attains to a considerable size, but is nevertheless
tobacco although it may possess but few of the. excellences of
some varieties, still it affords some enjoyment to the user,
from the fact that it is the Indian weed. Fairholt speaking
of the tobacco trade says :
“ The progress of the tobacco trade from the earliest intro-
duction of the plant into Europe until now, is certainly one of
the most curious that commerce presents. That a plant
originally smoked by a few savages, should succeed in spite
of the most stringent opposition in church and state, to be
the cherished luxury of the whole civilized world ; to increase
with the increase of time, and to end in causing so vast a
trade, and so large an outlay of money; is a statistical fact,
without an equal parallel.” *
The tobacco plant notwithstanding its fascinating powers,
has suffered many romantic vicissitudes in its fame and
character; having been successively opposed and com-
mended by physicians, condemned and eulogized by priests,
vilified and venerated by: kings, and alternately pro-
scribed and protected by governments, this once insignifi-
cant production of a little island or an obscure district, has
succeeded in diffusing itself throughout every clime, and—
exhilarating and enriching its thousands—has subjected the
inhabitants of every country to its dominion. And every
where it is a source of comfort and enjoyment; in the highest
grades of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the
depths of poverty, in the palace and in the cottage, the
fascinating influence of this singular plant demands an equal
tribute of devotion and attachment.
' CHAPTER VI.
TOBACCO-PIPES, SMOKING AND SMOKERS.
an Ios HE implements used in smoking tobacco, from the
“i, rude pipe of the Indian to the elaborate hookah of
A the Turk, show a far greater variety than even the
2 various species of the tobacco plant. The instru-
ments used by the Indians for inhaling the tobacco smoke
were no less wonderful to Europeans than the plant itself.
The rude mode of inhaling the smoke and the intoxication
produced by its fumes suggested to the Spaniards a better
method of “taking tobacco.” Hariot, however, found clay
pipes in use by the Indians of Virginia, which though having
no resemblance to the smoking implements discovered by
Columbus, seem to have afforded a model for those afterward
manufactured by the Virginiacolony. The sailors of Colum-
bus seemed to have first discovered cigar, rather than pipe-
smoking, inasmuch as the simple method used by the natives,
consisted of a leaf of maize, which enwrapped a few leaves
of the plant.
The next instruments discovered in use among the Indians
were straight, hollow reeds and forked canes. Their mode
of use was to place a few leaves upon coals of fire and by
placing the forked end in the nostrils and the other upon the
smoking leaves, to inhale the smoke until they were stupified
or drunken with the fumes. Their object in inhaling the
fumes of tobacco seemed to be to produce intoxication and
insensibility rather than a mode of enjoyment, although the
enjoyment with them consisted of seeing the most remark-
able visions when stupefied by its fumes. Such were the
124
INDIAN PIPES, 195
modes of smoking among the Indians when Columbus planted
the banner of Spain in America.
A writer in Zhe Tobacco Plant has given a very interest-
ing description of Indian pipes in use among the natives of
both North and South America. He says:
“Tn the tumuli or Indian grave mounds of the Ohio and
Scioto valleys, large quantities of pipes have been found,
bearing traces of Indian ingenuity. That their burial mounds
are of great antiquity, is proved by the fact that trees several
centuries old are to be found growing upon them. About
twenty-five years ago, two distinguished archeologists Squier
and Davis—made extensive exploration of these mounds, the
results of which were published in an elaborate memoir b
the Smithsonian Institution. The mounds indicate that an
immense amount of labor has been expended upon them, as
the earthworks and mounds may be counted by thousands,
requiring either long time or an immense population; and
there is much probability in the supposition of Sir John Lub-
bock that these parts of America were once inhabited by a num-
erous and agricultural population. It may be asked, have the
races who erected these extensive mounds become extinct, or
do they exist in the poor uncivilized tribes of Indians whom
Europeans found inhabiting the river valleys of Ohio and
Illinois? Many of these mounds are in the form of serpents
and symbolic figures, and were evidently related to the
sacrificial worship of the mound builders.”
Squier and Davis are of the opinion that :—
“The mound builders were inveterate smokers, if the great:
numbers of pipes discovered in the mounds be admitted as
evidence of the fact. These constitute not only a numerous,
but a singularly interesting class of remains. In their con-
struction the skill of the maker seems to have been exhausted.
Their general form, which may be regarded as the primitive
. form of the implement, is well exhibited in the accompany-
ing sketch. They are always carved from a single piece, and
consist of a flat carved bore of variable length and width,
with the bowl rising from the centre of the convex side.
From one of the ends, and communicatiug with the hollow
of the bowl, is drilled a small hole, which answers the pur-
pose of a tube; the corresponding opposite division being
left for the manifest purpose of holding the implement to
the mouth.
“The specimen here represented is finely carved from a
126 MATERIAL FOR PIPES.
beautiful variety of brown porphyry, granulated with various-
colored materials, the whole. much changed by the action of
fire, and somewhat resembling porcelain. It is intensely
hard, and successfully resists the edge of the finest-tempered
knife. The length of the
base is five inches; breadth
of the same one inch and a-
quarter. The bowl is one
inch and a-quarter high,
slightly tapering upwards,
but flaring near the top. The
hollow of the bowl is six-
_ tenths of an inch in diameter.
The perforation answering to the tube is one-sixth of an
inch in diameter, which is about the usual size. This cir-
cumstance places it beyond doubt that the mouth was applied
directly to the implement, without the intervention of a
tube of wood or metal.”
This is an account of a simple pipe, with a small bowl ; but
most of the pipes found in the moundsare highly ornamented
with elaborate workmanship, representing animals such as
the beaver, otter, bear, wolf, panther, raccoon, squirrel, wild-
cat, manotee, eagle, hawk, heron, swallow, paroquet, etc.
One of the most interesting of the spirited sculptures of
animal forms to be found on the mound pipes, is the repre-
sentation of the Lamantin, or Manotee, a cetacean found only
in tropical waters, and the nearest place which they at.
present frequent is the coast of Florida—at least a thousand
miles away. According to Sir John Lubbock, these are no
rude sculptures, for the characteristics of the animal are all
distinctly marked, rendering its recognition complete. Many
modern Indians are possessed of a wonderful aptitude for
sculpture, and they appear to gladly exchange their work for
the necessaries of life.
The material most prized for the purpose of pipe-making
is the beautiful red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Prairies,
which is an indurated aluminous stone, highly colored with
red oxide of iron. It is frequently called “ Catlinite,” out of
compliment to George Catlin, the distinguished collector.of
Indian traditions, who claims to be the first European that
INDIAN PIPE.
LEGEND OF THE RED PIPE. 127
ever visited the Red Pipestone Quarry, which is situated
amongst the upper waters of Missouri. Catlin gives the
following legend as the Indian version of the birth of the
mysterious red pipe :—
“The Great Spirit, at an ancient period, here called together
the Indian warriors, and standing on the precipice of the
red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made
a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over
them, and to the north, the south, the east and the west;
and told them that this stone was red, that it was their flesh,
that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that it belonged
to them all, and that the war club and the scalping knife
must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his
pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface
of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed. Two
great ovens were opened beneath, and two women, guardian
spirits of the place, entered them in a blaze of fire, and they
are heard there yet, answering to the invocations of the
priests and medicine-men.”
At the pipe-stone quarry there is a row of five huge,
granite boulders, which the Indians regard with great
reverence, and when they visit the spot to secure some red
stone to make pipes, they seek to propitiate the guardian
spirits by throwing plugs of Tobacco to them. Some admi-
rable pieces of pipe-sculpture are produced by the Boheen
Indians, who are found on the coast of the Pacific to the south
of the Russians. These pipés are made from a soft blue clay
stone which is found only in slabs, and the sculptures are
wrought on both sides, the pipes being generally covered with
singular groups of human and animal forms, grotesquely
intermingled.
The Chippewas are also celebrated for their pipes, which
are cut out of a close-grained stone of a dark color; and Pro-
fessor Wilson, of Toronto, states that Pobahmesad, or the
Flier, one of the famed pipe-sculptors, resides on the Great
Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. The old Chippewa has
never deviated from the faith of his fathers, as he still adheres
to all their rites and ceremonies. He uses the red pipe-stone
and other materials in the production of his pipes, which are
ingenious specimens of sculpture. The calumet, or pipe of.
128 CHIPPEWA PIPES.
peace, is still an object of special reverence with the Indian
tribes, and the pipe-stem is ornamented with six or eight eagle’s
SCULPTURED PIPE,
feathers. Each tribe has an official who takes charge of the
calumet, which he keeps rolled up in a bearskin robe; and
it’s never exposed to view or used, except when the chief
enters into a treaty with some neighboring chief. On these
occasions the pipe is taken out of its covering by the Indian
dignitary, ready charged with the “holy weed,” when it is
smoked by all the chiefs, each one taking only a single breath
of smoke, which is regarded as implementing the treaty.
The pipe is then rolled up in its robe of fur, and stowed
away in the lodge of its. keeper until it is again required.
The war pipe is simply a tomahawk, with a perforated handle
communicating with the bowl, which is opposite the sharp
edge of the weapon. When the Indians joined the British
as allies during the American war, they had to be supplied
with iron tomahawks of the native pattern, before they,
could enter the field as allies.
Many tribes of Indians use herbs of various kinds to mix
with tobacco to reduce its strength, as they are in the habit
of exhaling the smoke from the nostrils, and not from the
mouth. By the adoption of this means a much smaller
quantity of tobacco suffices to produce the soothing influence
on the nervous system so well known to votaries of the weed.
Longfellow, in his great Indian epic of the Song of Hiawa-
tha, has portrayed with graphic power in pleasing verse the
mysterious legends describing the birth or institution of the
peace-pipe by Gitche Manito, “The Master of Life;” anda
few extracts from “ Hiawatha” may be interesting to illus-
“HIAWATHA.” 129
trate the deep significance of the ideas which the Indian holds
regarding his relations to the Great Spirit of the Universe,
and of the esteem with which he views the peace-pipe, which
in the words of Catlin “has shed its thrilling fumes over
the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage.”
Longfellow, in the opening of his poem, says :-—
*¢Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened ;—
Listen to this simple story, .
To the song of Hiawatha.
He then describes the making of the pipe from the great
Red Pipe-Stone Quarry, as follows :—
*¢ On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
s From his foot-prints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O’er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit stooping earthward,
With his finger on the meadow
Traced a winding pathway for it,
Saying to it, ‘Run in this way!’
«‘ From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment,
Moulded it into a pipe-head,
Shaped and fashioned it with figures
From the margin of the river
9
~ 130 MAKING THE “ PEACE-PiPES.”
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,
With its dark green leaves upon it;
Filled the pipe with bark of willow;
With the bark of the red willow; :
Breathed upon the neighboring forest,
Made its great boughs chafe together,
Till in flame they burst and kindled;
And erect upon the mountains,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe,
As a signal to the nations.”
PIPE OF PEACE.
The next verses describe the assembling of the nations af
the call of Gitche Manito, who proceeds to speak to his
children words of wisdom and announces that he:
s¢ ¢ Will send a prophet to you,
A Deliverer of the nations,
Who shall guide you and shall tench you,
Who shall toil and suffer with you.
So you listen to his counsels,
You will multiply and prosper ;
If his warnings pass unheeded,
You will fade away and perish!
‘s¢ ¢ Bathe now in the stream before you,
Wash the war-paint from your faces,
Wash the blood-stains from your fingers,
Bury your war-clubs and your weapons,
Break the red stone from this quarry,
Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes,
‘Take the reeds that grow beside you,
Deck them with your highest feathers,
SOUTH AMERICAN PIPES. 131
Smoke the calumet together,
And as brothers live henceforward!’
* * * *
‘© And in silence all the warriors
Broke the red stone of the quarry,
Smoothed and formed it into Peace-Pipes,
Broke the long reeds by the river,
Decked them with their brightest feathers,
And departed each one homeward,
While the Master of Life, ascending
Through the opening of cloud curtains,
Through the doorways of the heavens,
Vanished from before their faces,
In the smoke that rolled around him,
The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe!”
Along the northern parts of America, are to be found the
Esquimaux population, estimated to number about 60,000.
They are votaries of the weed, making their pipes either
out of driftwood, or of the bones of animals they have used
for food.
Tobacco is found growing along the whole western sea-
board of South America until we reach the northern bound-
aries of Patagonia. Far inland on the banks of the Amazon,
Rio Niger, and other great rivers, the weed has been found
in luxurious abundance, with a delightful fragrance,
Stephens, in his “Travels in Central America,” says that
“the ladies of Central America generally smoke—the mar-
ried using tobacco, and the unmarried, cigars formed of selected
tobacco rolled in paper or rice straw. Every gentleman
carries in his pocket a silver case, with a long string of cotton,
steel and flint, and one of the offices of gallantry is to strike
alight. By doing it well, he may help to kindle a flame in
a lady’s heart; at all events, to do it bunglingly would be
ill-bred. I will not express my sentiments on smoking as a
custom for the sex. I have recollections of beauteous lips
profaned. Nevertheless, even in this I have seen a lady
show her prettiness and refinement, barely touching the
straw on her lips, as it were kissing it gently and taking it
away. When a gentleman asks a lady for a light, she always
removes the cigar from her lips.”
The Rev. Canon Kingsley, in his fascinating novel of
“Westward Ho!” has some quaint remarks on the method
132
CIGARETTES,
of smoking described by Lionel Wafer,
surgeon to Dampier, which are well worth
quoting. He says, “ When they, (thé
Darien Indians,) will deliberate on war
or policy, they sit round in the hut of
the chief; where being placed, enter to
them a small boy with a cigarro of the
bigness of a rolling-pin, and puffs the
smoke thereof into the face of each war-
rior, from the eldest to the youngest;
while they, putting their hands funnel-
wise round their mouths, draw into the
sinuosities of the brain that more than
Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy
presently falls down in a swoon, and
being dragged out by the heels and laid
by to sober, enter another to puff at the
sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out like-
wise, and so on till the Tobacco is fin-
ished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted
in every soul into the tree of meditation,
bearing the flower of eloquence, and in
due time the fruit of valiant action.”
Tobacco in the form of cigarettes, is
extensively used by the inhabitants of
Nicaragua, Guiana, and the dwellers on
the banks of the Orinoco, and the use
of the weed is not confined to the male
sex, but is freely used both by the female
and juvenile portions of the community.
Mr. Squier, in his “Travels in Nicara-
gua,” states that the dress of the young
urchins consists mainly of a straw hat
and a cigar—the cigar when not in use
being stuck behind the ear, in the man-
ner in which our clerks place their pens.
The natives of Guiana use a tube or
Pipe not unlike a cheroot, made from
the rind of the fruit of a species of palm.
This curious pipe is called a “ Winns,”
TOBACCO ON THE AMAZON RIVER. 133
and the hollow is filled with tobacco, the smoking of which
affords much enjoyment to the denizens of the swampy
regions of Guiana.
Mr. Cooke, in “ The Seven Sisters of Sleep,” states that a
tube much resembling the “ Winna” of Guiana was some
years ago to be met with in the Tobacconists’ Shops in
London. The Indian dwelling in the dense forests in the
region of Orinoco has found that tobacco is an excellent
solace to relieve the monotony of his life; he uses
it “not only to procure an afternoon nap, but also to
induce a state Se quiescence which they call dreaming with
their eyes open.” We find from voyagers up the Amazon,
that smoking prevails not merely amongst the natives inhabit-
ing the regions which skirt that great river, but also amongst
the people on the banks of its numerous tributaries. Mr.
Bates the distinguished Naturalist, when making researches
far up one of the tributaries of the Amazon, found tobacco
extensively cultivated, and some distinguished makers of
cigarettes. One maker, Joan Trinidade, was noted for his
Tobacco and Tauri cigarettes. This cigar is so named from
the bark in which the tobacco is rolled. Some of the tribes
inhabiting the district of the lower Amazon indulge in snuff-
taking. This snuff is not made from tobacco, it is the produce
of a plant of the leguminous order, the seeds being carefully
collected and thoroughly dried in the sun before they are
pounded in a mortar, when the powder is ready for use.
The snuff-making season is quite an event in a Brazilian
village, the week or so during which it lasts forming a kind
of religious festival mingled with a good deal of indulgence
in fermented liquors, chiefly of native origin.
Humboldt, when traveling in South America, found in use
among the Ottomac Indians a powder called Niopo, or “ In-
dian snuff.” Niopo is a powerful stimulant, a small portion
of it producing violent sneezing in persons unaccustomed to
its use. Father Gumilla says :—“ This diabolical powder of
the Ottomacs, furnished by an adolescent tobacco plant,
intoxicates them through the nostrils, deprives them of
134 ‘BRAZILIAN TOBACCO.
reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle.”
Humboldt, however, has shown that this stimulating snuff ig '
not the product of the tobacco plant, but of a species of acacia,
Niopo being made from the pods of the plant after they have
undergone a process of fermentation. Captain Burton, when
traveling in the Highlands of Brazil, found the tobacco plant
growing spontaneously, which made him conclude that it is
indigenous to Brazil. He found the “ Aromatic Brazilian ”
a kind of tobacco with thin leaves and a pink flower, which is
“much admired in the United States, and there found to lose
its aroma after the second year.” It is usually asserted that
the tobacco grown in Brazil contains only two per cent. of
nicotine, but Captain Burton is disposed to doubt this, as he
states that some varieties of the “holy herb” grown at Sa’a’
Paulo and Nimos suggests a larger proportion. In the small
towns in the Highlands of Brazil, Captain Burton found that
excellent cigars, better than many “ Havannas,” were retailed
at a halfpenny each. In La Plata, Paraguay, and other
countries to the south of Brazil, nearly every person smokes,
and an American traveler quoted by Mr. Cooke states that
women and girls above thirteen years of age use the weed in
the form of quids. A magnificent Hebe, arrayed in satin and
flashing in diamonds, “puts you back with one delicate hand,
while with the fair taper fingers of the other she takes the
tobacco out of her mouth previous to your saluting her.” A
European visiting Paraguay for the first time is rather aston-
ished at the conduct of the fair beauty, but such is the force
of custom that the squeamishness of the new-comer is soon
overcome, when he finds that he has to kiss every lady to
whom he is introduced ; and the traveler says that “ one half
of those you meet are really tempting enough to render you
reckless of consequences.” :
Smoking is practised by the natives of Patagonia, who are
a tall and muscular class of men, though not such giants as
represented by the early voyagers. Hutchinson, in a ‘valua-
ble paper on the Indians of South America has an account
of the Pehuenches, one of the principal tribes of Patagonia,
PATAGONIANS AS SMOKERS. 135
in which he states that “their chief indulgence is smoking.
The native pipes are fabricated out of a piece of stone,
fashioned into the shape of a bowl, into which is inserted a
long brass tube. The latter is obtained by barter at Bohia
Blanca. The tobacco in the bowl being lighted, each man of .
a party takes a suck at the pipe in his turn.” Tilston, who
witnessed the operation, describes it as a most ludicrous one.
“The smoker gives a pull at the pipe, gulping in a quantity
of Tobacco vapour, the cubic measurement of which my
informant would be afraid to guess at. All the muscles of
the body seem in a temporary convulsion’ whilst it is being
taken in, and the neighbour to whom the pipe is transferred
follows suit by inhaling as if he were trying to swallow down
brass tube, bowl, Tobacco, fire, and all. SWaanyile, there
issues from the nose and mouth of the previous smoker such:
a cumulus of cloud as for a few seconds to render his face
quite invisible.” Tobacco is more used in Chili than in the
other countries on the Pacific side of South America; this is
owing to the extensive use of the leaves of the Cocoa plant as
a narcotic by the natives of Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia.
We refrain from enlarging on the nature and use of this
narcotic, as on some future occasion we may take an oppor-
tunity of making some observations on Cocoa, which according
to Jonson, holds an undisputed sway over some seven or
s0UTH AMERICANS SMOKING.
eight millions of the inhabitants of South America. . The
Indians formerly inhabiting the high table-lands of what is
now called Peru and Bolivia appear prior to the invasion of
136 FORM AND MATERIAL.
the Spaniards to have been much further advanced in
civilization than the races occupying the other portions of
South America; and there is a strong probability that they’
are of a different origin from the races occupying Chili,
Patagonia, Brazil, and the great district washed by the waters
of the West Indian Sea. Science as yet cannot give any-
thing like an accurate idea of the time man has existed in
these widely-diversified countries, but we cannot go wrong
in accepting the statement of Darwin, who observes that “ we
must admit that man has inhabited South America for an
immensely long period, inasmuch as any change in climate,
effected by the elevation of the land must have been
extremely gradual.”
Another writer says of the pipes of the Indians of North
America:
“Great variety of form and material distinguishes the
pipes of the modern Indians; arising in part from the
local facilities they possess for a suitable material from which
to construct them ; and in part also from the special style of
art and decoration which has become the traditional usage of
the tribes. The favorite red pipe-stone of the Coteau des
Prairies, has been generally sought after, both from its
easiness of working and the beauty of its appearance. A
pipe of this favorite and beautiful material, found on the
shores of Lake Simcoe, and now in my possession, measures
five inches and three-quarters in length, and nearly four
inches in greatest breadth, yet the capacity of the bowl
hollowed in it for the reception of tobacco is even less than
in the smallest of the “Elfin Pipes.” In contrast to this, a
modern Winnebago pipe recently acquired by me, made of the
same red pipe-stone, inlaid with lead, and executed with
ingenious skill, has a bowl of large dimensions illustrative of
Indian smoking usages modified by the influence of the
white man. From the red pipe-stone, as well as from the
lime stone and other harder rocks, the Chippeways, the
Winnebagos, and the Sioux, frequently make a peculiar class
of pipes, inlaid with lead.
_ “The Chincok and Puget Sound Indians, who evince
little taste in comparison with the tribes surrounding them,
in ornamenting their persons or their warlike and domestic
implements, commonly use wooden pipes. Sometimes these
are elaborately carved, but most frequently they are rudely
MORE INDIAN PIPES. 137
and hastily made for immediate use; and even among these
remote tribes of the flat head Indians, the common clay pipe
of the fur trader begins to supersede such native arts. Among
the Assinaboin Indians a material is used in pipe manufac-
ture altogether peculiar to them. It isa fine marble, much too
hard to admit of minute carving, but taking a high polish.
This is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so extremely
thin, as to be almost transparent, so that when lighted the
glowing tobacco shines through, and presents a singular
appearance when in use at night or in a dark lodge.
Another favorite material employed by the Assinaboin
Indians is a coarse species of jasper also too hard to admit of
elaborate ornamentation.”
This also is cut into various simple but tasteful designs,
executed chiefly by the slow and laborious process of rub-
bing it down with other stones. The choice of the material
for fashioning the favorite pipe is by no means invariably
guided by the facilities which the location of the tribe
affords. A suitable stone for such a purpose will be picked
up and carried hundreds of miles. Mr. Kane informs me
that, in coming down the Athabaska River, when drawing
near its source in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his
Assinaboin guides select the favorite bluish jasper from
among the water-worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry
home for the purpose of pipe manufacture, although they
were then fully five hundred miles from their lodges. Such
a traditional adherence to a choice of material peculiar to a
remote sov*ce, may frequently prove of considerable value as
a clue to former migrations of the tribes. Both the Cree
and the Winnebago Indians carve pipes in stone of a form
now more frequently met with in the Indian curiosity stores
of Canada and the States than any other specimens of native
carving. The tube, cut at a sharp right angle with the cylin-
drical bowl of the pipe, is ornamented with a thin vandyked
ridge, generally perforated with a row of holes, and standing
up somewhat like the dorsal fin of a fish. The Winnebagos
also manufacture pipes of the same form, -but of a smaller
size, in lead, with considerable skill.
Among the Cree Indians a double pipe is occasionally in
138 PIPE OF THE BOBEEN INDIANS.
use, consisting of a bowl carved oat of stone without much
attempt at ornament, but with perforations on two sides, so
that two smokers can insert their pipe-stems at once, and
enjoy the same supply of tobacco. It does not appear, how-
ever, that any special significance is attached to this sinzular
fancy. The Saultaux Indians, a branch of the great Algon-
quin nation, also carve their pipes out of a black stone found
in their country, and evince considerable skill in the execu-
tion of their elaborate details. But the most remarkable of
all the specimens of pipe sculpture executed by the Indians
of the north-west are those carved by the Bobeen, or Big-lip
Indians,--so called from the singular deformity they produce
by inserting a piece of wood into a slit made in the
lower lip. ;
The Bobeen Indians are found along the Pacific coast,
about latitude 54°, 40’, and extend from the borders of the
Russian dominions eastward nearly to Frazer River. The
pipes of the Bobeen, and also of the Clalam Indians, ocen-
pying the neighboring Vancouver’s Island, are carved with
the utmost elaborateness and in the most singular and gro-
tesque devices, from a soft blue clay-stone or slate. Their
form is in part determined by the material, which is only |
procurable in thin slabs, so that the sculptures, wrought on
both sides, present a sort of double bas-relief. From this,
singular and grotesque groups are carved without any appa-
rent reference to the final destination of the who!- as a pipe.
The lower side is generally a straight line, and in the speci-
mens I have examined they measure from two or three to
fifteen inches long; so that in these the pipe-stem is included.
A small hollow is carved out of some protruding ornament
to serve as the bowl of the pipe, and from the further end a
perforation is drilled to connect with this. The only addition
made to it when in use is the insertion of a quill or straw as
a mouth-piece. The Indians have both war and peace
pipes. ‘
The War pipe is a true tomahawk of ordinary size with a
perforated handle the tobacco being placed in the receptacle
/
THE WAR PIPE. 139
above the hatchet the handle serving as a pipe-stem and used
for either pipe or tomahawk. Many varieties of Indian
Pipes have been
found not only in
the Western and
Southern mounds
but in Mexico and
Central America.
Fine specimens are
found in Florida
and some elabo-
rately carved have
been unearthed in
Virginia. Wilson
says of the pipes 4 WAR PIPE.
used by the Indians: “The pipe stem is one of the charac-
teristics of modern race, if not distinctive of the Northern
tribes of Indians.” In alluding tothe pipes more particularly
hesays: “Specimens of another class of clay pipes of a larger
size, and with a tube of such length as obviously to be
designed for use without the addition of a “pipe-stem,”
most of the ancient clay pipes that have been discovered are
stated to have the same form; and this, it may be noted,
bears so near a resemblance to that of the red clay pipe used
in modern Turkey, with the cherry-tree pipe stem, that it
might be supposed to have furnished the model.
The bowls of this class of ancient clay pipes are not of
the miniature proportions which induce a comparison between
those of Canada and the early examples found in Britain;
neither do the stone pipe-heads of the mound-builders suggest
by the size of the bowl either the self-denying economy of
the ancient smoker, or his practice of the modern Indian
mode of exhaling the fumes of the tobacco, by which so
small a quantity suffices to produce the full narcotic effects
of the favorite weed. They would rathar seem to confirm
the indications derived from the other sources, of an essential
difference between the ancient smoking usages of Central
America and of the mound-builders, and those which are
140 PIPE SCULPTURE.
still maintained in their primeval integrity among the
Indians of the North West.
Of the mound-builders Foster says:
“The mound-builders were well aware of the narcotic proper- .
ties of tobacco, a plant which indigenous to America, and
which since the discovery of the western continent has been
domesticated in every region of the earth where the soil and
climate are favorable to its cultivation. No habit at this day,
it may be said, is more universal or more diflicult to eradi-
cate than that of smoking. With the mound-builder tobacco
was the greatest of luxuries; his solace in his hours of
relaxations, and the choicest offering he could dedicate to the
Great Spirit. Upon his pipe he lavished all the skill he
possessed in the lapidary’s art.
“From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment
Moulded it into a pipe head
Shaped and fashioned it with figures.”
Many of these pipes are sculptured from the most obdurate
stones and display great delicacy of workmanship. The
features of animals are so truthfully cut that often there is no
difficulty in their identification, and even the plumage of
birds is delineated by curved or straight lines which show a
close adherence to nature. The bowl and stem piece
wrought from a single.block, are as accurately drilled as they
could be at this day, by the lapidary’s art. Both the
War pipe and Peace pipe are the most sacred and the most
highly valued of all the various kinds.
“The calumet, or pipe of peace, ornamented with the war
eagles quill, isa sacred
_ pipe, and never used on
any other occasion than
that of peace making,
when the chief brings it
into treaty, and unfold-
PRLOR bike: ing the many bandages
y ; which are carefully
kept around it, has it ready to be mutually smoked by the
chiefs, after the terms of the treaty are agreed upon, as the
means of solemnizing it; which is done by passing the sacred
stem to each chief, who draws one breath of smoke only
SMOKING IN ALASKA. 141
through it. Nothing can be more binding than smoking the
pipe of peace and is considered by them to be an inviolable
pledge. There is no custom more uniformly in constant use
amongst the poor Indians than that of smoking nor any more
highly valued. His pipe is his constant companion through
life—his messenger of peace; he pledges his friends through
its stem and its bowl, and when its care-drowning fumes
cease to flow, it takes a place with him in his solitary grave
with his tomahawk and war-club companions to his long-
fancied ‘happy hunting grounds.’”
From specimens of clay pipes found at the South from
Virginia to Florida it would seem that the Indians had a
great variety of pipes some of which were beautifully carved
while others are perfectly plain. Many of them however are
of rude workmanship and might have been fashioned by
some of the tribe unacquainted with pipe-making.
Dall gives the following account of smoking among the
natives of Alaska:
“We broke camp about five o’clock in the morning.
Nothing occurred to break the monotony of constant steady
plodding. Two Indians in the bow of the boat would
row until tired, and then we would stop for a few minutes to
rest, and let them smoke. The last operation takes less than
a minute; their pipes are so constructed as to hold but a very
small pinch of tobacco. The bowl, with ears for tying it to
the stem is generally cast out of lead. Sometimes it is made
of soft stone, bone or even hard wood. Thestem is made of
two pieces of wood hollowed on one side, and bound to the
bowl and each other by a narrow strip of deerskin. In
smoking the economical Indian generally cuts up a little
birch wood, or the inner bark of the poplar, and mixes it
with his tobacco. A few reindeer hairs pulled from his
paska, are rolled into a little ball, and placed in the bottom
of the bow] to prevent the contents from being drawn into
the stem. A pinch of tobacco cut as fine as snuff is inserted
and two or three whitis are afforded by it.
The smoke is inhaled into the lungs, producing a momen-
tary stupor andthe operation is over. A fungus which
grows on decayed birch trees, or tinder manufactured from
the down of the poplar rubbed up with charcoal is used with
flint and steel for obtaining a light. Matches are highly
142 GOOSE-QUILL STEMS.
valued and readily purchased. The effect of the Circassian
tobacco on the lungs is extremely bad, and among those
tribes who use it many die from asthma and congestion. of '
the lungs. This is principally due to the saltpetre with which
it is impregnated. The Indian pipe is copied from the
‘Eskimo, as the latter were the first to obtain and use tobacco.
Many of the tribes call it by the Eskimo name.
The Kutchin and Eastern Finneh were modeled after the
clay pipes of the Hudson Bay Company, but they also carve
very pretty ones out of birch knots and the root of the wild
rose-bush. ‘The Chukchees use a pipe similar to those of the
Eskimo, but with a much larger and shorter stem. This
stem is hollow, and is filled with fine birch shavings. After
smoking for some months these shavings impregnated with
the oil of tobacco, are taken out through an opening in the
lower part of the stem and smoked over. The Hudson
Baymen make passable pipe-stems by taking a straight-grained
piece of willow or spruce without knots, and cuttiug through
the outer layers of bark and wood. This stick is heated in
the ashes and by twisting the end in contrary directions the
heart-wood may be gradually drawn out, leaving a hollow
tube.
The Kutchin make pretty pipe-stems out of goose-quills
wound about with porcupine-quills. It is the enstom in the
English forts to make every Indian who comes to trade, a
present of a clay pipe filled with tobacco. We were provided
with cheap brown ones, with wooden stems, which were
much liked by the natives, and it is probable that small brier-
wood pipes, which are not liable to break, would form an
acceptable addition to any’ stock of trading goods”. The
Tchuktchi of north-eastern Asia are devoted worshipers of
tobacco, and is one of the chief articles of trade with them.
Their pipes are large, much larger at the stem than the bowl.
In smoking, they swallow the fumes of the tobacco which
causes intoxication for atime. “ The desire to procure a few
of its narcotic leaves induces the American Esquimaux from
SMOKING IN RUSSIA. 143
the Ice Cape to Bristol Bay, to send their produce from hand
oT to hand as far as the
Guosden Islandsin
Behrings Straits, where
it is bartered for the to-
bacco of the Tchuktchi,
and there again princi-
pally resort to the fair of
Ostrownoje to purchase
2 AER: tobacco from the Rus-
sians. Generally the Tchuktchi receive from the Americans
as money skins for half a pond, or eighteen pounds of
tobacco leaves as they afterwards sell to the Russians for two
ponds of tobacco of the same quality.
The Russians also are great lovers of the weed. A writer
says :-—
““Everybody smokes, men, women, and children. They
smoke Turkish tobacco, rolled in silk paper—seldom cigars
or pipes. These rolls are called parporos. The ladies almost
all smoke, but they smoke the small, delicate sizes of parporos,
while the gentlemen smoke larger ones. Always at morning,
noon and night, comes the inevitable box of parporos, and
everybody at the table smokes and drinks their coffee at the
same time. On the cars are fixed little cups for cigar ashes
in every seat. Ladies frequently take out their part parporos,
and hand them to the gentlemen with a pretty invitation to
smoke. Instead of having a smoking car as we do, they have
a car for those who are so ‘ pokey’ as not to smoke.”
Throughout the German States the custom of smoking
is universal and tobacco enters largely into their list of
expenditures. A writer says of smoking in Austria:—
““We have been rather surprised to find so few persons
smoking pipes in Austria. Indeed, a pipe is seldom seen
except among the laboring classes. The most favorite mode
of using the weed here is in cigarettes, almost every gentle-
man being provided with a silver box, in which they have
. Turkish tobacco and small slips of paper, with mucilage on
them ready for rolling. They make them as they use them,
and are very expert in the handling of the tobacco. The
144 SMOKING IN PERU.
chewing of tobacco is universally repudiated, being regarded
as the height of vulgarity. The Turkish tobacco is of fine
flavor, and commands high prices. It is very much in appear-
ance like the fine cut chewing tobacco so extensively used at
home.”
The cigars made by the Austrian Government, which are
the only description to be had are very inferior, and it is not
to be wondered that the cigarette is so generally used in
preference.
The smoking of cigarettes by the ladies is quite common,
especially among the higher classes. In no part of the world
is smoking so common as in South America; here all classes
and all ages use the weed. Smoking is encouraged in the
family and the children are early taught the custom. A
traveler who has observed this custom more particularly than
any other, says of the use of tobacco in Peru :—
“Scarcely in any regions of the world is smoking so com-
mon as in Peru. ‘The rich as well as the poor, the old man
as well as the boy, the master as well as the servant, the lady
as well as the negroes who wait on her, the young -maiden as
well as the mother—all smoke and never cease smoking,
except when eating, or sleeping, orin church. Social distinc
tions are as numerous and as marked in Peru as anywhere
else, and there is the most exclusive pride of color and of
blood. But differences of color and of rank are wholly dis-
regarded when a light for a cigar is requested, a favor which
it is not considered a liberty to ask, and which it would be
deemed a gross act of incivility to refuse. It is chiefly
cigarritos which are smoked.
“The cigarrito, as is well known, is tobacco cut fine and
dexterously wrapped in moist maize leaves, in paper, or in
straw. Only the laborers on the plantations smoke small
clay pipes. Dearer than the cigarritos are the cigars, which
are not inferior to the best Havanna. Everywhere are met
the cigarrito-twisters. Cleverly though they manipulate;
cleanliness is not their besetting weakness. But in Pera,
and in other parts of South America, cleanliness is not held
in more esteem than in Portugal and Spain.”
The Turks have long been noted as among the largest con-
sumers of tobacco as well as using the most magnificent of
smoking implements. The hookah is in all respects the most
expensive and elaborate machine (for so it may be called)
SMOKING IN TURKEY. 145
used for smoking tobacco. A traveler gives the following
graphic description of smoking among them:
“ As each man smokes only out of his own pipe, it is not
surprising that this instrument is an indispensable accompa-
TURK SMOKING.
niment of every person of rank. Men of the higher classes
keep two or three servants to attend to their pipes. While
one looks after things at home, the other has to accompany
his master in his walks and rides. The long stem is on such
occasions packed in a finely embroidered cloth cover, while
the bowl, tobacco, and other accessories are carried by the
servant in a pouch at his side. A stranger in Constantinople
will often regard with curiosity and surprise, a proud Osmanli
on foot or horseback, followed by an attendant who, through
the long, carefully-packed instrument which he carries, gives
one the idea that he is a weapon-bearer of some heroic period
following his lord to some dangerous rendezvous. So are
the times altered. What the armor-bearer was for the war-
like races of old, such is the tchbukdi for their degenerate
descendants.
“To smoke from sixty to eighty pipes a day is by no
10;
146 MODERATE SMOKING.
means uncommon; for whatever be the business, no matter
how serious, in which the Turk is engaged, he must smoke
at it. In the divan, where the grandees of the empire.consult
together on the most delicate affairs of State, the question
was once mooted whether the tchbukdes should not be
excluded from such debates as were of a strictly private
nature. There was a great diversity of opinion on the sub-
ject. Politics and reason were on opposite sides. At last it
was decided that they would not disgrace an ancient national
usage, but would allow the harmless attendants to enter the
council-room every now and then to change the pipes. In
Turkey, pipes and tobacco afford means of distinguishing not
only the different classes of the community, but even the
several graduates of rank in the same class. A mushir (mar-
shal) would find it derogatory to his dignity to smoke out of
a stem less than two yards in length. The artisan or official
of a lower rank, would consider it highly unbecoming on his
part to use one which exceeded the proper proportions of his
class. A superior stretches his pipe before him to his inferior;
while the latter must hold his modestly on one side, only
alone the end of the mouth-piece to peep out of his closed
st. ‘
“The pasha has the right to puff out his smoke before
him like a steam engine, while his inferiors are only allowed
to breathe forth a light curl of smoke, and that must be let
off backwards. Not to smoke at all in the presence of a
superior, is held the most delicate homage which ean be paid
him. A son, for instance, acts in this manner in the presence
of his father, and only such a one is considered to be well
brought up who declines to smoke even after his father has
repeatedly invited him to do so. The fair sex in the East is
scarcely less addicted to the use of this weed.
“The girl of twelve years old smokes a cigarette of the
thickness of pack-thread. When she has attained her four-
teenth or fifteenth year, and is already marriageable, she is
allowed to indulge her penchant at will, which is forbidden
when younger. After this age the diameter of the cigarette
increases year by year; and when a lady has reached the
mature age of twenty-four, no one sees anything remarkable
in her smoking a modest little chibouque as she sits on the
lower divan of the harem. Elderly matrons—and in Turkey
every lady is an elderly matron in her fortieth year—are
passionately devoted to this enjoyment. The pipe-bowls and
stems always remain of the size appropriated by etiquette :to
FEMALE SMOKING. 147
the use of the harem; but the strongest and most pungent
sorts of tobacco are not unseldom smoked, until the mouth,
which, according to the assurance of the poet, in the bloom
of its youth breathed forth ambergiris and musk, in its forti-
eth year acquires so strong a smell that the lady can be
scented from a distance.
“Like their lords, the hanyrus of rank have also their
tchbukdes, of course of their own sex, who accompany them
when out walking or ona visit. In this case, however, the
cover in which the pipe-stem is made, not of cloth, but of
silk. The habit of refreshing oneself with a pipe on some
elevated spot which commands a fine view, is common to
both sexes. Men can indulge this taste whenever their fancy
may suggest, but ladies only in retired spots; for, whenever
a Turkish fair one removes the yas mak (veil) from her lips,
as she does to smoke, all around her must be harem (sacred).
“Sometimes an eunuch stands guard at a little distance
off, and if a stranger of the male sex approaches, gives a
signal; the pipe is held aside, while the mouth is kept
covered by the veil, until the unexpected Acteon has passed
by. But where the pipe plays the most important part is in
the bath. It is well known that the Turkish ladies are
accustomed to frequent the hommams assiduously, and to
remain there for hours together. They enter the bath about
eight o’clock in the morning; take their midday meal there,
and return home between three and four in the afternoon.
During these hours of leisure, the most agreeable in a Moham-
medan woman’s life, the pipe is their constant resource. In
the middle of the warmest room is a round terrace-like
elevation, called Gobek-tosh.
“Here are clustered old and young, the snow white
daughters of Circassia and the coal-black beauties of Soudan,
and beguile the hours with never ending gossip, while
around them rise the dense fumes of their pipes. Now one
of the elders of the party tells a story, now a learned lady
holds a discourse on religion, or extols the beauty and virtue
of ‘ Aisha Fatima.’ ”
The Fairy, or Dane’s pipe is the most ancient form of the
tobacco pipe used in Great Britain and of about the same
size as the “Elfin pipes” of the Scottish peasantry. A great
variety of pipes both in form and size have been found in
the British Islands some of which are of ancient origin
bearing dates prior to the Seventeenth Century. Some of
148 EARLY MANUFACTURE OF PIPES.
\
these ancient pipes are formed of very fine clay and although
they held but a small quantity of tobacco were doubtless
considered to be fine specimens in their time. |
The manufacture of pipes commenced soon after the
custom of using tobacco had become fashionable and soon
after the Virginians commenced its cultivation. Fairholt
Bays: ;
“The early period at which tobacco pipes were first manu-
factured, is established by the fact that the incorporation of
the craft of tobacco-pipe makers took place on the 5th of
October, 1619. Their privileges extending seuss the
cities of London and Westminster, the kingdom of England
OLD ENGLISH PIPES.
and dominion of Wales. They havea Master, four Wardens,
and about twenty-four Assistants. They were first, incorpo-
rated by King James in his seventeenth year, confirmed
again by King Charles I., and lastly on the twenty-ninth of
April in the fifteenth year of King Charles IL. in all the
privileges of their aforesaid charters,
“The London Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers was
incorporated in the reign of Charles II (1663); it had no
hall and no livery but was governed by a Master two wardens,
and eighteen assistants. The first pipes used in the British
Islands were made of silver while ‘ordinary ones’ were made
of a walnut shell and a straw. Afterwards appeared the
more common clay pipes in various forms and which are in
use at the present time.”
Dnring the reign of Anne and George I. the pipes assumed
a different form and greater length so long were the stems of
some of them that they were called yards of clay. The
French pipe is one of the finest manufactured and is made of
a fine red clay especially those made by Fiolet of St. Omer,
one of the best designers of pipes. Many of these like
German pipes are made of porcelain, adorned with portraits
FRENCH PIPES. 149
and landscapes. Others are made of rare kinds of wood
turned in the lathe or artistically carved, and lined with clay
to resist the action of fire.
The French also make pipes of agate, amber, crystal, car-
nelian and ivory, as well as the various kinds of pure or
mixed metals. Many of the French and German pipes while
they are beautiful in design and made of the most costly
materials are often exceedingly grotesque, representing often
the most ludicrous scenes and all possible attitudes. Many
of them have been termed as satirical pipes taking off some
public character a la Nast.
Fairholt says of satirical pipes:
“England has occasioned the production of one satirical
pipe for sale among ourselves. The late Dukeof Wellington
toward the close of his life, took a strong dislike to the use of
tobacco in the army, and made some ineffectual attempts to
suppress it. Benda, a wholesale pipe importer in the city
employed Dumeril, of St. Omer, to commemorate the event,
and the result was a pipe head, in which a subaltern, pipe in
hand, quietly ‘takes a sight’ at the great commander who is
caricatured after a fashion that must have made the work a
real pleasure to a Frenchman.” Many of the French pipes
are exceedingly quaint representing all manner of comical
scenes. One is formed like a steam-engine the smoke pass-
FRENCH PIPES.
ing through the funnel. Another is fashioned after a potato
or a turnip while others often represent some military
subjects. In England and Ireland also pipes of a whimsical
form are common.
CHAPTER VII.
PIPES AND SMOKERS. (CONTINUED.)
AEs ‘
4p SN Russia and Denmark as also in Norway and
‘HC Sweden the pipes are more simple and are principally
formed of wood sometimes tipped with copper but
usually of inferior material and work when compared
with French and German pipes. The German pipes con-
sidered as works of art are doubtless the finest made. Many
are made of meerschaum (sea foam). “This material is found
in various parts of Asia Minor. When first obtained it is
capable of forming a lather like soap, and is used by the
Tartars for washing purposes. The Turks use it for pipes
which are made in the same way that pottery is and after-
wards soaked in wax and is then ready for smoking. It heats
slowly and is capable of greater absorption than any other
material used in pipe making. To properly color a meer-
schaum is now considered as one of the fine arts and when
completed is considered quite a triumph. When the pipe
takes on arich deep brown tint it is considered a valuable
pipe and is watched and guarded as a most valuable treasure.
M. Ziegler thus describes the source whence the considerable
annual supply of meerschaum for meerschaum pipes is
derived :"
“Large quantities of this mineral so highly esteemed by
smokers, comes from Hrubschitz and Oslawan in Austrian
Moravia, where it is found embedded between thick strata of
serpentine rock. It is also found in Spain at Esconshe,
Vallecos, and Toledo; the best however comes from Asia
Minor. The chief places are the celebrated meerschaum
150
MEERSCHAUM PIPES. 151
mines from six to eight miles southeast of Eskis chehr, on
the river Pursak chief tributary to the river Sagarius. They
were known to Xenophon, and are now worked principally
by Armenian Christians, who sink narrow pits, to the beds
of this mineral, and work the sides out until water or immi-
nent danger drives them away to try another place. Some
meerschaum comes from Brussa, and in 1869 over 3,000
boxes of raw material were imported from Asia Minor at
Trieste, with 345,000 florins. The pipe manufacture and
carving is principally carried on in eee and in Rhula,
Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The commercial value of
meerschaum carving at these places may be estimated at
$2,000,000 annually. However very large quantities of them
are not made from genuine but artificial material. The
waste from these carvings is ground to a very fine powder,
and then boiled with linseed oil and alum. When this
mixture has sufficient cohesion, it is cast in molds and care-
fully dried and carved, as if these blocks of mineral had been
natural. It is said that about one-half of all pipes now sold
are made from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of
the lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks
have been made of ‘it so light that they would float on ‘the
top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the
quality of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time
than others this is owing in a great measure however to the
thickness of the bowl.”
Pipe-colorers, who go around coloring pipes or meer-
schaums, pride themselves on the rapidity with which they
are enabled to color a pipe. The following, on “Pipe
Colorers,” is from “ The Tobacco Plant”:
“There are men who pride themselves upon the skill with
which they are able to color the pipes they smoke. Some of
these are amateurs, who smoke Tobacco only with the view
of gratifying that taste for color which is satisfied when a
bowl of clay or meerschaum is sufficiently yellowed, browned,
or blacked: There are men who care nothing for Tobacco
of itself, and would be much more easily and rationally
pleased were they to set their pipes upon an easel and paint
them with oils and camel’s-hair. Others of the class are
professional colorers, who hire themselves to pipe-sellers or
connoisseurs by the week, or day, or hour, to smoke so many
ounces or pounds of strong Tobacco through such and such
pipes in such and such a time, with the view of causing such
152 COLORING MEERSCHAUMS.
and such stains of Tobacco-juice to make themselves visible
on the bowls or stems of those specified pipes. These are
mostly old, well-seasoned
smokers, to whose existence
. the weed has become essen-
tial; who smoke their. own
old pipes, which lack artistic
= coloring, in the intervals
& pipes they lay aside the
pipes they are employed to
color. Another and much
iS smaller section of the class
S- are those who smoke for
smoking’s sake, and yet are
weak enough to nurse some
special pipes for show. To
such it is ajoy to say, when
friends are gathered at the
festive board ‘Look! is not.
that well colored? I colored.
it myself.’ In such an age
as this, when the learned cannot tell us which of our various
branches of knowledge and inquiry are sciences and which,
are not, it may not seem a great anomaly that this pipe-
coloring should, by some, be called ‘an art.’ Nor is it, when
we think that there is such an ‘art’ as blacking shoes; and.
when we must perforce admit that he who, barber fashion,
cuts our hair—and he who, cook-wise, broils the kidney for
our mid-day dinner—is an artist. We have not come as yet
to give this title to the weaver who watches the loom that
weaves our stockings, or to the hammer-man who beats the
red-hot horse-shoe on the anvil in a smithy; but even there
we designate ‘artisans,’ and ‘artists’ may come next. So,
hey! for the art of coloring pipes!
“Tt may not be denied that there is beauty in a well-colored
meerschanm; but in the admission lies the contradiction of
Keats’ well-known line—
PIPE COLORER.
‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”
For, your meerschaum is a fragile thing, and eminently fran-
gible. This present writer once did see four beauties break
within a single moon. And when they break, what previous
joy of coloring can over-top the sorrow of their dire destruc-
tion? It isa singular difficulty in the way of those who.
most desire to beautify utility or utilize the beautiful, or
THE CITY OF SMOKERS. 153
show that beauty is most lovely when made practical, that
these artistic colorers of pipes are always those who make
least use of Tobacco, save for the immediate purpose of
obtaining the clay in which it is smoked. Ask such an artist
why he smokes, and he will scarcely tell you. His best rea-
son certainly will be, that others smoke, and, as a custom, it
becomes him. And when you find an ardent smoker—one
who smokes because he likes Tobacco for itself, or finds it
useful—who spends his time in tinting pipes, you will have
found a rara avis, or a monstrosity. Apart from taste, there
are some practical objections to this custom of coloring pipes.
Smoking, to be worthy, should be free and unrestrained ;
silos he who colors his pipe is tied by system and confined
to rule.
“ A pipe to be enjoyable, should be its master’s slave; but
he who keeps a ‘ wellcotored ’ pipe is slave thereto. He can-
not smoke it as, or when, or where he will. He must not
smoke it in a draught, or near a fire; he must not lay it
down, or finger it; he must not puff too fast, nor yet too
slow. In short, he is the creature of this ‘ Joss ’—this home-
made deity—to which he bows down and worships. The
pipe-colorers are the Sabbatarians of smoking. Whereas, the
pipe was made for man, they treat man as made for the pipe.
And thus, as in all cases where the cart is expected to draw
the horse, the economy of nature is reversed, and mischief is
evolved.”
Dibdin, in his “Tour in France and Germany,” says of
Vienna, that it is a city of smokers,—“a good Austrian
thinks he can never pay too much for a good pipe.” Many
of the Germans use a kind of pipe carved from the root of
the dwarf oak; wooden pipes of a similar kind are made of
brier root, and are very common, as are also those made from
maple and sweet-brier. One of the favorite pipes used by
Germans is the porcelain
pipe, which consists of a
double bowl—the upper
one containing the to-
bacco, which fits into
another portion of the
pipe, allowing the oil to GERMAN PORCELAIN PIPES.
drain into the lower bow],
which may be removed and the pipe cleaned. The bowls are
154 “MY GREAT GRANDFATHER.”
sometimes painted beautifully, representing a variety of sub-
jects, and in no way inferior to the painted porcelain for the
table.
The Dutch are famous smokers and are constantly “ pull-
ing at the pipe.” They use those with long, straight stems,
and both their clay and porcelain pipes are of the finest form
and finish. Irving, in “The History of New York from the
Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty,”
has given a good description of the smoking powers of the
Dutch. Speaking of his grandfather’s love for the weed, he
says:
* «My great-grandfather, by the mother’s side, Hermanns
Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone
church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred
yards to your left, after your turn from the Boomkeys; and
which is so conveniently constructed that all the zealous
Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon
there to any other church in the city. My great-grandfather,
I say, when employed to build that famous church, did, in
the first place, send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then,
having purchased a new spitting-box and a hundred weight
of the best Virginia, he sat himself down and did nothing
for the space of three months but smoke most laboriously.
“Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on
foot, and voyaging in the Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to
Amsterdam—to Delft—to Herlem—to Leyden—to the
Hague—knocking his head and breaking his pipe against
every church in is road. Then did he advance gradually
nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight
of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built.
Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it
, and round it, contemplating it, first from one point of view,
and then from another,—now would he be paddled by it on
the canal—now would he peep at it through a telescope from
the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird’s-
eye glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic wind-
mills which protect the gates of the city.
“The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of expec-
tation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil of
my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet
to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be
brought into the world, but that its great projector would lie
HUDSON AS A SMOKER. 155
down and die in labor of the mighty plan he had conceived.
At length, having occupied twelve good months in puffin
and paddling, and talking and walking,—having traveled
over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France and
Germany,—having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine
pipes and three hundred weight of the best Virginia
tobacco,—my great-grandfather gathered together all that
knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer attend-
ing to anybody’s business sooner than their own, and having
pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches he advanced
sturdily up and laid the corner-stone of the church, in the
presence of the whole multitude,—just at the commence-
ment of the thirteenth month.”
He also alludes to Hudson whom he says was:
“ A seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke
tobacco under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been
the first to introduce it into Holland, which gained him
much popularity in that country, and caused him to find
great favor in their High Mightinesses, the lords and states
asia and also of the honorable West India Company.
e was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double
chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was
supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the
constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. * * * As
chiet mate’and favorite companion, the commander chose
Master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, in England. By some
his name has been spelled Chewit, ascribed to the circum-
stance of his having been the first man that ever chewed
tobacco. * * * * Under every misfortune he comforted.
himself with a quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophical
maxim, ‘that it will be all the same a hundred years hence!’”
Further on he alludes to the attempt to subjugate New:
Amsterdam to the British crown and the effect produced by
the burghers lighting their pipes. “ When” he says “ Cap-
tain Argol’s vessel hove in sight, the worthy burghers were
seized with such a panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes
with astonishing vehemence, insomuch that they quickly
raised a cloud, which, combining with the surrounding woods
and marshes, completely enveloped and concealed their
beloved village; and overhung the fair regions of Pavonia :—
so that the terrible Captain Argol passed on, totally unsus-
picious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay snugly
couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapor.”
156 PERSIAN WATER PIPES.
_The Persians* are said to be the first to invent the mode
of drawing tobacco smoke through water thereby cooling it
before inhaling it. Fair-
holt says “it is to smoking
what ice is to Champagne.”
The London Review gives
the following description
of pipes and smoking
~~ apparatus :
“The hookah of India is
the most splendid and glit-
tering of all pipes} it is a
large affair, on account of
the arrangements for caus-
ing the smoke to pass
through water before it
a reaches the lips of the
A PERSIAN WATER PIPE. smoker, as 2 means of ren-
; dering it cooler and of ex-
tracting from it much of its rank and disagreeable flavor. _
“On the top of an air-tight vessel, half filled with water, is
a bow] containing tobacco; a small tube descends from the
bowl into the water, and a flexible pipe, one end of which is
between the lips of the smoker, is inserted at the other
end into the vessel, above the level of the water. Such
being the adjustment, the philosophy of the inhalation
may be easily understood. The smoke sucks the air out of
the vessel, and makes a partial vacuum; the external air,
pressing on the burning tobacco, drives the smoke through
the small tube into the water beneath ; purified from some of
its rank qualities, the smoke bubbles up into the vacant part
of the vessel above the water, and passes through the flexible
pipe to the smoker’s mouth. Sometimes the affair is made
still more luxurious by substituting rose-water for water pur
et simple. The tube is so long and flexible that the smoker
may sit (or squat) at a small or great distance from the vessel
containing the water. In the courts of princes and wealthy
natives the vessels and tubes are lavishly adorned with
precious metals. One mode of showing hospitality in the
“Sandys, writing in 1610 narrates a Persian legend to the effect that Shiraz tobacco was
given bya holy man toa virtuous youth, disconsolate at the loss of his loving wife. ‘Go te
thy wife’s tomb,” said the anchorite, “and there thou wilt find a weed. Piuck it, place it in
and brother," continued theboly mat in Womerle etre, "acd above "aiy WAL Ge a wise
7 0! an, in Homeric strain, “and abeve all, w: ie & wise
counsellor, and teach thy soul wisdom and thy Spirit joy.”" eyerans
TURKISH PIPES. 157
East is to place a hookah in the center of the apartment,
range the guests around, and let all have a whiff of the pipe
in turn; but in more luxurious establishments a separate
hookah is placed before each guest. Some of the Egyptians
use a form of hookah called the narghile or nargeeleh—so
named because the water is contained in the shell of a cocoa-
nut of which the Arabic name is nargeeleh. Another kind,
having a glass vessel, is called the sheshee—having, like the
other, a very long tube. Only the choicest tobacco is used
with the hookah and nargeeleh; it is grown in Persia.
“ Before it is used, the tobacco is washed several times, and
put damp into the pipe-bowl, two or three pieces of live
charcoal are put on the top. The moisture gives mildness to
the tobacco, but renders inhalation so difficult that weak
lungs are unfitted to bear it. The dry tobacco preferred by
the Persians does not involve so much difficulty in ‘blowing
a cloud.’
TURKISH CHIBOUQUES AND WOOD PIPES.
“The stiff-stemmed Turkish pipes, quite different from the
flexible tube of the hookah and narghile, are of two kinds,
the kablioun or long pipe, and the chibouque or short pipe.
Some of the stems of the kablioun, made of cherry tree, jas-
mine, wild plum, and ebony, are five feet in length, and are
bored with a kind of gimlet. The workman, placing the
gimlet above the long, slender branchlet of wood, bores half
the length, and then reverses the position to operate upon
the other half. The wild cherry tree wood, which is, the
most frequently employed, is seldom free from defects in
the bark,and some skill is exercised in so repairing these
defective places that the mending shall be invisible.”
The tubes or pipe-bowls used with these stems are mostly
a combination of two substances—the red clay of Nish and
the white earth of Rustchuk; they are graceful in form and
sometimes decorated with gilding. It is characteristic of
some of the Turks that they estimate the duration of a
journey, and with it the distancé traveled, by the number of
pipes smoked, a particular size of pipe-bow] being understood.
Dodwell, in his “ Tour through Greece,” says that “a Turk
‘is generally very clean in his smoking apparatus, having a
small tin dish laid on the carpet of his apartment, on which
the bowl of the pipe can rest, to prevent the tobacco from
158 PIPE STEMS.
burning or soiling the carpet. The tubes of the kabliouns
are often as anal a3 saan oF eight feet long. Some. of the
gardens of Turkey and Greece contain jasmine trees pur-
posely cultivated to produce straight stems for these pipes.
Of those Turkish pipes which are used in Egypt, Mr. Lane,’
after mentioning the narghile and the chibouque or “ shibuk,”
says :—
e The most common kind used in Egypt is made of wood
called garmashak (I believe it is maple). The greater part
of the stick, from the mouth-piece to three-fourths o its
length, is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity
by gold thread, often intertwined with colored silks, or by a
. tube of gilt or silver; and at the lower extremity of the cover-
ing is a tassel of silk. The covering was originally designed
to be moistened with water in order to cool the pipe, and
consequently the smoke by evaporation ; but this is only done
when the pipe is old or not handsome. These stick pipes
are used by many persons, particularly in winter; in summer
the smoke is not so cool from them as from the kind before
mentioned. The bowl is of baked earth, colored red or
brown.”
AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN PIPE STEMS.
Before passing to the subject of the costly mouth-pieces of
Oriental pipes, we must say a few words concerning the
extraordinary care bestowed on some kinds of plain wood
sticks for stems or tubes. Cherry-tree stems, under the name
of agriots, constitute a specialty of Austrian manufacture.
The fragrant cherry (prunus makaleb) is a native of that
country ; and the young trees are cultivated with special ref-
erence to this application. They are all raised from seed.
The seedlings, when two years old, are planted in small pots,
one in each; as they grow, every tendency to branching is
choked by removing the bud; and as they increase in size
from year to year, they are shifted into larger pots or into
boxes. Great care is taken to turn them round daily, so that
every part shall be equally exposed to sunshine. When the
plants have attained a sufficient height they are allowed to
form a small bushy head; but the daily care is continued
until the stems grow to a proper thickness. They are then »
AMBER MOUTH-PIECES. 159
taken out of the ground, the roots and branches removed,
and the stem bored through after being seasoned for some
time. The care shown in rearing insures a perfect straight-
ness of stem, and an equable diameter of about an inch or
an inch and a half. The last specimens, when cut from the
tree, are as much as eight feet in length, dark purple-brown in
color, and highly fragrant. At Pesth are made pipes about
eighteen inches in length, of the shoots of the mock orange,
remarkable for their quality in absorbing the oil of tobacco,
they are flexible without being weak. The French make
elegant pipe-bowls of the root of the tree-heath, but their
chief attention is directed, as far as concerns wood pipes, to
those of brier-root, which are made by them in large quanti-
ties. The bowl and the short stems are carried out of one
piece, and the wood is credited with absorbing some of the
rank oil of tobacco.
Amber—the only kind of resin that rises to the dignity of
a gem—is unfitted for the bowl of a tobacco-pipe, because it
cannot well bear the heat; but it is largely used for mouth-
Pieces; especially by wealthy Oriental smokers. The Turks
have a belief that amber wards off infection; an opinion
which, whether right or wrong, tells well for the amber
workers. There has always been a mystery connected with
this remarkable substance. So far back as the Phenicians,
amber was picked up on the Baltic shore of what is now
called Prussia; and the same region has ever since been the
chief aeerechouse for it. Tacitus was not far wrong when he
conjectured that amber is a gum or resin exuded from certain
trees, although other authorities have preferred a theory that
‘it is a kind of wax or fat which has undergone slow petrifac-
tion. At any rate, it must at one time have been liquid or
semi-liquid ; for insects, flies, detached wings and legs, and
small fragments of various kinds, are often found imbedded
in it—those odds and ends of which Pope said :—
‘st The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare;
The wonder’s how the devil they got there!”
160 OBTAINING AMBER.
Whether new stores of amber are now being formed, or
whether, like coal, it was the result of causes not now in
operation, is an unsolved problem. The specimens obtained
differ considerably ; some are pale as primrose, some deep
orange or almost brown; some nearly as transparent as crys-
tal, some nearly opaque. Large pieces, uniform in color and
translucency, fetch high prices; and there are fashions in
this matter for which it is not easy to account,—seeing that
the Turks and other Orientals buy up, at prices which Euro-
peans are unwilling to give, all the specimens presenting a
straw-yellow color and a sort of cloudy translucency. The
Russians, on the contrary, prefer orange-yellow transparent
specimens. The amber is seldom obtained by actual mining.
It is usually found on sea-coasts, after storms, in rounded
nodules; or, if scarce on shore, it is sought for by men clad
in leather garments, who wade up to their necks in the sea,
and scrape the sea-bottom with hooped nets attached to the
end of long poles;
or (rather danger-
ous work) men go
out in boats, and
examine the faces
of precipitous cliffs,
picking off, by
means of iron
hooks, the lumps
of amber which
they may see here
SEARCHING FOR AMBER. and there. Some.
times a piecé
weighing nearly a pound is found, and a weight of even ten
pounds is recorded. As small pieces can easily be joined
by smoothing the surfaces, moistening them with linseed oil,
and pressing them together over a charcoal fire, and as gum
copal is sometimes very like amber, there is much sophistica-
tion indulged in, which none but an expert can guard against.
In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine or
t
ITS VALUE. 161
fictitious, into pipe mouth-pieces, they are split on a leaden
plate in a turning lathe, smoothed into shape by whet-stones,
rubbed with chalk and water, and polished with a piece of
flannel. It is an especially difficult kind of work; for unless
the amber is allowed frequent intervals for cooling, it
becomes electrically excited by the friction and shivers into
fragments; the men, too, are put into nervous tremors if
kept too long at work at one time. Amber is one of the
most electrically excitable of all known substances; in fact,
the name electricity itself was derived from electron, the
Greek name for amber: Hookahs, chibouques, narghiles,
meerschaums, all are largely adorned with amber mouth-
pieces. The mouth-piece often consists of two or three
pieces of amber, interjoined with ornaments of gold and
gems; it is in such case the most costly part of the pipe.
At one of the greater industrial exhibitions four Turkish
amames, or amber mouth-pieces, were shown, illustrating
clearly enough the value attached to choice specimens; two
of them were worth £350 each, two £200 each, diamond
studded. The Turkish and Persian pipes have often a small
wooden tube inside the amber mouth-piece. They require
frequent cleaning with a long wire and a bit of tow, and in
some large towns there are professional pipe-cleaners.
The natives of British Guiana have a curious kind of pipe,
made of the rind of the fruit of the areca-palm, coiled up
into a kind of cheroot, with an internal hollow to hold the
tobacco. The poorer Hindoos make a simple pipe of two
pieces of bamboo,—one cut close to a knot for the bowl, and
amore slender piece for the tube. A lower class of natives
in India make two holes of unequal length, with a piece of
stick, in a clay soil; the holes are unequally inclined so as to
meet at the bottom; the tobacco is placed in the shorter
hole, and the smoker, applying his mouth to the longer,
inhales the fumes in this primitive fashion. The pipes used
for opium-smoking in various parts of the East have small
bowls; the drug is too costly to be used otherwise than in
small portions at a time, and too powerful to need more than
11
162 VARIETY OF PIPES.
a few whiffs to produce the opium-smoker’s dreary delirium,
The Tunisians use reeds for pipes. Stone pipes are found
among the natives of Vancouver; while Strong Bow, the
North American Indian chief, has his long wooden pipe of
peace, decked out with tassels and fringes, but with an
ominous-looking sharp steel cutting instrument near the end
most remote from the bowl.
Chinese, Japanese, Phillipine Islanders, Madagascans, Cen-
tral Africans, Algerine Arabs, Mexicans, Paraguayans,
Siamese, Tahitians, South American Indians, Mongols,
Malays, Tartars, Turcomans, as well as the nations of Europe
and the chief nations of Southern Asia, all have their smok-
ing-pipes, plain or ornate, as the case may be, and made of
wood, reeds, bamboo, bone, ivory, stone, earthenware, glass,
porcelain, amber, agate, jade, precious metals and common
metals, according to the civilization of the country and the
‘ pecuniary means of the smoker.
“The French clay pipes have quite a special character;
: they are well made, and
great ingenuity is shown
in the preparation of the
moulds in which they are
pressed ; but being mostly
intended for a class of
purchasers who prefer
grotesque ideas to refined
taste, the bowls are often ornamented with queer shaped
heads, having bead-like eyes; sometimes imaginary beings,
sometimes caricature portraits of eminent persons. Where
more than the head is represented, license is given to a
certain grossness of idea; but this is not a general charac-
teristic. The clay of which these French pipes are made is
admitted to be superior to that of England, due to the careful
mixture of different kinds, and to skilful manipulation.
“We need not say much about Dutch pipes as distinct
articles of mauufacture, because the process adopted in their
roduction are pretty much like those in use elsewhere.
he Dutch are famous clay-pipe smokers, not countenancing
the 'cigar so much as their neighbors the Belgians, nor the
meerschaum so largely as their German neighbors on the
Rhine frontier. A notable bit of sharp practice is on record
FANCY PIPES.
HISTORY OF PIPES. 163
in connexion with the pipe-smokers of Holland—a dodge
only to be justified on the equivocal maxim that all is fair in
trade provided it just keeps within the margin we need not
speak. A pipe manufactory was established in Flanders
about the middle of the last century.
“The Dutch makers, alarmed at the competition which this
threatened, cunningly devised a stratagem for nipping it in
the bud. They freighted a large worn-out ship with an
enormous quantity of pipes of their own make, sent it to
Ostend, and wrecked it there. By the municipal laws of
that city the wreck became public property ; the pipes were
sold at prices so ridiculously low that the town was glutted
with the commodity; the new Flemish factory was thereby
paralyzed, ruined, and closed.
The Turks (especially those of the lower orders) use a
kind of clay pipe made of red earth decorated with gilding.
The stem of the pipe is made from a branch of jasmine,
cherry tree or maple and is sufficiently long to rest on the
floor when used by the smoker.
z
n
B
3
aw
5
6
5
\ ut
\ i "
Na
A
200 FIELD MARSHAL BLUCHER.
at her ample person; “then, madam,—I must say,
madam,—” “Sir, sir, are you going to be rude?” “J
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 Donny-
brook 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.
Of many warriors, none have been more devoted to the
plant than Napoleon, Frederick of Prussia and Bliicher the
Bold. The following anecdote of the latter is one of the
best of itskind: “As is well-known, Field-Marshal Bliicher,
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 pufis, 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 Blicher’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
SMOKING ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 901
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.
Bliicher’s Pipe-master, at the time of the Liberation War,
was Christian Hennemann, a Mecklenburg and Rostock man,
like Bliicher 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 skill-
fully 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 Blicher 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 Blicher and hits 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 Blicher ; ‘keep it lighted,
and wait for me here a moment, till I drive away the French
rascals. Forwards, lads!’ Thereupon there was a rush for-
wards; 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 vic-
torious friends, Bliicher and Wellington, met and congratu-
lated 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.
Blicher replied, ‘Yes; you see, that is their business. But
202 OBEYING ORDERS.
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
Blicher about his previous position on the field of battle,
which had enabled him to execute an attack so fatal to the
enemy.
Blicher, 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 Bliicher
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 Blicher, ‘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 grum-
bling 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
asmashing.. That is the last whole pipe, and it is a good
thing that the firing has ceased ; otherwise, the French would
have knocke@ 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 Hen-
nemann’s head proved to be somewhat serious; his hand was
completely shattered; and yet, in the midst of the tempest
TOIALIVA FHL
“INVONGLIV
hye
i 3
204 LITERARY SMOKERS.
of shot, he had stood there waiting for his beloved master.”*
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 indict-
ment 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 compan-
ion 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 Mon-
olians ad libitum. The Jew whether in Hounds ditch, Paris
amburgh, 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 pur-
pose 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 vindi-
cate its Author. “In some rare cases of internal injury
tobacco may be used but not in the customary way.’ Be it
*During the conquest of Holland, Louvais paid more attention to furnishing tobacco than
Provisions ; and even at this as well as in former times, more care is taken to procure
da:
aon mece. than bread to the soldier. Every soldier was obliged to have his pipe and his
DOCTOR CLARKE ON TOBACCO. 9205
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 (Nachaah) who tempted Eve was
not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture of
atella 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 smok-
ing 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, conftite your argu-
ments, 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
ie Sue the digger, the blacksmith or the teamster, lights
is 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 ennwi, 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 blow-
ing 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 estheticism
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
206 NOTED SMOKERS.
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.
‘ “Tet, 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 con-
noisseur. 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 ery-light, of pure digestion bred
And temperate vapors bland!’
_ “Sir Isaac Newton was smoking in his garden at Wools-
thorpe 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 ban-
ished from St. James’ to the country squires and parsons.
Squire Western, in Zom 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 (a 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. . .
“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,
SS, aN 7 pe
MQ tig,
fae Z
es Orr
s ‘Al
PW: aaa
—_ Pralcad ; : ¥ ie, ean mean ~,
‘ Gis zs P aS oo - oe
> es Lag ahs |
1, wre te : a’ RAN . aes?
. NEWTON AND HIS PIPE.
208 NOTED SMOKERS.
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 every-
thing. He used only the finest Tobacco, half-filling his pipe
with galt. 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 recogni-
tion of Pytellecthal 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 counte-
nance 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 some-
what 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
NOTED SMOKERS, 209
Shakespeare hated every form of debauchery. The peni-
tence of Cassio is more prominent than was hisfun. ‘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.
“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,’
Jn, Wasa tremendous smoker.
2°) Moore cared not for it;
¥ indeed, I think that Irish
gentlemen smoke much
less than English. Well-
He ington shunned it; so did
PS Peel. D’Israeli loved the
long pipe in his youth,
but in middle age pro-
1 ‘
TENNYSON, SMOKING. LE sage “a
ing, 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
health and brain, I leave to more skilled and morose critics.
But my mind misgives me. Paralysis is becoming very
frequent. : ;
“J have seen stone pipes from Gambia, shaped like the
letter U consisting each of one solid flint, hollowed through,
14
210 PLEASANT PIPES.
also hookahs made by sailors with cocoanut shells.. All,
' however, now agree that it is impossible to have either com-
fortable, 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. [
caution the smoker to have an old glove on; as these pipes
‘sweat,’ the oil comes catia and nothing is more pertina-
cious 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 unesthetic, and the
evalice 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. :
“T 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 unesthetic and illiberal:
it is in an old man most pitiable, in a young one intolerable, in
RULES FOR SMOKING. 1
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 :— pei
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 intermit-
tent pufts.’— Walter Scott. “
« 8, 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, reqnires 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 some-
times 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
rune her of half her evil. Let not your love of indulgence
e so inordinate as to purchase short pleasure by impairing
health, neglecting duty, or, while promoting your own
self-complacency,. allow yourself to become permanently
212 A TOBACCO WORLD.
revolting to society, by offending more senses as well as
mone principles than one.’”
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
MODERN SMOKERS.
as all known nations smoke the nicotian herb. And thou-
sands 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
CRUELTY TO SMOKERS. 913
breathes forth again to soothe his pain and to vanquish fatigue
and anxiety.
“Tn 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 liésin
wait to throw down before the feet of the horses the murder-
ous bomb. The human family spends every year two thou-
sand 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.
“Tn 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 fel-
low 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 Suri-
nam 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.”
o14 * QUAINT WHIMS.
From a Southern paper we extract these whimsical lines,
“On the Great Fall in the Price of Tobacco in 1801,” b
Hugh Montgomery, Lynchburgh, Va., Hs
‘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,
ri For since tobacco fell, your face is twice as long.’”
if
Another quaint whim in the form of an advertisement for
a lost meerschaum is from an Australian paper: ;. 4
Se 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 shil-.
lings 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.” os
A- bumorous writer thus discoursés.on man, who he
denominates as “common clays”: “Yet we are all common
clays!‘ ‘There are long clays and short: clays, coarse ¢lays 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;
MEN LIKE PIPES. 915
‘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,
“A delicate person is like a pipe with a crack in the bowl, '
THE ARTIST.
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 heayen. An artist is a good coloring pipe ;
216 UNIVERSAL USE.
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 ; 2 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.
The calumet or pipe of peace, decorated with all the splen-
dor 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, pufis
: vigorously at his cigar
and with scarcely a
passing notice, strides
over obstacles that lie
in his path of whatever
2 nature they may be.
-The dancing Spaniard,
t¢ with his eternal casta-
nets whispers but a
word to his dark-eyed.
senorita as he hands her
A another perfumed
<= cigarette. The loung-
ing Italian hissing
intrigues under the
shadow of an ancient
THE YANKEE SMOKER. portico, smokes on as
he stalks over the
proud place where the blood of Cesar 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,
DEVELOPMENT OF TOBACCO, O17
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 AXtna 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 them-
selves) to those of improved form and modern style.. These
facts are without a doubt among the most curious that com-
merce presents. That a plant primarily 1 used only by savages,
should succeed in spite of the greatest opposition in becom-
ing 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:
‘s Sublime tobacco which from East to West
Cheers the tar’s labor and the Turkman’s rest.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SNUFF, SNUFF-BOXES AND SNUFF-TAKERS.
‘Nes cs HE etistom of snuff-taking is as old at least as the:
RWI discovery of the tobacco plant. The first account:
we have of it is given by Roman Pane, the friar who
accompanied Columbus on his second: voyage of:
discovery (1494), and who alludes to its use among the Indians.
by means of a‘cane half a cubit long. Ewbank says:
“ Much has been written on a revolution so unique in its:
origin, unsurpassed in incidents and results, and constituting
one of the most singular episodes in human history; but.
next to nothing-is recorded of whence the various processes.
of manufacture and uses were derived. Some imagine the
popular pabulum* for the nose of translantic origin. No such
thing! Columbus first beheld smokers in the Antilles,
Pizarro found chewers in Peru, but it was in the country dis
covered by Cabral that the great sternutatory was originally
found. Brazilian Indians were the Fathers of snuff, and its.
best fabricators. Though counted among the least refined of
aborigines, their taste in this matter was as pure as that of
the fashionable world of the East. Their snuff has never
been surpassed, nor their apparatus for making it.”
Soon after the introduction and cultivation of tobacco in
Spain and Portugal its use in the form of snuff came in vogue
and from these notions it spread rapidly over Europe, par-
ticularly in France and Italy. It is said to have been used
* Dr. John Hillin his tract ‘‘ Cautions against the immoderate use of snuff” gives the
following definition of it. “The dried leaves of tobacco, rasped, beaten, or otherwise
reduced to powder, make what we call snuff." This tract was ablished in til. The author,
afterwards Sir John Hill, was equally celebrated as a physician and a writer of ferces, a8
denoted by the following epigram by Garrick :
“ For physic and farces his equal there scarce 1s ;
His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.””
218
ITS INTRODUCTION. 219°
first. in France* by the wife of Henry II., Catherine de
Medici, and that it was first used at court during the latter
part of the Sixteenth Century. The Queen seemed to give
it a good standing in society and it soon became the fashion
to use the powder by placing a little on the back of the hand
and inhaling it. The use of snuff greatly increased from the.
fact of its supposed medicinal properties and its curative
powers in all diseases, particularly those affecting the head,
hence the wide introduction of snuff-taking in Europe.
Fairholt says of its early use:
‘Though thus originally recommended for adoption as a
medicine, it soon ,became better known as a luxury and the
gratification of a pinch was generally indulged in Spain; ~
Italy and France, during the early part of the Seventeenth
Century. It was the grandees of the French Court who
‘set the fashion’ of snuff, with all its luxurious additions of
scents and expensive boxes., It became common in the
Court of Louis le Grand, although that monarch had a decided
antipathy to tobacco in any form.”
Says an English writer “Between 1660 and 1700, the
custom of taking snuff, though it was disliked by Louis XIV.,
was almost as prevalent. in France as it is at the present time.
In this instance, the,example of the monarch was disregarded ;
tabac -en poudre or ftobac rapet as snuff was sometimes
called found favor in the noses of the French people; and
all men of fashion prided themselves on carrying a handsome
snufft-box. Ladies also took snuff; and the belle whose
ce and propriety of demeanour were themes of general
admiration, thought,,it not. unbecoming to take a pinch at
dinner, or,to blow her pretty nose in her embroidered mou-
choix with the sound of a trombone. Louis endeavored to
discourage the use of snuff and his valets-de-chambre were
obliged to renounce it when they were appointed to their
office. One of these gentlemen, the Duc d’ Harcourt, was
supposed to have died of apoplexy in consequence of having,
in order to please the king, totally discontinued the habit
which he had before indulged to excess.” ;
Other grandees were less accommodating: thus we are
a ar: i eg f wad 4
* yriter gives a ‘different account—“The ctistom of taking snuff as a nagal
eratinontion Gook not Py ear to aie of earlier date than 1620,‘though the powdered leaves of
tobacco were oceasionall ly prescribed ag a medicine‘ lon “before that time. It appears to
have first become prevalent in Spain, and from thence to have passed into Italy and France.
+ Grated tobacco.
220 BOXES AND GRATERS.
told that Marechal d’ Huxelles used to cover his cravat and
dress with it. The Royal Physician, Monsieur Fagon, is
reported to have devoted his best energies to a public oration
of a very violent kind against snuff, which unfortunately
failed to convince his auditory, as the excited lecturer in his
most enthusiastic moments refreshed his nose with a pinch.
Although disliked by the most polished prince of Europe,
the use of snuff increased and soon spread ‘outside the limits
of the court of France and in a short time became a favorite
mode of using tobacco as it continues to be with many at
this day.* The snuff-boxes of this period were very elegant
and were decorated with elaborate paintings or set with gems.
It was the custom to carry both a snuff-box and a tobacco’
grater, which was often as expensive and elegant as the snuff-
box itself. Many of them were richly carved and ornamented
in the most superb manner. Others
bore the titles and arms of the owner
and it was considered as part of a
courtier’s outfit to sport a magnificent
box and grater. The French mode
of manufacturing snuff was to satu-
rate the leaves in water, then dry
them and color according to the |
shade desired. The perfume was
then added and the snuff was pre-
pared for use. The kind of tobacco
used was “Tobac de Virginie.” Spanish snuff was perfumed
in the same manner with the additional use of orange-flower
water. Carver gives the mode of manufacturing snuff in
America (1779).
“Being possessed of a tobacco wheel, which is a very
simple machine, they spin the leaves, after they are properly
cured, into a twist of any size they think fit; and having
A TOBACCO GRATER.
* The Rey. S. Wesley apenking of the abuses of tobacco, intimates that the human ear, will
not long, remain exempted from its affliction.
“To such a height with some is fashion grown
They feed they very nostrils with a spoon,
One, and but one degree is wanting yet.
To make their senseless luxury complete;
Some choice regale, useless as snuff and dear,
To feed the mazy windings of the ear,
MODE OF PREPARATION. 991
folded it into rolls of about twenty pounds weight each, they
lay it by for use. In this state it will keep for several years,
and be continually improving, as it every hour grows milder.
When they have occasion to use it, they take off such a length
as they think necessary, which, if designed for smoking, they
cut into small pieces, for chewing into larger, as choice
directs; if they intend to make snutt of it they take a quan-
tity from the roll, and laying it in a room where a fire is
kept, in a day or two it will become dry, and being rubbed
on a grater will produce a genuine snuff. Those in more
improved regions who like their snuff scented, apply to it
such odoriferous waters as they can procure, or think most
pleasing.” ,
Dutch snuff was only partially ground, and was therefore
coarse and harsh in its effects when inhaled into the nostrils.
The Irish, according to Everards, used large quantities of
snuff “to purge their brains.” Snuff-taking became general
in England* at the commencement of the Seventeenth Cen-
tury, and scented snuffs were used in preference to the'plain.
Frequent mention is made in the plays of this time of its use
and varieties. In Congreve’s “Love for Love,” one of the
characters presents a young lady with a box of snuff, on
receipt of which she says, “Look you here what Mr. Tattle
has given me! Look you here, cousin, here’s a snuff-box;
nay, there’s snuff in’t: here, will you have any? Oh, good!
how sweet it is!”
Portuguese snuff seemed to be in favor and was delicately
perfumed. It was made from the fibres of the leaves, and
was considered among many to be the finest kind of the
“pungent dust.” Some varieties of snuff were named after
‘the scents employed in flavoring them. In France many
kinds became popular from the fact of their use at court, and
by the courtiers throughout the kingdom. Pope notes the
use of the snuff-box by the fops and courtiers of his time in
this manner :—
ice ustom of taking snuff was probably brought into England by some of the followers
of Gharies I1., about the Uime of ihe Restoration. During his reign, and that of his brother,
jt does not appear to have gained much ground: but towards the end of the Seventeenth
Century it aad become auite the’ rage with’ beaux, who at that period, as well as in the
reign of Queen Anne. sometimes carried their snuff in the hollow ivory head of their canes.’”
Paper of Tobacco.
222 SNUFF-BOXES.
“Sir Plume of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane;
With earnest eyes, and round, unthinking face,
He first the snuff-box open’d, then the case.”
The mode of “tapping the box” before opening was char-
acteristic of the beaux and fops of this‘peridd; and is com-
“mnented on in a poem on snuff :— ee NNT ele i
“The lawyer so grave, when he opens his case,
In obscurity finds itishid,
, Till the bright glass of knowledge illumines his face,
As he gives the three taps on the lid." *~“*
Spain, Portugal, and France early in the, Seventeenth
Century became noted as the producers of the ‘finest kinds
_of snuff. In Spain and Portugal it was the favorite mode of
using tobacco, and rare kinds were compounded and sold at
enormous prices. Its use in France by the fair sex is thus
commented on by a French writer:—: *
“Everything in France depends upon Za mode ; and it has
t
DEMI-JOURNEES.
pleased Ja mode to patronize this disgusting custom, and
carry about with them small boxes which they term ‘demi-
journées.”
The most expensive materials were employed in the manu-
facture of snuff-boxes, such as agate, mosaics, and all kinds
of rare wood, while many were of gold, studded with
diamonds. Some kinds were made of China mounted in
metal, and were very fanciful. In “Pandora’s Box,” a
“Satyr against Snuff,” 1719, may be found the following
description of the snuff-boxes then in vogue: =
FAMOUS SNUFFS. 223
“For females fair, and formal fops to please,
The mines are robb’d of ore, of shells the seas,
With all that mother-earth and beast: afford
To man, unworthy now, tho’ once their lord:
Which wrought into a box, with all the show
Of art the greatest artist can bestow;
Charming in shape, with polished rays of light,
A joint so fine it shuns the sharpest sight;
Must still be graced with all the radiant.gems
And precious stones that e’er arrived in Thames,
Within the lid the painter plays his part,
And with his pencil proves his matchless art ;
There drawn to life some spark or mistress dwells,
Like hermits chaste and constant to their cells.”
Some of the more highly perfumed snuffs sold for thirty
shillings a pound, while the cheaper kinds, such. as English
-Rappee and John’s Lane, could be bought for two or three
‘shillings per pound. There are at least two hundred kinds
-of snuff well known in commerce. The Scotch and Irish
snuffs are for the most part made from the midribs; the
Strasburgh, French, Spanish, and Russian. snuffs from the
soft parts of the leaves. An English writer gives the follow-
ing account of some of the well-known snufis and the method
of manufacturing :—
_ “For the famous fancy snuff known as Maroco, the recipe
is to take forty parts of French or St. Omer tobacco, with
“twenty parts of fermented Virginia stalks inpowder; the
whole to be ground and sifted.” To this powder must be
-added' two pounds and a half of rose leaves in fine powder;
-and the whole must be moistened with salt and water and
‘thoroughly ineorporated. After that it must be. ‘worked
up’ with cream and salts of tartar, and packed in lead to
“preserve its delicate aroma. The celebrated ‘gros. grain
aris snuff’? is composed of equal parts of Amersfoort and
James River tobacco, and the scent is imported by a ‘sauce,’
among the ingredients. of which are salt, soda, tamarinds,
-red wine, syrup, cognac, and cream of. tartar.”
“The mode of manufacture of snuff now is far different than
that-employed in the Seventeenth Century. Then the leaves
were simply dried and made fine by rubbing them together
in the hands, or ground in some rude mill; still later the
294 A CELEBRATED MANUFACTURER.
tobacco was washed or cleansed in water, dried, and then
ground. Now, however, the tobacco undergoes quite a
process, and must be kept packed several months before it is
ground into snuff. One of the most celebrated manufacturers
of snuff was James Gillespie, of Edinburgh, who compounded
the famous variety bearing hisname. The following account
of him we take from “ The Tobacco Plant :”—
“In the High Street of Edinburgh, a little east from the.
place where formerly stood the Cross,— :
“* Dun-Edin’s Cross, a pillar’d stone,
Rose on a turret octagon,’
was situated the shop of James Gillespie, the celebrated
snuff manufacturer. The shop is
still occupied by a tobacconist, .
whose sign is the head of a typical
negro, and in one of the windows
is exhibited the effigy of a High-
lander, who is evidently a compe-
tent judge of ‘sneeshin.’ Not
much is known regarding the
personal history of James Gilles.
pie, but it is understood that he
was born shortly after the Jacobite
rebellion of 1715, at Roslin, a pic-
turesque village about six miles
from Edinburgh. He became a
tobacconist in Edinburgh, along
with his brother John, and by the
exercise of steady industry: and
: frugality, he was enabled to pur-
asin Hiiceeri chase Spylaw, a small estate in
the parish of Colinton, about four
miles from Edinburgh, where he erected a snuff-mill on the
banks of the Water of Leith, a small stream which flows
through the finely-wooded grounds of Spylaw. The younger
brother, John, attended to the shop, while the subject of our
notice resided at Spylaw, where he superintended the snuff:
mill. Mr. Gillespie was able to continue his industrious
habits through a long life, and having made some successful
speculations in tobacco during the war of American Independ-
ence, when the ‘weed’ advanced considerably in price, he
was enabled to increase his Spylaw estate from time to time
HABITS AND LIFE. 225
by making additional purchases of property in the parish.
“Mr. Gillespie remained ihrousir Tide a basbeloe His
establishment at Spylaw was of the simplest description. It
is said that he invariably sat at the same table with his serv-
ants, indulging in familiar conversation, and entering with
much spirit into their amusements. Newspapers were not
so widely circulated at that period as they are now, and on
the return of any of his,domestics from the city, which one
of them daily visited, he listened with great attention to the
‘news, and enjoyed with much zest the narration of any
jocular incident that had occurred. Mr. Gillespie had a
penchant for animals, and their wants were carefully attended
to. His poultry, equally with his horses, could have testified
to the judicious attention which he bestowed upon them. A
story is told of the familiarity ' between the laird and his
riding horse, which was well-fed and full of spirit.
“The animal frequently indulged in a little restive curvet-
ting with its master, especially when the latter was about to
get into the saddle. ‘Come, come,’ he would. say, on such
occasions, addressing the animal in his usual quiet way,
‘hae dune, noo, for ye’ll no like if I come across your lugs
(ears) wi’ the stick.’
“ Even in his old age Mr. Gillespie regularly superintende
the operations in the mill, which was situated in the rear'of
his house. On these occasions he was wrapped in an old
blanket ingrained with snuff. Though he kept a carriage-he
very seldom used it, until shortly before his death, when
increasing infirmities caused him occasionally to take a drive.
It was of this carriage, plain and neat in its design, with
nothing on its panel but the initials ‘J. G.’ that the witty
Henry Erskine proposed the couplet—
“Who would have thought it
That noses had bought it ?
as an appropriate motto. In those days snuff was much more
extensively used than at i and Mr. Gillespie was in
the habit of gratuitously filling the ‘mulls’ of many of the
Edinburgh characters of the last century. Colinton appears
to have been a great snuff-making centre. About thirty
years ago there were five snuff mills in_ operation in the
parish, the produce of which was sold in Edinburgh. Even
now a considerable quantity of snuff is made in the district,
chiefly by grinders to the trade.
Murray, alluding to the popularity of the custom in
15
226 THE SNUFFING PERIOD.
England during the reign of the House of Brunswick, says :—
“The reigns of the four Georges may be entitled the
snuffing period of English history. The practice became an
f fashion before 1714, as it has continued after
ee . : 1830, to be the comfort
G24 - of priests, literary men,
‘2 highlanders, tailors, fac-
YzZy, tory hands, and old peo-
Ze ple of both sexes.
=, sute judge of snuffs, and
ZED 80 enamoured of the
Z=_ delectation, that in each
of his palaces he kept a
= jar chamber, containing
a choice assortment of
tobacco powder, pre-
- eS sided over by a critical
FOPS TAKING SNUFF. (From an old print). superintendent. His fa-
vorite stimulant in the
morning was violet Strasburgh, the same which had pre-
viously helped Queen Charlotte to ‘ kill the day ’—after din;
ner Carrotte — named from his penchant for it. King’s
Carrotte, Martinique, Etrenne, Old Paris, Bureau, Cologne,
Bordeaux, Havre, Princeza, Rouen, and Rappee, were placed
on the table, in as many rich and curious boxes.”
Sterne, in his “Sentimental Journey,” gives a pleasing
description of snuff-taking with the poor monk. He writes:
“The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the
idea of him crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us
a little out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should
break in upon us or no. He stoop’d, however, as soon as he
came up to us with a world of frankness; and having a horn
snuff-box in his hand, he presented it open to me.
“¢ You shall taste mine,’ said I, pulling out my box (which
was a small tortoise one), and putting it into his hand.
“Tis most excellent,’ said the monk.
“¢Then do me the favor, I replied ‘to accept of the box
and all, and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes
recollect it was the peace-offering of a man who once used
you unkindly, but not from his heart.’
“The poor monk blushed as red as scarlet, ‘Mon Dieu?
said he, pressing his hands together, * you never used me
unkindly.
THE MONK AND HIS SNUFF-BOX. 227
“¢T should think,’ said the lady, ‘he is not likely.’
I blushed in my turn; but from what motivea, I leave
to the few who feel to analyze. ‘Excuse me, madam,’ replied
I, ‘1 treated him most unkindly, and from no provocations,
“Tis impossible,’ said the lady.
““My God? cried the monk, with a warmth of assevera-
tion which seemed not to beling to him, ‘the fault was in
me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.’
“ The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in maintain-
ing it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his could
give offence to any. I knew not that contention could be
rendered so sweet and pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I
then felt it. We remained silent, without any sensation of
that foolish pain which takes place when, in a circle, you look
for ten minutes in one another’s faces without saying a word.
“Whilst this lasted, the monk rubb’d his horn box upon
HORN SNUFY-BOXES.
the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a
little air of brightness by the friction, he made a luw bow
and said, ’twas too late to say whether it was the weakness
or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this
contest, but be it as it would, he begg’d we would exchange
boxes. In saying this, he presented this to me with one, as
he took mine from me in the other; and having kissed it,
with a stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his
bosom, and took his leave. I guard this box as I would the
instrumental parts of my religion, to help my mind on to
something better: in truth I seldom go abroad without it;
228 “A PINCH OF SNUFF.”
and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous
spirit of its owner, to regulate my own in the jostlings of
the world; they had found full employment for his, as I
learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his
age, when upon some military services ill-requited, and meet-
ing at the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest
of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together,
and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent as in himself.
I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in
my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father
Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and
was buried, not in his convent, but according to his desire,
in a little cemetery belonging to it about two leagues off. I
had a strong desire to see where they had laid him, when,
upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave,
and plucking a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no
business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibl
upon my affections that I burst into a flood of tears—but
am as weak as a woman; I beg the world not to smile, but
pity me.”
Many pleasing effusions have been written promoted doubt-
less by a sneeze among which the following on “A pinch of
Snuff” from “The Sportsman Magazine,” exhibits the cus-
tom and the benefits ascribed to its indulgence.
“With mind or body sore distrest,
Or with repeated cares opprest,
What sets the aching heart at rest?
A pinch of snuff!
“Or should some sharp and gnawing pain
Creep round the noddle of the brain,
What puts all things to rights again?
A pinch of snuff!
“When speech and tongue together fail,
What helps old ladies in their tale,
And adds fresh canvass to their sail?
A pinch of snuff!
“Or when some drowsy parson prays,
And still more drowsy people gaze,
What opes their eyelids with amaze?
A pinch of snuff!
“ PANDORA'S BOX.” 299
“ A comfort which they can’t forsake,
What is it some would rather take,
Than good roast beef, or rich plum cake?
A pinch of snuff!
“Should two old gossips chance to sit,
And sip their slop, and talk of it,
What gives a sharpness to their wit ?
A pinch of snuff!
“ What introduces Whig or Tory,
And reconciles them in their story,
When each is boasting in his glory ?
A pinch of snuff!
“ What warms without a conflagration
Excites without intoxication,
And rouses without irritation?
A pinch of snuff!
“ When friendship fades, and fortune’s spent,
And hope seems gone the way they went,
One cheering ray of joy is sent—
A pinch of snuff!
“Then let us sing in praise of snuff!
And call it not such ‘horrid stuff,’
At which some frown, and others puff,
And seem to flinch.
“ But when a friend presents a box,
Avoid the scruples and the shocks
Of him who laughs and he who mocks,
And take a pinch!” i
From “Pandora’s Box” from which we have already
quoted, we extract the following in which the use of snuff is
deprecated by the author :
—“now, ’tis by every sort
And sex adored, from Billingsgate to court.
But ask a dame ‘how oysters sell?’ if nice,
She begs a pinch before she sets a price.
Go thence to ’Change, inquire the price of Stocks;
Before they ope their lips they open first the box.
Next pay a visit to the Temple, where
The lawyers live, who gold to Heaven prefer;
You'll find them stupify’d to that degree,
230 PLEASURES OF SMELLING.
They'll take a pinch before they'll take their fee.
Then make a step and view the splendid court,
Where all the gay, the great, the good resort ;
E'en they, whose pregnant skulls, though large and thick,
Can scarce secure their native sense and wit,
Are feeding of their hungry souls with pure
Ambrosial snuff. + * * *
But to conclude: the gaudy court resign,
T’ observe, for once, a place much more divine,
When the same folly’s acted by the good,
And is the sole devotion of the lewd;
The church, more sacred once, is what we mean,
Where now they flock to see and to be seen ;
The box is used, the book laid by, as dead,
With snuff, not Scripture, there the soul is fed;
For where to heaven the hands by one of those, !
Are lifted, twenty have them at the nose;
And while some pray, to be from sudden death
Deliver’d, others snuff to stop their breath.”
Paolo Mantegazza, one of the most brilliant and witty of
Italian writers on tobacco, says of its use and “some of the
delights that may be imagined through the sense of smell :”—
“Human civilization has not yet learned to found on the
sense of smell aught but the moderate enjoyment derived
from snufting, which, confined within the narrow circle of a
few sensations, renders us incapable of entering into the most
delicate pleasures of that sense.
“Snuff procures us the rapture of a tactile irritation, of a
slight perfume; but, above all, it furnishes the charm of an
intermittent occupation which soothes us by interrupting,
froin time to time, our labor. At other. times it renders
idleness less insupportable to us, by breaking it into ithe
infinite intervals which pass from one pinch of snuff to
another. Sometimes our snuff-box arouses us from torpor
and drowsiness; sometimes, it occupies our hands when in
society we do not know where to put them or what to do
with them. Finally, snuff and snuffing are things which we
can love, because they are always with us; and we can season
them with a little vanity if we possess a snuff-box of silver or
of gold, which we open continually before those who humbl
content themselves with snuff-boxes of bone or of wood. We
gladly concede the pleasures of snuffing to men of all condi-
tions, and to ladies who, having passed a certain age, or who,
being deformed, have no longer any sex; but we solemnly
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 931
and resolutely refuse the snuff-box to young and beautiful
women, who ought to preserve their delicate and pretty noses
for the odors of the mignonette and the rose.”
With royalty snuff has been a prime favorite. Charles III.
of Spain hada great predilection for rappee snuff, but only
indulged his inclination by stealth, and particularly while
shooting, when he imagined himself to be unnoticed. Fred-
erick the Great and Napoleon* both loved and used large
quantities of the “pungent dust.” Of the former the follow-
ing anecdote is related :—
“ The cynical temper of Frederick the Great is well known.
Once when his sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, was at
Potsdam, Frederick made to the brave Count Schwerin the
present of a gold snuff-box. On the lid inside was painted
the head of an ass. Next day, when dining with the king,
Schwerin, with some ostentation, put his snuff-box on the
table. Wishing to turn the joke against Schwerin, the king
called attention to the snuff-box. The Duchess took it up
and opened it. Immediately she exclaimed, ‘ What a striking
likeness! In truth, brother, this is one of the best portraits
I have ever seen of you.’ Frederick, embarrassed, thought
his sister was carrying the jest too far. She passed the box
to her neighbor, who uttered similar expressions to her own.
The box made the round of the table, and every one was
fervently eloquent about the marvelous resemblance. The
king was puzzled what to make of all this. When the box
at last reached his hands, he saw, to his great surprise, that
his portrait was really there. Count Schwerin had simply,
with exceeding dispatch, employed an artist to remove the
ass’s head, and to paint the king’s head instead. Frederick
could not help laughing at the Count’s clever trick, which
was really the best rebuke of his own bad taste and want of
proper and respectful feeling.”
“ As Frederick William I., of Prussia, was eminently the
Smoking King, so his son Frederick the Great was eminently
the Snuffing King. Perhaps smoking harmonizes best with
action; and it might, without much stretch of fancy, be
shown that as the Peas monarchy was founded on tobacco
smoke, it flourished on snuff. Possibly, if Napoleon the
Great, who like Frederick the Great, was an excessive snuffer,
2 having been unable to undergo the ordeal of a first pipe, stigmatized it asa
habit Da atte sere sluggards. What he renounced in smoking, however, he compensated
in enuff.
232 EMINENT SNUFF-TAKERS.
had smoked as well as snuffed, he might have preserved his
empire from overthrow, seeing that smoking steadies and
snuffing impels. The influences of smoking and snuffing on
politics and war are ascertainable. What the effect of chew-
ing is on political and military affairs, it is not so easy to
discover. We recommend the subject for meditation to the
profoundest metaphysicians. How many of the American
politicians and generals have been chewers as well as snuffers
andsmokers? Is there to besome mysterious affinity between
chewing and the revolutions, especially the social revolutions
of the future? May not apocalyptic interpreters be able to
show that chewing is the symbol of anarchy and annihilation ”
When first used in Europe snuff was made ready for use
by the takers—each person being provided with a box or
SCOTCH SNUF¥-MILLS.
“mill,” as they were termed, to reduce the leaves to powder.
In connection with this, the following may not be
irrelevent :—
The following anecdote of Huerta the celebrated Spanish
guitarist, is taken from one of M. Ella’s programmes :—
“Tn the year 1826 the famous Huerta, who astonished the
English by his performances on the guitar, was anxious to
be introduced to the leader of the Italian Opera Band—a
warm-hearted and sensitive Neapolitan—Spagnoletti. The
latter had a great contempt for guitars, concertinas, and other
fancy instruments not used in the orchestra. He was fond
of snuff, had a capacious nose, and, when irritated, would
ejaculate ‘ Mon Dieu!’ Onmy presenting the vain Spaniard
to Spagnoletti, the latter inquired, ‘Vat you play? Huerta
—‘De guitar-r-r, sare.” Spagnoletti— De guitar! humph!
(takes a pinch of snuff.) Huerta—‘ Yeas, sare, de guitar-r-r,
and ven I play my adagio, de tears shall run down both side
your pig nose.” ‘ Vell den,’ (taking snuff,) said Spagnoletti,
‘I vill not hear your adagio.”
TOO STRONG. 233
The anecdote related of Count de Tesse, a celebrated cour-
tier of France, is one of the best of its kind:—
“Count de Tesse, Marshal of France, was an eminent man
during ‘the reign of Louis XIV. Though he was a brave
soldier and by no means an incompetent general, yet he was
more remarkable as a skillful diplomatist and a pliant and
2 courtier. During the War of Succession in Spain,
e besieged Barcelona with a considerable army, in the spring
of 1705. Terrible was the assault, and terrible was the
resistance. At the end of six weeks the arrival of the British
fleet, and reinforcements thrown into the place, forced Mar-
shal Tesse to retire. Besides immense losses in dead and
wounded, he had to abandon two hundred and twenty cannon
and all his supplies. Incessantly fighting for fifteen days in
his retreat towards the Pyrenees, he lost three thousand more
of his men. It ought to be said, in vindication of Tesse, that
he undertook the siege by express and urgent command of
the French King, and contrary to his own judgment; for in
writing to a friend, he said: ‘If a Consistory were held to
decide the infallibility of the King, as Consistories have been
held to decide the infallibility of the Pope, I should by my
vote declare His Majesty infallible. His orders have con-
founded all human science.’
“Soon after the siege of Barcelona, a lady at a fashionable
party took out her snuff-box and offered a pinch to any one
who wished it. Marshal Tesse approached to take a pinch ;
but suddenly the lady drew her snuff-box back, saying, ‘ For
you, Marshal, the snuff is too strong—it is Barcelona.’”
In Scotland the dry kinds of snuff are in favor and are
esteemed as highly as the moister snuffs. Robert Leighton
gives the following pen picture of the snuff-loving Scotch-
man; it is entitled “The Snuffie Auld Man :”—
“ By the cosie fire-side, or the sun-ends o” gavels,
The snuffie auld bodie is sure to be seen.
Tap, tappin’ his snuff-box, he snifters and sneevils,
And smachers the snuff frae his mou’ to his een.
Since tobacco cam’ in, and the snuffin’ began,
There hasna been seen sic a snuffie auld man.
“ His haurins are dozen’d, his een sair bedizzened
‘And red round the lids as the gills o’ a fish;
His face is a’ bladdit, his sark-breest a’ smaddit.
As snuffie a picture as ony could wish.
234 SAVINGS FROM THE PULPIT.
He makes a mere merter o’ a’ thing he does,
Wi’ snuff frae his fingers an’ drops frae his nose.
« And wow but his nose is a troublesome member—
Day and nicht, there’s nae end to its snuffie desire:
It’s wide as the chimlie, it’s red as an ember,
And has to be fed like a dry-whinnie fire.
It’s a troublesome member, and gi’es him nae peace,
Even sleepin’, or eatin’, or sayin’ the grace.
“The kirk ig disturbed wi’ his hauckin’ and sneezin’
The dominie stoppit when leadin’ the psalm; ,
The minister, deav’d out 0’ logic and reason,
Pours gall in the lugs that.are gapi’ for balm.
The auld folks look surly, the young chaps jocose,
While the bodie himsel’ is bambazed wi’ his nose.
“He scrimps the auld wife baith in garnal and caddy
He snuffs what wad keep her in comfort and ease;
Rapee, Lundyfitt, Prince’s Mixture, and Toddy,
She looks upon them as the worst 0’ her faes.
And we’ll see an end o’ her kooshian nar
While the auld éarle’s nose is upheld like a Czar.
Sharp has written some verses founded upon the following
singular anecdote in Dean Ramsay’s “Reminiscences of
Scottish Life and Character:” —
“The inveterate snuff-taker, like the dram-drinker, felt
severely the being deprived of his accustomed stimulant, as
in the following instance: A severe snow-storm in the
Highlands, which lasted for several weeks, having stopped
all communication betwixt neighboring hamlets, the snuff-
boxes were soon reduced to their last pinch. Borrowing and
begging from all the neighbors within reach were first resorted
to, but when these failed all were alike reduced to the long-
ing which unwillingly abstinent snuff-takers alone know.
The minister of the parish was amongst the unhappy num-
ber; the craving was so intense that study was out of the
question, and he became quite restless. As a last resort, the
beadle was dispatched through the snow, to a neighboring
glen, in the hope of getting a supply; but he came back as
unsuccessful as he went. ‘What’s to be done, John? was
the minister’s pathetic inquiry. John shook his head, as
much as to say that he could not tell, but immediately there-
after started up, as if a new idea ocvurred to him. He came
THE STORY IN VERSE. 235
back in a few minutes, crying, ‘Hae!’ The minister, too
eager to be scrutinizing, took a long deep pinch, and then
said, ‘ Whour did you get it?’ ‘I soupit (swept) the poupit,’
was John’s expressive reply. The minister’s accumulated
superfluous Sabbath snuff now came into good use.”
“Near the Highlands,
Where the dry lands
Are divided into islands,
And distinguish’d from the mainland
As the Western Hebrides.
“Stormy weather,
Those who stay there,
Oftentimes for weeks together
Keep asunder from their neighbors,
Hemm’d about by angry seas.
“For, storm-batter’d,
Boats are shattered,
And their precious cargoes scatter’d
In the boist’rous Sound of Jura,
Or thy passage, Colonsay ;
236 STORM-BOUND.
“While the seamen,
Like true freemen,
Battle bravely with the Demon
Of the storm, who strives to keep them
From their harbor in the bay.
“For this reason
One bad season,
(If to say so be not treason,)
In an island town the people
Were reduced to great distress.
“Though on mainland
They would fain land,
They were storm-bound in their ain land,
Where each luxury was little,
And grew beautifully less.
“But whose sorrow,
That sad morrow,
When no man could beg or borrow
From a friend’s repository,
Equall’d theirs who craved for snuff.
“But, most sadden’d,
Nearly madden’d
For the lack of that which gladden’d
His proboscis, was the parson,
Hight the Rev’rend Neil Macduff,
“If a snuffer,
Though no puffer,
' You may guess what pangs he’d suffer
In his journey through a snow-drift,
Visiting a neighboring town, ;
“From his rushing
For some sneishing ;
But his choring and his fishing
Could procure no Toddy’s Mixture,
Moist Rappee, or Kendal Brown. -
« “Tn his trouble—
Now made double,
‘Since his last hope proved a bubble—
To his aid came Beadle Johnnie,
In his parish right-hand man.
THE SECRET, 237
“With a packet,
Saying, Tak’ it,
It’s as clean as I can mak’ it, |
If ye’d save yer snuff on Sabbath
A toom box ye needna scan,
“ Being lusty
(Though ’twas musty)
To his nose the snuff so dusty
Put the minister, too much in want,
The gift to scrutinize,
“An idea
He could see a
Blessing in this panacea ;
So he took such hearty pinches as brought
Tears into his eyes.
“Then to Johnnie,
His old cronie,
Cried—'I fear’d I'd ne’er get ony.’
‘Well, I'll tell ye,’ said the beadle,
‘Whaur I got the stock of snuff.’
“Tn the poupit
Low I stoopit,
An’ the snuff and stour I soupit,
Then I brocht ye here a handfu’,
For ye need it sair enough.’”
The old Scottish snuff-mill, which consisted of a small
box-like receptacle into which fitted a conical-shaped projec-
tion with a short, strong handle was a more substantial affair
than the rasp used by the French and English snuff-takers.
(See page 232). Both, answered the purpose for which they
were designed, the leaves of tobacco being “ toasted before
the fire,” and then ground in the mill as it was called. The
more modern snuff-mill is similar in shape, but is used to hold
the snuff after being ground, rather than for reducing the
leaves to a powder.
Boswell gives the following poem on snuff, in his “Shrubs
of Parnassus :”
“Oh Snuff! our fashionable end and aim!
Strasburg, Rappee, Dutch, Scotch, what’eer thy name,
238 “COME TO MY NOSE.”
Powder celestial! quintessence divine!
New joys entrance my soul while thou art mine.
Who takes—who takes thee not! where’er I range,
I smell thy sweets from Pall Mall to the ’Change.
By thee assisted, ladies kill the day,
And breathe their scandal freely o’er their tea ;
Nor less they prize thy virtues when in bed,
One pinch of thee revives the vapor'’d head,
Removes the spleen, removes the qualmish fit,
And gives a brisker turn to female wit,
Warms in the nose, refreshes like the breeze,
Glows in the herd and tickles in the sneeze.
Without it, Tinsel, what would be thy lot!
What, but to strut neglected and forgot !
What boots it for thee to have dipt thy hand
In odors wafted from Arabian land?
Ah! what avails thy scented solitaire,
Thy careless swing and pertly tripping air,
The crimson wash that glows upon thy face,
Thy modish hat, and coat that flames with lace!
In vain thy dress, in vain thy trimmings shine,
If the Parisian snuff-box be not thine.
Come to my nose, then, Snuff, nor come alone,
Bring taste with thee, for taste is all thy own.”
There seems to be as great a variety of design in snuff-
boxes as among pipes and tobacco-stoppers. The Indians of
both North and South America have their mills for grinding
or pulverizing the leaves. In the East a great variety of
snufi-boxes may be seen; they are made of wood and ivory,
while many of them have a spoon attached to the box, which
they use in taking the dust from the box to the back of the
hand, whence it is taken by the forefinger and conveyed to
the nose. In Europe we find greater variety of design in
snuff-boxes than in the East. In Europe they are made of
the most costly materials, and studded with the rarest gems.
In the East they are made of ivory, wood, bamboo, and
other materials. Of late years boxes made of wood from
Abbotsford or some other noted place have been used for
the manufacture of snuff-boxes. Formerly when snuff-taking
was in more general use by kings and courtiers than now—
@ magnificent snuff-box was considered by royalty as one of
SNUFF MANUFACTURE. 239
the most valuable and pleasing of “memorials.” Many of
these testimonials of friendship and regard were of gold and
silver, and set with diamonds of the finest water.
Among the anecdotes of celebrated snuff-takers, the fol-
lowing from White’s “ Life of Swedenborg,” will be new to
many :
_, ‘‘Swedenborg took snuff profusely and carelessly; strewing
it over his papers and the carpet. His manuscripts bear its
traces to this day. His carpet set those sneezing who shook
it. One Sunday he desired to have it taken up and beaten.
Shearsmith objected, ‘Better wait till to-morrow,’ ‘Dat be
good! dat be good !’ was his answer.”
We copy the following article on the manufacture of snuff
from a well-known English journal, “Cope’s Tobacco
Plant :”—
. ee snuff is still extensively consumed in this coun-
try (Great Britain), the mode of its manufacture is very little
known to those who use it; and there are very few persons
of even the most inquisitive turn of mind who can say they
have ever penetrated into the mysterious precincts of a snufi-
mill. Even those who have been privileged, and have had
the courage to inspect the interior of such an establishment,
have come away with very vague notions of what they saw.
The hollow whirr of the revolving pestles, the hazy atmos-
phere closely resembling a London fog in November, a phe-
nomenon which is produced by the innumerable particles of
tobacco floating about, and cansing the gas to flicker and
sparkle in a mysterious way, and producing a lively irritation
-of the mucous membrane, all combine in placing the visitor
in a state of amusing bewilderment, and he is compelled to
make a speedy exit, having only had just a running peep at
the interesting process of snufi-making. It is therefore our
duty to give a description of a process which will be new to
a large number of people, and will help to clear up some of
the obscure theories that a great many more entertain of it.
“Those persons who have travelled on the Continent, and
who have noticed on tobacconists’ counters a small machine,
somewhat like a coffee-mill, which a man works with one
hand, while he holds a hard-pressed plug of tobacco about a
pound weight against the revolving grater, and produces,
snuff while the snuff-taker waits for it, may imagine that
snuff in England is produced on a somewhat similar small
240 PREPARATION OF THE TOBACCO.
scale. But this, like many kindred theories, is quite a mis-
take. In this country there exist large snuff-mills worked by
steam power, and in Scotland there is one water-mill which
is driven by a water-power of the strength of thirty horses.
The grinding of snuff is at present carried on much as it was
one hundred years ago. The apparatus, although effective,
SNUFF-MILL A CENTURY AGO.
is very primitive, and would lead one to suppose that mechan-
ical ingenuity had wholly neglected to trouble itself about
improving that branch of machinery.
“All kinds of snuff are made from tobacco leaves, or
tobacco stalks, either separate or mixed. This in the first
instance goes through a kind of fermentation, and, like the
basis of soup at the modern hotels, forms, as it were, the
stock from which all the varieties in flavor and appearance
are produced by special treatment and flavoring. Of course
the strength and pungency of the snuff will depend a good
deal upon the richness of the tobacco originally put aside for
it. About one thousand pounds of tobacco would form an
ordinary batch of snuff. The duty on this would amount to
about £150, and this has to be paid before the tobacco is
removed from the bonded warehouse. Having got his heap
of material ready, the snuff-maker moistens it, then places it
in a warm room and covers it over with warm cloths—coddles
it, as it were, to make it comfortable, so that the cold air
cannot get'to it—and the heap is then left for three or four
weeks, as the case may be, to ferment.
“In France, where, under the Imperial régime, snuff-making
was a Government monopoly, the tobacco was allowed to
ferment for twelve or eighteen months; and in the principal
factory (that at Strasburg) might have been seen scores of
GRINDING THE LEAVES. 941
huge bins, as large as porter vats, all piled up with tobacco
in various stages of fermentation. The tobacco, after bein
fermented, if intended for that light, powdery, brown-looking
enuff called S. P., is dried a little; or if for Prince’s Mixture,
Macobau, or any other kind of Rappee, is at once thrown into
what is called the mull. The mull is a kind of large iron
mortar weighing about half a ton and lined with wood; and
there is a heavy pestle which travels round it, forming, as it
were, a large pestle and mortar.
These mulls are placed in rows and shut up in separate
cupboards, to keep in the dust. The snuff-maker wanders
from one to the other, and feeds them as they require.
“When the grinding of the snuff is completed it is then
ready for flavouring, and in this consists the great art and
secret of the trade. Receipts for peculiar flavors are handed
down from father to son as most valuable heir-looms, and
these receipts are in fact a valuable property in many instances,
for so delicate is the nose of your snuff-taker that he can
detect the slightest variation in the preparation of his favor-
ite snuff. It is related of one old snuff-maker in London,
who had acquired a handsome fortune and retired from busi-
ge that he made it a consideration with his successors that
he should be allowed, so long as he lived, to attend one day
in the week at the business and flavor all the snuff. Most
people will also be familiar with some one of the numerous
versions of the origin of the once famous Lundy Foote Snuff,
better known as ‘ Irish Blackguard.’
“The excise are very rigid in their laws for regulating the
manufacture of snuff; and with’ the exception of a little com-
mon salt, which is added to make the tobacco keep, and
alkalies for bringing out the flavor, nothing is allowed to be
used but a few essential oils. And here we must digress for
@ moment to correct a popular error, viz., that snuff
contains ground glass, put there for titillating purposes.
What appears to be ground glass is only the little crystals or
small particles of alkali that have not been dissolved. So
that fastidious snuff-takers may dismiss this bugbear at once
and forever. ;
“The essential oils referred to form a very expensive item
in the manufacture of snuff. The ladies would be much
surprised to see.a dusty snuff-maker drain off five pounds’
worth of pure unadulterated otto-of-roses into a tin can, and
16
242, FLAVORING THE SNUFF.
as they (the ladies) would suppose, throw it away on a heap
of what would appear to them rubbishy dust in one corner
of the snuffroom. Of
course the ladies would
consider the proper place
for it to be on the cambric.
handkerchief, but this idea
would be about the last
to occur to your matter-
of-fact snuff-maker.
ca “Tn addition to otto-of-
#—— roses, the scent-room con-
==. tains great jars of essence
of lemon, French gera-
=< nium, verbena, oil of pi-
mento, bergamotte, etc.,
: all of which are used in
weg) the various flavoring com-
gg binations. There would
PERFUMING SNUFF. most likely also be a few
hundred-weight of fine
Tonquin beans, and one of these beans is generally presented
to any visitor who drops in, as souvenir to carry away in
his waistcoat pocket. Snuff is very extensively used in the
‘mills and factories of Lancashire. Those who toil long in
‘ heated and noisy mills seem to require, and doubtless do
require, tobacco in some shape or other to keep them from
flagging ; and as chewing is not polite, and smoking in a
mill not allowed, the only resource left to the operative is.
his snuff. fields :—
vg, “ According to a
in Wes Native account, to-
“i <3 bacco was introduced
Sh, into Japan in the
year 1605, and was
JAPAN TOBACCO FIELD. first planted at Nag-
asaki in Hizen. It
is now very generally grown throughout the country. In
the province of Awa, where a great deal of tobacco is grown,
the seed is sown in early spring in fields well exposed to the
sun and duly prepared for its reception. Well sifted stable
manure is strewn over the field, and the seedlings appear after
the lapse of about twenty days. The old manure is then
swept away, and liguid manure applied from time to time.
372 CULTURE OF THE PLANT,
If the plants are too dense they are thinned out. The larger
plants are now planted out into fields well prepared for the
purpose in rows, with about eight inches space between each
plant, the furrows between each row being about two feet
TRANSPLANTING.
wide. They are again well sprinkled with liquid manure,
also with the lees of oil at intervals of about seven days. A
‘covering of wheat .or millet bran is now laid over the fur-
rows. The bitter taste of the leaf is in a measure an effectual
safeguard against the ravages of insects, but the leaves are
nevertheless carefully tended to prevent damage from such
cause. If the repréduction from seed is not desired the
flowers should be cut off and the stem pruned down, other-
wise the leaves will lose in scent and flavor. In Osumi
exceptional attention is paid to the cultivation of the tobacco
plant. The lees of oil, if liberally used, and stable manure
sparsely applied, have great effect on the plant, producing a
small leaf with an excellent flavor; while, if the opposite
course is followed, the leaves grow to an immense size, but
are inferior in taste.
“When the flowers are in full bloom the ‘sand’ leaves are
picked. After the lapse of twelve or fourteen days the leaves
are gathered by twos. -Any leaves that may remain are
afterwards broken off along with the stalk. Any sand adher-
ing to the leaves is removed with a brush; the stems having
been cut off, the leaves are rolled round, firmly pressed down
with a thin board, and cut exactly in the centre. The two
halves are then placed one on the top of the other in such
manner that the edges exactly correspond, and being in this
position firmly compressed between two boards, they are cut
into fine strips, the degree of fineness depending on the-skill
GATHERING THE CROP. 373
of the cutter. A machine made of hard wood, but with the
vital parts of iron, is used by some persons for this, purpose.
The machine was devised about sixty years ago by a skillful
Yeddo mechanic, the idea being taken from those used in
Osaka and Kiyoto for cutting thread used for weaving into
silk embroidery. Since then numerous improvements have
been made in it, and it is now extremely well adapted for the
economization of labor. Another machine was invented
about eight years since, also by a Yeddo mechanic. It is
smaller than the first mentioned, but being very easily worked
is much in use. Tobacco is sometimes cut in the following
crude manner :—The leaves are piled one on top of the other,
tightly compressed into the consistency of a board, and then
cut into shavings by a carpenter’s plane. This is, however,
CHINESE TOBACCO FIELD.
about the worst method, and even the best tobacco, if treated
in such fashion, loses its flavor and valuable qualities.
In China * tobacco is cultivated in the western part of the
* na of tobacco, which they call tharr, and which yield ve
cael oat, apie tate on Rok 2 RE" ong eho pater ae
3 re Ly .
Chinese manner Or oaring petore any other. They make it into a Bross waar, tee
saw-dust, which they keep in a small bag, and fill their little brass pi oe out of it,
touching the tobacco with their flngers.—Bell’s Travels in Asia, 1716, A . ;
374 PERSIAN TOBACCO.
empire, and grows almost as large as most American varieties.
Chinese tobacco is usually light in color, of a thin, silky text-
ure, and mixed with Turkey tobacco, isa considerable feature
in the export trade of that.country. The Chinese cultivate
the plant like the Japanese, and give it as much care and
attention as they do the tea plant. The leaves are gathered
when ripe, and are dried and well-assorted before baling.
The Chinese planter often raises large fields of the plants,
and employs many hands to tend and cultivate them. We
give a cut of a tobacco field and the planter looking at the
field and noting the progress of the laborers.
In Persia tobacco is cultivated near Shiraz, which gives
name to the variety. The soil is very fertile and richly
cultivated. Not only does the tobacco plant flourish finely,
but all kinds of vegetables grow to perfection. The Persiang
cultivate the plant principally for their own use. It is a fine
smoking tobacco, and when cured properly is said to be equal
to Latakia. Their mode of curing is unlike that adopted by
any other cultivators of the weed but is very successful, and
is no doubt the proper method of preparing the leaves for
use. Their mode of pressing in large cakes is unlike that of
Ze ZA
FS
TOBACCO FIELD IN PERSIA.
any other growers—but doubtless adds to the aromatic quality
of the leaf which makes it so popular in the Hast. _
* The tobacco field is trenched so as to retain water, while
MANILLA TOBACCO. 375
the plants are set on the ridges where they flourish and
mature until the buds and flowers are broken off. The har-
vest occurs in the autumn, when the singular process of
curing begins.
Abbott says of the culture and commerce of tobacco in
Persia:
“Jehrum, South Persia, is the principal mart for tobacco,
which is brought here from all the surrounding districts, and
disposed of to traders, who distribute it over the country far
and near. These traders are numerous, and many established
here are wealthy ; they usually transact their business in their
private houses, without resorting to the caravansaries of
which there are six in the place. There are many grades
and qualities of Shiraz tobacco but that produced at Tuffres
(according to Forster), a town about one hundred miles to
the south-west of Turshish, is esteemed the best in Persia.
“Of the many varieties of the tobacco plant grown in the
East, that known as Manilla is among the most famous and the
most extensively cultivated. Itis grown in several of the Phil-
ippine islands, particularly in Luzon and the southern group,
known as the Visayos. The Philippines are a large group of
islands in the North Pacific Ocean, discovered by Magellan
in 1521; they were afterwards taken posession of by the
Spaniards, in the reign of Philip IL, from whom they take
their name. :
“ The islands are said to be eleven hundred in number, but
some hundreds of them are very small, and all are nominally
subject to the Spanish government at Manilla. The Philip-
pines produce a great variety of tropical products such as
rice, coffee, sugar, indigo, tobacco, cotton, cacao, abaca, or vege-
table silk, pepper, gums, cocoa-nuts, dye-woods, timber of all
descriptions for furniture and the buildings, rattans of various
kinds, and all the agreeable fruits of the tropics. On the
shores are found nacre, or mother of pearl, magnificent pearls,
bird’s-nests, shells of every description, an incredible quan-
tity of excellent fish, and the trépang, or balaté, a sea-worm,
or animal substance, found on the shores of the Philippine
Islands, resembling a large pudding. The Chinese esteem it
as a great delicacy and mix it with fowl and vegetables.
The inhabitants practise various kinds of industry; they
weave matting of extraordinary fineness and of the brightest
colors, straw hats, cigar cases and brackets; they manufacture
cloth and tissues of every sort from cotton, silk, and abaca ;
376 TOBACCO CULTURE, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
they, from filaments taken from the leaves of the efuana,~
make cambric of a texture much finer than that of France;
and they also manufacture coarse strong cloth for sails, and
ropes and cables of all dimensions ; they tan and dress leather
and skins to perfection; they manufacture coarse earthen
ware, and forge and polish arms of various kinds; they build
ships of heavy tonnage, and also light and neat boats ; and at
Manilla they frame and finish-off beautiful carriages; they
are also very clever workers in gold, silver, and copper; and
the Indian women are specially expert in needlework, and in
all kinds of embroidery.
“The island of Luzon is the largest of the Philippines, and
extends from north to south for the length of about six
degrees. It is divided throughout its whole extent by a
chain of mountains, which in general owe their formation to
voleanic eruptions. In the provinces of Laguna and Batan-
gas there is the high mountain called Maijai, one of the lofti-
est in Luzon, which is beyond doubt an ancient crater; on
the summit a little lake is found, the depth of which cannot
be measured. At some period the lava that then flowed
from the summit towards the base, in the neighborhood of the
town of Nacarlan, covered up immense cavities, which are
now recognizable by the sonorous noise of the ground for a
great extent ; and sometimes it happens that, in consequence
of an inundation or an earthquake, this volcanic crust is in
some places broken, and exposes to the view enormous
caverns, which the Indians call ‘the mouths of hell.’ In the
district about the town of San Pablo, which is situated on
the mountain, are found great numbers of little circular lakes
and immense heaps of rotten stones, basalt, and different
descriptions of lava, which show that all these lakes are
nothing else than the craters of old volcanoes. Altogether
the soil to the southward, in the province of Albai, is com-
pletely volcanic, and the frequent eruptions of the volcano
bearing that name may, as the natives say, be attributed to
the same cause as the earthquakes so often felt in the island
of Luzon. Over almost the whole of these mountains, where
fire has played so conspicuous a part, there isa great depth
of vegetable earth, and they are covered with a most splendid
vegetation. Their declivities nourish immense forests and
fine pastures in which grow gigantic trees—palm trees, rat-
tans, and lianas of a thousand kinds, or gramineous plants
of various sorts, particularly the wild sugar cane, which rises
to the height of from nine to twelve feet from the ground;
CLIMATE OF THE ISLANDS, 377
in their interior are rich mines of copper, gold. ir
“There are two distinct and sipnely ante ccusone
the island of Luzon, namely, the rainy or the wintry season
and the dry or summer season. For six months of the year
—that is from June to December—the wind blows from the
south-west to the north-east, and then the declivities of the
mountains and all the western side of the island are in the
season of the rains; in the six other months, the wind changes,
——— —_—
GROWING TOBACCO ON THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
and blows from the north-east to the south-west, when all
the eastern parts of the island have the season of winter.
During the rainy season, the incessant fall of rain on the
mountains causes the rivers, both large and small, to over-
flow and to become torrents, that rush down upon the plains,
covering them with water, and depositing the broken earth
and slime which they have gathered in their course. In the
dry season, water is supplied for irrigation from reservoirs,
which are carefully filled during the rains. From these
causes it follows that without any manuring, and with scarcely
any improvement from human industry, the soil of the
Philippines is as fertile as.any in the world ; so that, without
great labor, the cultivator has most abundant harvests.”
The above description of the Philippines by Gironiere
gives a faithful account of the vast resources of the islands.
Of the products cultivated rice and tobacco are the most
important. The finest tobacco plantations are situated in the
northern parts of the island of Luzon, and furnish the finest
878 CULTIVATION.
quality of Manilla tobacco. That grown in the Visayos is of
an inferior quality, and is sold to merchants holding a permit
to purchase at the shipping ports and transport to Manilla for
sale to the government. In the island of Luzon, the greatest
‘quantity of tobacco is cultivated in the provinces of Nueva
Ecija and Cagavan.
Tomlinson in an account of the tobacco of the Philippines
says: ‘ Manilla leaf comes from the three principal districts
of the island of Luzon—Visayos, Ygarotes and Cagayan,”
The mode of cultivation does not differ in any great respect
‘from that followed in other parts of the world. Great seed
beds are made on the plantations where the plants are grown
until ready to transplant in the tobacco ground. Unlike
most land adapted for tobacco, large crops are grown without
the aid of any fertilizer whatever. In cultivating the plants,
buffaloes are used, yoked one after the other, going between
the rows several times, and at the last ploughing leaving a
trench in the middle of the rows, for letting off the water.
The Indian plow used in cultivating is exceedingly simple:
it is composed of four pieces of wood which the most unhandy
TOBACCO PLOW.
ploughman can put together, with the mould board and share,
which are of cast iron. The lightness and simplicity of this
plough render it easy to be used in every kind of cultivation,
where the plantations are divided into rows, such as those of
tobacco, maize and sugar cane. It-is.used with great advan-
tage, not only for cutting down weeds, but also for giving to
each row a ploughing, which is serviceable to the plantation,
CURING THE CROP, 879
and which is less costly and quicker than simple weeding
with the mattock..
When the leaves are ripe they are stripped from the stalks
and separated into three classes, according to their size, and
afterwards made into bunches of fifty or a hundred, by
passing through them, near the foot, a little bamboo cane, as
if it was a skewer, by which the bunches are afterwards
hung up to dry in vast sheds, into which the sun’s rays
cannot enter, but in which the air circulates freely ; they are
left to hang there until they become quite dry, and for this,
a greater or less time is required, according to the state of
the weather. When the drying is effected the leaves are
placed according to their quality, in bales of twenty-five
pounds, and in that state they are handed over to the adminis-
tration of the monopoly. Gjironiere in describing the mode
of culture on the tobacco plantations says:
“During the first two months after the transplanting it is
indispensably necessary to give four ploughings to the ground
between the rows of the plants, and every fifteen days to |
handpick, or even better, to root out with the mattock, all
the weeds which cannot be touched by the plough. These
four ploughings ought to be done in such a manner as to
leave alternately a furrow in the middle of each line, and on
the sides, and consequently, at the last ploughing, the earth
covers the plants up to their first leaves, leaving a trench for
carrying off all water that may accumulate during the heavy
rains. As soon as each plant has gained a proper height, its
head is lopped off to force the ae} to turn into the leaves, and,
in a few weeks afterwards, it is fit for being gathered.”
The tobacco fields or plantations are very large, and
together with the vast sheds for curing, the fields present a
beautiful appearance; the long straight rows with their dark
green leaves adding not a little to the beauty and variety of
the landscape. The great growers of the plant are very
careful in cultivating the fields and give the tobacco frequent
hoeings, until ready to be gathered and taken to the sheds.
The planters are obliged to take the utmost pains, as the
product is obliged to be given up to the monopolizing gov-
ernment which is the sole purchaser, and which, in its great
380 FRAGRANT MANILLAS.
establishment at Binondoc, employs continually from 15,000
to 20,000 workmen and workwomen in manufacturing cigars
for the consumption of the country and for exportation.
Manilla tobacco is much esteemed in the islands both by
the Spaniards and‘the Chinese. The custom of smoking is
universal among all classes and at all times. In the house,
on the road and street, the aroma of a fragrant Manilla is
ever borne on the breeze. The Spaniards are the principal
owners of the tobacco fields, and, like their brother planters
on the island of Cuba, are fond of the weed and its more
’ potent companion. After a luxurious breakfast the planter
SPANISH PLANTERS.
elevates his feet for a quiet smoke, and lights either a cigar
or cheroot, filling the room with smoke and with the most
fragrant perfume.
Of all the various products cultivated, but few vie with the
tobacco plant in beauty of form and general appearance.
By its great variety of colors in leaves and flowers, it offers a
striking contrast with the more sombre hues of most other
TROPICAL TOBACCO. 381
plants. When left to grow until the plants have reached
full size, the tobacco field has the appearance of a vast flower
garden, the tiny blossoms exhaling their fragrance and the
entire plant emitting odors as rare and as delicate as the most
fragrant exotic.’ In the tropics the finest tobacco plantations
are found, as nature is more lavish, not only in the richness
of the soil, but in the variety of the vegetable products.
Here the tobacco plant attains its finest form and most deli-
cately flavored leaves. The hues of the flowers are brighter
and their fragrance sweeter. | In the tropics the tobacco field
may be scented from afar, as its odors are wafted on the
breeze. In its native home it flourishes and matures as
readily as the more common kinds of vegetation, while it
affords the planter a larger revenue than many of the more
useful of nature’s products.
CHAPTER XI.
VARIETIES.
Ai pets
3 number of varieties; botanists having enumerated as
“KX many as forty, which by no means includes the entire
+ number now being cultivated. The plant shows also
a great variety of forms, leaves, color of flowers, and texture.
Each kind has some peculiar feature or quality not found in
another; thus, one variety will have large leaves, while
another will have small ones; one kind leaves flowers of a
pink or yellow color, another white ; one variety will produce
a leaf black or brown, another yellow or dark red. The
following list includes nearly all of the principal varieties
now cultivated :—Connecticut seed leaf (broad and narrow
leaf), New York seed leaf, Pennsylvania (Duck Island), Vir-
ginia and Maryland (Pryor and Frederick, James River,
etc.), North Carolina (Yellow Orinoco, and Gooch or Pride
of Granville, etc.), Ohio Seed leaf (broad leaf), Ohio leaf
(Thick Set, Pear Tree, Burley, and White), Texas, Louisiana
(Perique), Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Havana,
Yara, Mexican, St. Domingo, Columbia (Columbian, Giron,
Esmelraldia, Palmyra, Ambolima), Rio Grande, Brazil,
Orinoco, Paraguay, Porto Rico, Arracan, Greek, Java,
Sumatra, Japan, Hungarian, China, Manilla, Algerian, Tur-
key, Holland (Amersfoort), Syrian (Latakia), French (St.
Omer), Russian, and Circassian. Many of these varieties
are well known to commerce, and others are hardly known
outside the limit of their cultivation. —
All of these varieties may be divided into three classes,*
HE tobacco plant almost vies with the palm in the
*Probably most writera would divide tobacco into but two classes, including tobacco used
forthe manufacture of snuff with cut tobacco.
382
KINDS USED FOR CIGARS. 3883
viz,: cigar, snuff, and cut-leaf tobacco. The first class, cigar
leaf, includes all those varieties of tobacco that are used in
the manufacture of cigars, and embraces the finest quality of
tobacco grown, including Connecticut seed leaf, Havana,
Yara, Manilla, Giron, Paraguayan, Mexican, Brazilian,
Sumatra, ete. The second class embraces all of the varieties
used in the manufacture of snuff, such as Virginia, Holland
(Amersfoort), Brazilian, French (St. Omer), ete. The third
class includes all of those tobaccos used for smoking and
chewing purposes, such as Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri,
Ohio, Maryland, Latakia, Perique, Turkish, and others.
South American tobaccos are almost exclusively used for the
manufacture of cigars. Although of various qualities, they
possess the distinctive flavor which characterizes all tobacco
used for this purpose. This is generally the case with most
of the tobacco grown in the tropics—it seems to be especially
adapted for the manufacture of cigars, rather than for cutting
purposes. European tobaccos are milder in flavor, and are
used extensively in the manufacture of snuff; while the
tobacco of the East is well adapted for the pipe.
Tobacco to be used for cigars must not only be of good
flavor, but must burn freely, without which it has no real
value for this purpose. Non-burning tobaccos cannot be
used, and are either employed in the manufacture of snuff or
for cutting.
Of the many kinds of tobacco of both the Old and New
World, doubtless the most curious of all is that kind known
as
DWARF TOBACCO.
This plant is a native of Mexico, and was discovered by
Houston, who found it growing near Vera Cruz. This is
probably the smallest kind of tobacco known. The plant
grows to the height of about eighteen inches, the leaves grow-
ing in tufts at the base of the plant. Some have supposed
this tobacco to be what is known as Deer Tongue, which is
used for flavoring, but it is quite probable that it is entirely
different. The leaf is small and light green, and it is quite
384 DWARF TOBACCO.
a showy plant when in blossom. As a curiosity it can hardly
fail to attract attention from all those acquainted and inter-
ested in tobacco, but
will hardly admit of
cultivation, on ac-
count of the absence
of leaves, with the
exception of the few
growing nearthe
ground. Of all the
tobaccos used for
the manufacture of
cigars, none have
obtained an equal
reputation (simply
as a cigar wrapper)
with the famous and much sought for variety known as
CONNECTICUT SEED LEAF,
which in all respects towers far above the seed products of the
other states. The varieties cultivated in the United States
and known as “seed leaf” tobaccos, are grown in Connecti-
cut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. All of the seed leaf of
these states is used exclusively in the manufacture of cigars.
Connecticut seed leaf is justly celebrated as the finest known
for cigar wrappers, from the superiority of its color and
texture, and the good burning quality of the leaf. The plant
grows to the height of about five feet, with leaves from two
and one half to three feet in length and from fifteen to
twenty inches broad, fitted preéminently by their large size
for wrappers, which are obtained at such a distance from the
stem of the leaf as to be free from large veins.
Connecticut seed leaf tobacco in color, is either dark or
light cinnamon, two of the most fashionable colors to be
found in American tobaccos. The plant is strong and vigor-
ous, ripening in a few weeks, and when properly cultivated
MEXICAN DWARF TOBACCO,
CONNECTICUT SEED LEAF. 385
attaining a very large size. There are two principal varie-
ties of Connecticut seed leaf, viz.—broad and narrow leaf: of
these two, the broad leaf is considered the finest, cutting up
to better advantage and ripening and curing fully as well.
CONNECTICUT SEED LEAF.
Connecticut seed leaf attains its finest form and perfection of
leaf in the rich meadows of the Connecticut Valley, where
it has been cultivated to a greater or less extent for nearly
half a century.
The plant is one of the most showy of all the varieties of
tobacco. The stalk is straight and large, while the leaf
(especially the broad) is admirably proportioned, and the top
is broad and graceful, rendering it far more symmetrical in
appearance than many of the smaller varieties.
Before Connecticut tobacco became known as a wrapper,
Maryland and Havana tobaccos were used for this purpose,
and when Connecticut first came into use, it was only as a filler.
This variety differs very materially from Havana in this
respect—it has not that fine flavor of Cuba tobacco, but in
texture is much superior. The lighter shades of it burn
purely and freely, leaving a white or pearl colored ash, which
is one of the best evidences of a good wrapper. The leaf
25
386 ORIGIN OF THIS VARIETY.
also is very firm and strong, and sufficiently elastic to bear
considerable manipulating in manufacture. The various
shades also of the two colors, dark and light brown or cinna-
mon, are among the finest and most delicate of any to be
found among the numerous kinds of tobacco used for cigars.
The color of the wrapper, however, is merely a matter of .
taste; when first used for a wrapper the color in demand was
a dark brown or cinnamon, now it is light cinnamon leaf that
is the most fashionable, and'leaf of this color is considered
the finest and of the most delicate flavor. As a superior
burning tobacco, seed leaf especially commends itself, and
while all of the seed products of the various states producing
this description of tobacco, are remarkable for their good
burning qualities, none are more so than Connecticut seed
leaf.
Thorough cultivation by the growers has made this quality
of tobacco the most profitable of any grown in the United
States. Some considerable controversy has arisen among
tobacco-growers concerning the origin of this famous variety.
One opinion sets forth that it sprung from plants or seeds
brought from Virginia, while another is that tobacco seed
from Cuba gave it origin. Most probably the former theory
is correct, as the plant was cultivated in gardens in New Eng-
land, during the reign of Charles I.
However this may be, the system of cultivation pursued
has been successful in the production of a leaf tobacco that
can hardly be improved, so far as the texture of the leaf is
concerned. Some of the “selections” of seed leaf have that
fine soft feeling peculiar to satin or silks, and we have seen
specimens of such selections, that seemed almost destitute of
veins, or anything that would naturally suggest that it was a
leaf. In this respect it is quite remarkable, for while the
leaf is very large the stem and veins are quite small, no
larger than in many varieties with a much smaller leaf.
From its first cultivation in the Connecticut valley, the
quality has gradually improved until now, and it seems at
last to-possess almost every feature desirable in a good wrapper.
HAVANA TOBACCO, 387
This famous variety of the tobacco plant is by common con-
sent the finest flavored tobacco for cigars
now being cultivated. Some, however,
consider Paraguayian, Brazil, and Mexi-
can coast tobacco its equals, while, accord-
ing to Tomlinson, Macuba tobacco, grown
on the island of Martinica, stands at the
head of all varieties of the plant. These
statements may, however, be regarded as
mere opinions rather than acknowledged
facts.
Havana tobacco, according to Hazard,
“grows to a height of from six to nine
feet, as allowed, with oblong, spear-shaped leaves; the tobac-
co being stronger when few leaves are permitted to grow.
The leaves when young are of a dark-green color and have
rather a smooth appearance, changing at maturity into
yellowish-green. The plant grows quickly, and by careful
pruning a fine colored leaf is obtained, varying from a straw
color to dark brown or black.” The plant bears a pink
blossom, which is succeeded by capsules not quite as large as
those of seed-leaf tobacco. The finest is grown in the Vuelta
de Abajo, which, for nearly a century, has been celebrated as
a fine tobacco-producing district. When growing, a vega of
Havana tobacco forms a most pleasing feature of the land-
scape. As the plants ripen, the dark, glossy green of the
leaves is succeeded by a lighter shade and a thickening of
the leaf. The plant ripens in from eight to ten weeks after
being transplanted. The stalk and leaves are not as large as
its great rival, Connecticut seed-leaf, but it far surpasses it in
flavor. The plant emits a pleasant odor while growing, like
most varieties of the plant grown in the tropics.
YARA TOBACCO.
This variety of tobacco, like Havana, is grown upon the
island of Cuba, but is unlike it in flavor, as well as in the
appearance of the plant. It is well known as an admirable
tobacco for cigars, but is not sought after or grown to such
HAVANA TOBACCO.
888 YARA AND VIRGINIA TOBACCO,
an extent as Havana. The leaf when growing, is in color a
fine green, and when cured is of considerable body and fine
texture. A writer in alluding to Yara tobacco says:
“The most noted vega or tobacco plantation is situated
near Santiago de Cuba and is called Yara. The choicest
tobacco is that grown on the banks of rivers which are peri-
odically overflowed. They are called Lo Rio, Rio Hondo,
and Pinar del Rio, and the tobacco is distinguished from all
other grown upon the island by a fine sand which is found
in the creases of the leaves.”
The flavor of Yara tobacco is so essentially different from
Havana, that it is not cultivated as extensively, if indeed it
could be. It is grown more particularly for home use and
for exporting to Europe, where it is considered one of the
finest of tobaccos. Of the other varieties grown in the West
Indies such as St. Domingo, Jamaica, and Trinidad, much
may be said both in praise and dispraise. St. Domingo and
Trinidad have been cultivated for more than two hundred
years. St. Domingo tobacco has a large leaf, but is of infe-
rior flavor to most varieties of West India tobacco.
Virginia tobacco has acquired a reputation which has grad-
ually strengthened for more than
two hundred and fifty years. It
was one of the first products to be
cultivated by the English colony,
and in less than a quarter of a
century after the settlement of
Virginia, had acquired a reputa-
tion hardly surpassed by its well
known rivals, Trinidad, Brazil,
St. Domingo, and Varinos tobac-
cos. The plant grows to the
height of from five to seven
feet; the leaves are long and
broad, and when cured are of various colors, from a rich
brown toa fine yellow. The finest of Virginia tobacco comes
from the mountainous counties, but the amount is small in
proportion to the vast quantities raised on the lowlands of
VIRGINIA TOBACCO.
JAMES RIVER TOBACCO. 389
the Dan and James rivers and their tributaries. The leaf
grown in the higher counties of South-western Virginia is
much lighter in color and much softer than the ordinary
Virginia tobacco. Shades of color in Virginia tobacco (as
well as in most others) serve to determine its use, while text-
ure and length of leaf affect as well its market value. There
are various grades of Virginia tobacco, especially in that
grown in Southside, Virginia. “Long bright leaf” is con-
sidered the finest, while that known as “ Luga” is the poorest
and lowest grade of leaf.
The staple known as James River tobacco has acquired a
world-wide reputation, and the same ground is cultivated
and planted with tobacco now as in 1620. Virginia tobacco
is known chiefly as a cut tobacco ; “ good, stout snuff leaf” is
also obtained from it, which brings as much in European
markets as “fine spinners.” Missouri, Kentucky, and some
parts of Ohio also produce large quantities for manufacturing
into chewing and smoking tobacco.
OHIO TOBACCO.
The tobacco plant has been cultivated in this State for
eaty
nae
OHIO WHITE TOBACCO.
nearly fifty years. Sullivan, in describing the kinds used
for cutting, says:—
390 OHIO TOBACCO.
“Two kinds ot seed are used, viz., the ‘Thick Set? and
the ‘Pear Tree,’ and of late years the ‘Burley’ has come
into favor. Nearly all tobacco grown in Ohio is ‘fired, that
is, cured by fires or flues; it is packed in hogsheads of about
eight hundred pounds net.”
Another writer says :—
“In some parts her soil produces a fine yellow article
ealled ‘Northern Ohio; it is manufactured into the finest
quality of smoking tobacco, and is extensively used by all
epicures of the meerschaum, both in this country and in
Barone Ohio also produces another variety called Ohio seed
leaf, or more familiarly, ‘Seed.’ ”
While in another section she produces an excellent article
of leaf for chewing. Ohio tobacco of all kinds is a large
plant, and cures “down” to fine colors. One variety for
cutting, known as “cinnamon blotch,” is a leaf of good body
and is considered an excellent tobacco for chewing. A tew
years since a variety originated in a very curious manner.
We give the account as published by Prof. E. W. Smith :—
“This tobacco is known by the name of White tobacco.
The seed was procured about three years ago, in a very sin-
gular way. There were a few hills of tobacco that looked
very singular, situated near a thicket of bushes and trees.
The rising morning sun sent its rays through this thicket,
striking diagonally upon a few hills, and producing by some
chemical law or daguerreotyping process the (white) tobacco.
The tobacco was allowed to go to seed. This seed was sown
the next year, and produced the same kind of tobacco. The
tobacco, before the white tobacco was daguerreotyped, was a
cinnamon blotch, so it may be seen by this freak of nature
how it was changed from red to white.”
PERIQUE TOBACCO.
There are many varieties of tobacco well adapted for
emoking, of all colors and strengths. Of American tobaccos
suitable for this purpose, none have acquired a wider reputa-
tion at home than Perique. It is cultivated only in small
quantities in one or two parishes in Louisiana. Perique
tobacco may be used not only for smoking, but for chewing
and for snuff. The leaf when cured measures some eighteen
A FAMOUS REPUTATION. 391
inches in length by fourteen in width, is thick and substan-
tial, has the appearance of a rich Kentucky tobacco, and
when placed under press immediately after being cured
becomes black without the aid of any artificial means. It is
put up in rolls, or, as they are called, “carrots.” This tobacco
is raised mostly in the parish of St. James, La., and derives
its name from an old Spanish navigator who settled in St.
James parish in the year 1820. His first attempt at raising
tobacco, for his own use, succeeded so well and gave him
such a fine result, (the plant developing itself to a great extent
and being very rich,) that he concluded to devote all his time
to the culture of tobacco, in order to make a living out of it.
The seed first used by him was the Kentucky, but this was
subsequently changed for the Virginia, which has been in
use up to this time, being renewed every four or five years.
The tobacco originally put up by Perique was twisted by
hand and placed under press for three or four days, then
taken out, untwisted, retwisted and replaced in the press for
five or six days. After undergoing the same process three or
four different times, it was finally left to remain under press
for six months, and then taken out for use. Mr. Perique, how-
ever, soon made a capital improvement in the mode of put-
ting up his tobacco; for, as early as the year 1824, we find
the tobacco in beautiful rolls of four pounds, and as hard as
a “Sancisson de Boulogne.”
This tobacco, which has retained the name of its producer,
is still manufactured in the same manner as it was fifty-four
years ago, the work still being done entirely by hand. The
plant is cultivated as the Virginia tobacco by about a dozen
small planters in that part of the Parish called “ Grande-
Pointe,” seven miles from the Mississippi river. A small
quantity is also raised on the banks of the river in the same
parish by a few planters. The growers of Perique tobacco
have tried Virginia, Kentucky, and Havana seed, but prefer
the former—Havana producing too small a plant without a
much better flavor. ‘
Tobacco is grown in other parishes of the State; it is
392 SOUTH AMERICAN TOBACCO.
however of inferior quality, and is used only for smoking or
snuff. Perique tobacco, when cut for smoking, is very black
in appearance, exceedingly smooth, and of peculiar odor. It
is probably the thinnest tobacco cultivated; and is strong,
but of agreeable flavor.
PERUVIAN TOBACCO.
John Gerard gives the following description of the tobacco
of Peru:
“Tobacco, or henbane of Peru, hath very great stalks of
the bigness of a child’s arme, growing in fertile and well-
dunged ground of seven or eight feet high, dividing itself in
sundry branches of great length; whereon are placed in
most comely order very faire, long leaves, broad, smooth and
sharp-pointed, soft and of a light green color; so fastened
about the stalk that they seem to embrace and compass it
about. The flowers grow at the top of the stalks in shape
like a bell-flower, somewhat long and cornered ; hollow within,
of a light carnation color, tending to whiteness towards the
rims. ‘The seed is contained in long, sharp-pointed cods, or
seed-vessels, like unto the seed of yellow henbane, but some-
what smaller, and browner of color. The root is great, thicke
and of a wooddy substance, with some threddy strings
annexed thereunto.”
MEXICAN TOBACCO,
The tobacco plant seems to have been cultivated in Mexico
from time immemorial. Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who
was chaplain to Cortez, when he made conquest of Mexico,
in 1519, alludes to the plant and the custom of smoking ; and
Diaz relates that the king Montezuma had his pipe brought
with much ceremony by the chief ladies of his court, after
he had dined and washed his mouth with scented water.
The Spaniards encouraged its cultivation, and to this day it is
" grown in several of the coast states. Various kinds are cnl-
tivated, but chiefly a variety bearing yellow flowers, with a
large leaf of fine flavor resembling the Havana. The plant
is a favorite with the Mexicans, who prefer it to any other
product grown. It is cultivated like most varieties of .
CELEBRATED BRANDS OF TOBACCO. 393
the tropics, and is hardly inferior to any grown in the West
Indies, and is especially adapted for cigars and cigaritos:
After the first harvest another, and sometimes a third crop
is gathered by allowing one shoot to grow from the parent
root, which oftentimes develops to a considerable size. The
quality of leaf, however, is inferior; as is the case with all
second and third crops grown in this manner.
ST. DOMINGO TOBACCO.
This well-known West India variety is inferior to most
kinds grown on the neighboring islands. The plant attains
a large size, cures dark, is coarse, and of inferior flavor. It
is a favorite tobacco in Germany, and thousands of Ceroons
are annually shipped to Hamburg. The West India islands
produce many varieties of tobacco, which is owing more to
the composition of the soil and climate than to the method
of cultivation and curing.
The demand for St. Domingo tobacco is limited. It has
no established reputation in this country, and on account of
the high duties can not compete with our domestic tobaccos.
LATAKIA TOBACCO.
This variety of the tobacco plant is one of the most cele-
brated known to commerce. It attains its
finest form and flavor in Syria, where it is
cultivated to a considerable extent. For
smoking it is among the best of the varieties
of the East, and is used for the more deli-
cate cut tobaccos and cigars. It grows to the
height of three feet—each offshoot bearing
flowers, the leaves of which are ovate in
form, and are attached to the stalk by a
long stem. The flowers are yellow, and aie 0 aia
number only a few in comparison wit
most varieties. When growing, the leaves are thick, but
after curing are thin and elastic. The stalk is small, as are
also the leaves. While growing, the plants emit a strong
394 RUSSIAN TOBACCO.
aromatic odor not like that of Havana tobacco, but stronger
and less agreeable.
The plant was introduced into this country by Bayard
Taylor, and attains its full size in the Connecticut valley,
where it has been tested by many growers. After curing,
the leaf is a bright yellow of agreeable flavor, having the
odor of ashes of roses. The flavor is similar to Turkish
tobacco, but is said to be less delicate.
After harvesting, the plants cure rapidly and on account
of their small size rarely sweat. Latakia tobacco, however,
is not adapted to the taste of American smokers, most of
whom prefer tobacco of home growth to even the finest of
Turkish leaf. Latakia tobacco can be raised with less labor
than most varieties. Its diminutive size and its unpopular-
ity, however, prevent its general culture in this country.
RUSSIAN TOBACCO.
In no other country in Europe is the tobacco plant attract-
ing as much as attention as in the empire of Russia. The
varieties grown in America, Cuba, Turkey, and Persia, have
been tried, renewing the seed once in two or three years.
The tobacco of Russia is mild, and of inferior flavor, and
brings from 40 to 80 kopecks per pood. A very good quality
of tobacco is grown in the trans-Caucasian provinces; it also
flourishes well in the Southern provinces.
The plants attain good size, but lack that fine flavor when
cured that other tobaccos possess. A recent traveler through
Russia, describing the tobacco, says:
“Russian tobacco is very mild and rather sweet flavored,
thorgh not equal in aroma to the Havana, or posessing that
rich ripe taste so much prized in that well known tobacco.”
COLOMBIA TOBACCO.
Colombia has long been celebrated for the quality and
varieties of its tobacco. Its cultivation has been carried on
for more than two hundred and fifty years, and Varinian
tobacco had obtained a well established reputation in Europe
COLOMBIAN TOBACCO. 395
long before Raleigh’s “ would-be-colonists” sailed for Vir-
ginia. The principal varieties grown are Colombian, Carmen
Ambalema, Palmyra, and Giron. Most of these tobsecos
are used for cigar purposes, especially the latter. The leaf ig
fine, of good size, and marked with light yellow spots.
Tanning says of the tobacco of Colombia:
“The Cumanacoa, Tobacco de la Cueva, de los Misones, de
la Laguna de Valencia cura seca and Caraco, de la Lagunade
Valencia cura negro, de Oriluca, de Varinos cura seca, de
Casovare, de Baylodores, de Rio Negro en Andull, are equal
to the tobacco of the Brazils. The tobacco of the Cueva, in
the department of Cumana, is said to be grown from the
excrements of certain birds deposited by them in a cavity,
from which the natives extract it: it is considered the finest
tobacco in Colombia. The birds are a species of the owl.
“The natives of Varinos, and in fact of the whole kingdom,
chew a substance called chimo, which is made of a jelly, by
boiling the Varinos tobacco, and afterwards mixed with an
alkali called Aurado, which is found in a lake near Merida,
Both are an estanco of government, and produce a large
annual income. The mode of cultivating the above tobacco
by the natives is as follows:—They prepare a small bed,
sifting the earth very fine, on which they sow the seed, and
then cover it with plantain leaves for some days. As soon as
the plants make their appearance, they raise the leaves
about two feet, so as to give the plants free air, and to allow
them sooner to grow strong. When they become large
enongh to transplant, they have the land prepared; and as
soon as the rainy season sets in, they plant out their young
plants, taking great care to protect them from the sun, and
to keep them clean as they grow up, as well as to prevent the
worms from destroying or eating the leaves. When the leaf
is ripe, it gets yellow spots on it; and on bending the leaf it
eracks. Then it is fit for pulling off, which is done, and
the leaves are ueatly packed in handsful, placed in a dry
situation, and occasionally shifted from one place to another.
When the leaves are well dried they are all packed closely,
and well covered, to keep the flavor in.
“The leaf is left in this state for one or two months, and
then made up for use. They never top their tobacco, and
the leaves never ripen together. The mode adopted by the
North American planters is somewhat different; they top
their plants when they have eight full leaves, or they keep it
396 TOBACCO OF BRAZIL.
suckered ; and, by this means, the leaves are large and sappy.
“They cut off the stem at the ground, when ripe, and hang
it on laths for one day and a night, with the leaves all
hanging down; they then place it in their barns; and, when
these are quite full, they smoke it for some days, and let it
remain in that way until the stem, as well as the leaf, is quite
dry ; they then put it in a heap, and cover it up for market,
They strip off the leaves, and pack them in hogsheads, and it
is received in London.”
SUMATRA TOBACCO.
Sumatra tobacco is one of the finest varieties cultivated,
and commands in European markets the very highest prices.
The plant is a vigorous grower, and produces large, fine
leaves of most delicateodor. The leaf is of beautiful appear-
ance, of almost a silky texture, and in color a rich brown.
It is extensively used in the manufacture of cigars, and on
the continent it frequently realizes as much as 5s. per pound
for this purpose. It sells in London for from 3s. 6d. to 4s.
per pound. ;
BRAZILIAN TOBACCO.
Brazil tobacco is grown chiefly in the valley of San Diego
and San Francisco. The former being on the west side of
the Brazilian mountains, and the latter on the east. The
San Diego is the finest, and the following analysis of the San
Diego of Brazil, and Vuelto de Abajo, will give one an idea
of the soil of these famous tobacco lands :—
Vouetta pe Asaso, Cusa. San Dieco, Brazm.
PARTS. PARTS.
Organic matter, 9.60 4.60
Silica, 86.40 90.60
Lime, 40
Alumina, 68 3.00
Oxide of Iron, 1.92 1.20
Loss by Evaporation, 1.40 .20
100.00 100.00
The tobacco of Brazil is grown in the same manner as in
other parts of South America. The planter raises two crops
THE ORINOCO TOBACCO, 897
a year; curing for exportation as in Cuba or Venezuela. The
plant grows to the height of about six feet, bearing leaves
lanceolate in form, about thirty inches long, and from eight
to twelve inches wide. The tobacco fields are very irregular.
After it is cut it is placed on poles in the field, and after-
_ wards carried to the drying sheds. It is gathered in the dry
season in September. After curing, it is removed to the
packing house and baled in packages, and then transported
on mules to the coast for shipping. A large portion of the
crop is shipped to Portugal. It is a dark maroon-colored
leaf, and contains a large proportion of the nicotine oil. It
is a high-flavored tobacco, and on this account is used for
‘cigars and cutting.
Burton says of the tobacco of Brazil:
“ The tobacco of the Rio de Pomba, especially the ‘ Fumo
crespo,’ is a dark strong leaf, well fitted for making ‘ Caven-
dish’ or ‘Honey-dew;’ the weed flourishes throughout
Minos Gerals. The soil will be much improved by compost ;
and the produce by being treated in Virginia style delicately!
dried in closed barns with fires.”
VENEZUELAN TOBACCO. ;
The Orinoco tobacco grows from four to five feet high,
bearing large ovate
leaves, and is in all
respects a fine qual-
ity of tobacco. The
plant is grown dur-
ing all seasons of
the year. It is
used chiefly for ¢
cigars, and is ship-
ed to Northern Eu-
rope. It is packed Zo
in carrottes, and
then baled. In color
it is dark mahog- ORINOCO TOBACCO. (VENEZUELA)
any, and of good.
body and texture. The leaf is about eighteen inches long,
898 PERSIAN TOBACCO.
and about ten inches wide. The planters cure by air-drying
in sheds, and afterwards it is tied up in hands and baled for
export. For their own use, they have adopted the method
of the Brazilians, sprinkling the leaf with water containing
the juice of the poppy.
The flavor is rich and mellow; a little more oily than
Havana leaf. It is used for the manufacture of cigars.
Orinoco tobacco makes very fine flavored cigars, burning
freely, and leaving a pearl-colored ash; it is considered by
the Venezuelans to be much better than any variety grown
in South America. In cultivating it the planters use no fer-
tilizers whatever, taking up new land as the old wears out.
The crop is gathered first in May, and then in September.
PERSIAN TOBACCO.
Shiraz tobacco is a native of Persia, and is one of the finest
varieties for the pipe to be found in
the East. The plant differs from most
varieties in the color of the flowers and
the form of the leaves. It is not adapted
for cigars as it does not readily ignite,
and this variety together with Manilla,
are known as non-burning tobaccos.
After curing, the color is a light yellow,
the flavor mild and-not unlike Latakia
and Turkish tobacco. The color of the
flowers like those of Guatemala tobacco,
is white, but in other respects nearly
similar to other kinds.
AMERSFOORT TOBACCO.
This variety of tobacco is cultivated quite extensively in
Holland, in the Veluwe (valley of Guelderland). The plant is
of good size and averages 1.580 kilos to the hectare. The
cultivation is very carefully conducted on the richest soil.
The leaf is very fine and is free from large fibres, fitting it
for cigars. Large quantities are also used in the manufact-
ure of snuff. The tobacco plant has been cultivated in
SHIRAZ TOBACCO, PERSIA.
FRENCH TOBACCO. 399
Holland since its first introduction, with complete success,
producing a variety for snuff unrivaled by any other tobacco
grown in Europe.
In color Dutch tobacco is both dark and light; the former
being used for snuff and the latter for cigars and cheroots,
ST. OMER TOBACCO.
Tobacco is an important product in France, and affords
the government an immense revenue. In the north of France
two varieties are cultivated, the Brazilian and the Mexican,
but the tobacco is unlike that grown in those countries.
Most of the tobacco of France is small and inferior to Havana
and Manilla. In the South of France tobacco is cultivated
to a considerable extent, but is of inferior quality, lacking
the rich flavor of the tobacco of Cuba. The cultivation is
permitted only in certain departments, and the cultivators
must use only the seed supplied to them by the officers of
the regie. This is selected with the greatest care, the kind
and quantity depending upon the nature of the land, the
soil being carefully analyzed, and cultivation prohibited in
soils which do not possess the constituents necessary for the
growth of good tobacco. These analyses also determine the
quantities and sorts of manure required to bring the land
into fit condition. Most of the seed used is the produce of
seed imported at various times from North America and
Cuba.
The cultivation is most carefully watched, and the statistics
available concerning it are of the minutest kind. Not only
is the area of each field of tobacco accurately measured, but
each plant is noted down, and even each leaf on each plant
is accounted for. St. Omer is used chiefly for snuff, some-
times used with other kinds and is much esteemed by the
French who consider it among the best of tobaccos.
HUNGARIAN TOBACCO.
This variety is attracting considerable attention, from the
fact that it is well adapted for the manufacture of cigars.
Like Connecticut seed leaf, the leaves are large and well
400 SPANISH TOBACCO,
suited for cigar wrappers. A considerable portion is adapted
for other uses, and it is in some respects a good cutting
tobacco. When in fine condition, Hungarian leaf burns
freely and leaves a clean, light-colored ash. No variety of
tobacco grown in Europe is attracting more notice than this,
and if good leaf tobacco suitable for cigars can be grown,
American tobacco will diminish in proportion. Hungarian
tobacco is a favorite with the Italians, and large quantities
are sold to the Italian monopoly to be used both for cigars
and cutting.
SPANISH TOBACCO.
For several years the growers of tobacco in the Connecticut
valley have directed their attention towards the production
of a tobacco possess-
ing all of the excel-
lencies of both
wrapper and filler;
in other words, if
possible securing a
leaf of light color
and fine texture and
good flavor, so as to
combine all of. the
desirable features
and qualities of
tobacco in one varie-
ty. Some few years
since the Depart-
ment of Agriculture
at Washington dis-
tributed a variety
of tobacco seed
among the Connecticut tobacco growers known by the name
of Spanish tobacco.
It has been tested by many of the largest tobacco growers
in Connecticut, and found to be one of the best varieties of
the plant ever cultivated in the valley. The plant grows to
SPANISH TOBACCO.
\
TURKISH TOBACCO, 401
the height of eight feet, bearing leaves about two feet in
length by one foot in width, is an erect, strong, growing
tobacco with a small, hard stalk and stout, long roots. The
plant, when. growing, imparts a strong aromatic odor not
unlike Havana tobacco, but is larger every way, and of inferior
flavor for cigars. By repeated trials its superiority has been
demonstrated to a certainty, while the profit arising from its
culture proves it worthy of attention from all cultivators of
tobacco.
When cured the leaf is very fine and light of color, the
stem and veins of the leaf are small, thus fitting it for a good
wrapper as well as filler. If the tobacco growers in the
Connecticut valley can succeed in raising this variety, they
will produce a leaf tobacco much superior to the common
variety known as seed leaf. Beyond all question a much
finer flavored tobacco than Connecticut seed leaf can be
grown, and still retain all of the excellencies of the latter,
such as color, texture, and size of leaf.
TURKISH TOBACCO.
The tobacco of Turkey has been called by some enthusiastic
smoker “the king of tobaccos,” but whether it possesses this
royal preéminence over all other varieties must be decided
by other than ourselves. That it is a fine smoking tobacco,
no one can doubt that ever “put breath” to the favored pipe
that contains the yellow shreds, but we should prefer by far
to part with it rather than with its great rival, Havana
tobacco.
The plant is not as large as many varieties, but grows up
strong and flourishes well on account of the care and attention
given it by the Turk and his family, as it is in all respects a
family plant, and the flower garden is generally the tobacco
field. Turkey tobacco ranges in color from brown to light
yellow, the latter being the most in demand. This variety
is similar in flavor to Latakia and Shiraz, and these three
tobaccos, Persian, Syrian, and Turkish, are considered the finest
and best adapted of all tobaccos for the pipe. The work of
26
402 JAPANESE TOBACCO.
cultivating a field of Turkish tobacco is very tedious, as large
quantities of water have to be carried to sprinkle upon the
plants. The finest colored, a pale yellow leaf, brings
“inflated” prices, but more oten by others than the poor
Turk who grows it.
JAPAN TOBACCO.
Of the tobacco of Asia, the best known in Europe is the
yellow leaf grown in Japan.
In those provinces where a
high degree of temperature
prevails, the plant lives
throughout the winter, but it
is nevertheless customary to
sow fresh seed in the early
spring of each successive year.
When fully grown, Japan
tobacco attains an altitude of
about six feet, bearing leaves
long and pointed, completely
fr ansen, enveloping the stalk. The
yamin moRTeed: leaves, however, differ in form
in different provinces, some
being round and wide, others narrow and pointed, and others
thick and long.
The mode of cultivating . also varies in the different prov-
inces. The sowing and transplanting are dependent on the
temperature of the locality, and each place follows its own
customs. In autumn a great number of flowers spring from
the tip of the stalk. These are about an inch in length, and
of a pale purple tint. To these succeed small round capsules,
inside of which are three small chambers containing a great
number of light red seeds. The method of cultivation is novel,
the manuring of tobacco differing from that of other plants
in that it is plentifully applied both to the roots and leaves.
GUATEMALA TOBACCO,
The tobacco of Central America, though possessing consid-
erable excellence, has never become an important product,
MANILLA TOBACCO, 403
nor to any great extent an article of commerce. There are
several varieties grown in Guatemala, Honduras, N icaragua,
and the other Central American states; some of which by
proper cultivation might be valuable to both the user and the
manufacturer. One variety bears white flowers like the tobacco
of Persia, but in other respects it differs but little from South
American varieties. Numerous other sorts occur, many of
which are local, and differ principally, if not solely, in the
size or form of the leaves.
The soil of Guatemala is well adapted for tobacco, and
with careful cultivation it could hardly fail of becoming an
important agricultural product. It is also probable that the
soil of nearly all of Central America is adapted to the plant,
and with the favorable climate, the varieties now grown
would doubtless with proper care, become noted as tobacco
well adapted for cigars.
MANILLA TOBACCO.
This variety is one of the most celebrated grown in the
East.* It is used exclusively for the manufacture of cigars
and cheroots, and supplies India and Spain with a vast quan-
tity of the manufactured article. The plant is a strong,
vigorous grower, bearing dark green leaves; coming forward
rapidly under the careful culture bestowed upon the plants. +
After curing, the leaves show a variety of colors ranging
from dark brown to light yellow or straw color. The leaf
when cured, has a peculiar appearance unlike that of any
other tobacco. It is of good body but smooth, and has the
appearance of tobacco that has been ‘frost-bitten.’? The leaf
is not as porous as most other tobaccos, and therefore does
not as readily ignite, and frequently ‘chars’ in burning—
thus giving it the name of a non-burning tobacco.
The plants are ‘set’ wide apart, and during the first two
—
*Blanco thus describes the tobacco of the Philippines: ‘It is an annual, growing to the
height of a fathom and fur the tob or Pine est (licensed shops). eneral
opinion prefers the tobacco of Gapan, but that of the Pasy districts, Laglag and Lambunao,
lollo, of Maasin or Leyte, is appreciated for its flne aroma; also that 0 Cagayan, after
deing kept for some years,—for ths use like the tobacco of the island of Negros it burns the
+The seedlings are planted in January, and the greater part of the crop comes forward in
May and June.
A04 MANILLA TOBACCO,
months are carefully cultivated, when the top is broken off
and the leaves allowed to ripen. In some respects, Manilla
tobacco is one of the best varieties of the plant cultivated,
and were it not for its non-burning quality, it would have
but few rivals among cigar tobaccos.* We have thus, at
some length, described nearly half of the varieties of tobacco.
now being cultivated. There are, however, others as well
known and of equal value and favor. Some of these are of
superior quality and of world-widerepute. Of those described,
the varieties grown in the tropics are the most celebrated and
of the finest flavor. As when first discovered, the tobaccos of
the tropics command the highest prices, and possess qual-
ities not easily transmitted when grown in a temperate clime.
*« The soil of many of the islands especially of the Bisayas is favorable to the growth of
tobacco. The island of Negros formerly produced some of very good quality.”
CHAPTER XII.
TOBACCO HOUSES.
Mts HE drying houses or sheds for the curing andy
Me storing of tobacco are among the most interesting
XX objects to be seen on the tobacco plantation. These
* sheds vary in size from a small structure capable of
holding only a few thousand plants to the immense sheds
with sufficient capacity for hanging the products of several
acres. In the Connecticut valley, the Southern States, at the
West, and in the Philippine Islands these tobacco sheds are
often several hundred feet in length, built in the most substan-
tial manner and provided with suitable side doors and venti-
lators for the free passage of air, and the most perfect system
of ventilation. The most substantial and finest tobacco sheds
are to be found in the Connecticut valley, which are provided
with every convenience for hanging and taking down or
“striking” the crop. Many of them are painted and adorned
with a cupola, which serves the double purpose of an orna-
ment and a ventilator for the hot air to pass off from the
curing and heated plants. Formerly, the tobacco being har-
vested was hung in barns and sheds, used for storing grain
and hay, and better adapted to other purposes than to that
of a tobacco shed, where thorough ventilation is necessary to
avoid sweat and pole-rot, attending upon the curing of the
plants. Of late, tobacco growers, throughout the world, have
paid considerable attention to the method of curing, and to
erecting more suitable buildings for the purpose. At the
South and West, the log tobacco barns are giving way to the
more substantial frame buildings and better facilities are
40
406 TOBACCO SHEDS.
employed for “firing” the tobacco in the sheds. Formerly,
the tobacco sheds at the South looked more like the rude
huts of the herders on the pampas of South America, than
buildings devoted to the curing of tobacco. Tobacco barns
OLD CONNECTICUT TOBACCO SHED.
and sheds are built of a great variety of material, and in
various ways, according to the manner of building where the
tobacco is grown. Thus in the Connecticut valley, such
sheds or barns are large and commodious frame buildings;
at the South and West, many of them are built of logs; in
Cuba, of slabs covered with palm leaves or thatched. In
Turkey, of stones; covered with rough boards, and daubed
- with mud.
In selecting a site for the tobacco shed, not only should its
proximity to the tobacco field be considered, but also the
ground on which it is to be built. It should always be
erected on dry ground, rather than upon moist, so that
no dampness may arise and injure the leaves in curing. The
tobacco shed should also be built on an elevated spot, so that
a free circulation of air may be had, which is hardly possible
if built on low ground or among trees or in the woods as at
the South. This applies more particularly to sheds where
IMPROVEMENTS, 407
the method of curing is by air-drying instead of by “firing”
or by “flues.” In New England the strongest timber, as oak,
is used for building, as the weight of the plants before fully
cured is immense. The shed is braced at every point and
generally rests upon stone posts so as to allow a good circula-
tion underneath the building. Poles are used for hanging,
either round or sawed, when the plants are hung with
twine; when hung on tobacco hooks, laths are used, the
hooks attached to the lath; more frequently the plants are
strung upon the laths without the aid of hooks, the lath
PS
at onan
MODERN CONNECTICUT TOBACCO SHED.
passing through the center of the stalk an inch or two
from the end. ‘The doors lengthwise of the building
are simply the outside boards hung on hinges, every second
or third being chosen according to the ideas of curing enter-
tained by the grower. Some planters are of the opinion
that the plants need all the air that can be obtained, and
keep the sheds open during both day and night, while others
open the doors only now and then—closing during warm
days, and during a storm. Sometimes the doors are hung on
hinges at the top—opening but partially and not allowing as
free circulation as when hung on the sides.
Another building of late has been built by the growers in
the Connecticut valley, called a stripping house. This build-
ing is frequently attached to the shed. or near by so that
stripping may be performed during all kinds of weather,
408 STRIPPING HOUSES.
without danger of injuring the tobacco, or the health of the
stripper. Such buildings however are needed only in tobacco
sections where the cold is extreme during the winter, when
most of the tobacco is to be stripped. The stripping room
or house is provided with astove, a long table, or elevated
platform, in front of the windows, of which there should
ae
Ot
(i ol
i
STRIPPING ROOM.
be several to admit plenty of light, and a number of
chairs to accommodate the strippers. On the stove a
kettle of water is kept constantly boiling or heated, the
ascending steam of which keeps the leaves of tobacco from
drying and consequently from cracking or breaking. When
in condition for “striking” or taking down, the plants are
carried to the stripping-room, and covered with boards
and blankets, when the operation’ called stripping com-
mences. Many of the stripping-rooms are built large enough
to contain the cases after the tobacco is packed, thus answer-
ing a double purpose.
In Virginia and the other tobacco-growing states of the
South, the tobacco barn is built altogether different, as the
method of curing is by fires or flues instead of air curing.
The height of the building is usually twice its width and
length. In the center of the smooth earthen floor, is the
trench for “firing,” while around the sides of the building
VIRGINIA TOBACCO SHEDS. 409
runs an elevated platform for placing the tobacco leaves in
bulk; and, commencing at a safe distance from the trench,
up to the top of the building, reach beams stretching across
for the reception of the pine laths, from which are suspended
the tobacco plants. Many of the tobacco sheds at the South)
are built like those of New England, but many log structures
are still to be seen and ,
many planters prefer them
to those made like other
frame buildings. The old
Virginia planters of a
hundred years ago, built
rough log sheds for hous-
ing the plants, which
afforded little protection
from wind and rain, which,
in consequence, injured
much of the tobacco hang-
ing around the sides of
the building. Tatham gives the following description of
the “ Tobacco house and its variety ” in his work on tobacco.
“The barn which is appropriated to the use of receiving
and curing this crop, is not, in the manner of other barns,
connected with the farm yard, so that the whole occupation
may be rendered snug and compact, and occasion little waste
of time by inconsiderate and useless locomotion; but it is
constructed to suit the particular occasion in point of size,
and is generally erected in, or by the side of, each respective
piece of tobacco ground ; or sometimes in the woods, upon
some hill or particular site which may be convenient to more
than one field of tobacco. The sizes which are most generally
built where this kind of culture prevails, are what are called
forty-feet, and sixty-feet tobacco houses; that is, of these
lengths respectively, and of a proportionate width ; and the
plate of the wall, or part which supports the eaves of the
roof, is generally elevated from the groundsel about the
pitch of twelve feet. About twelve feet pitch is indeed a
good height for the larger crops ; because this will allow four
pitch each to three successive tiers of tobacco, besides those
which are hung in the roof; and this distance admits a free
MODERN VIRGINIA SHED
410 ORDINARY SHEDS.
circulation of air, and is a good space apart for the process of
curing the plant. There are various methods in use in respect
to the construction of tobacco houses, and various materials
of which they are constructed ; but such are generally found
upon the premises as suffice for the occasion. And although
these sizes are most prevalent, yet tobacco houses are in
, Inany instances built larger or smaller according to the cir-
cumstances of the proprietor, or the size of the spot of ground
under cultivation.
“The most ordinary kinds consist of two square pens
built out of logs of six or
eight inches thick, and
from sixteen to twenty feet
long. Out of this material
the two pens are formed
by notching the logs near
their extremities with an
axe; so that they are al-
ternately fitted one upon
another, until they rise to
a competent height ; taking
care to fit joists in at the
respective tiers of four
feet space, so that scaffolds
VIRGINIA SHED 150 YEARS AGO. may be formed by them
similar to those heretofore
described to have been erected in the open field, for the
purpose of hanging the sticks of tobacco upon, that they
may be open to a free circulation of air during this stage of
the process. These pens are placed on a line with each
other, at the opposite extremes of an oblong square, formed
of such a length as to admit of a space between the two pens
wide enough for the reception of a cart or wagon. This
space, together with the two pens, is covered over with one
and the same roof, the frame of which is formed in the same
way as the walls by notching the logs aforesaid, and narrow-
ing up the gable ends to a point at the upper extremity of
the house, termed the ridge pole. The remaining part of the
fabric consists of a rough cover of thin slabs of wood, split
first with a mall and wedges, and afterwards riven with an
instrument or tool termed a froe. The only .thing which
then remains to be done, is to cut a door into each of the
pens, which is done by putting blocks or wedges in betwixt
the logs which are to be cut out, and securing the jambs
SUPERIOR SHEDS. 411
with side pieces pinned on with an auger and wooden pins.
The roof is secured by weighing it down with logs; so that
neither hammer, nails, brick, or stone, is concerned in the
structure; and locks and keys are very rarely deemed
necessary.
“The second kind of tobacco houses differ somewhat from
these, with a view to longer duration. The logs are to this
end more choicely selected. The foundation consists of four
well hewn groundsels, of about eight by ten inches, leveled
and Jaid upon cross sawed blocks of a larger tree, or upon
large stones. The corners are truly measured, and squared
diamond-wise, by which means they are more nicely notched
in upon each other; the roof is fitted with rafters, footed
upon wall plates, and covered with clap-boards nailed upon
e rafters in the manner of slating. In all other respects
this is the same with the last mentioned method; and. both
are left open for the passage of the air between the logs.
“The third kind is laid upon a foundation similar to the
second; but instead of logs, the walls are composed of
posts and studs, tenoned into the sells, and braced; the top
of these are mounted with a wall-plate and joists; upon these
come the rafters; and the whole is ne | with clap-boards
and nails, so as to form one uninterrupted oblong square,
with doors, etc., termed, as heretofore, a forty, sixty, or one
hundred feet tobacco house, etc.
“The fourth species of these differs from the third only in
the covering, which is generally of good sawed feather-edged
plank; in the roof, which is now composed of shingles; and
in the doors and finishing, which consist of good sawed plank,
hinged, &c. Sometimes this kirid are underpinned with a
brick or stone wall beneath the groundsels; but they have no
floors or windows, except a plank or two along the sides to
raise upon hinges for sake of air, and occasional light : indeed,
if these were constructed with sides similar to the brewery
tops in London, I think it would be found advantageous. In
respect to the inside framing of a tobacco house, one descrip-
tion may-serve for every kind: they are so contrived as to
admit poles in the nature of a scaffold through every part of
them, ranging four feet from centre to centre, which is the
length of the tobacco stick, as heretofore described ; and the
lower ties should be so contrived as to renfove away occasion-
ally, in order to pursue other employments at different stages
in the process of curing the crop.”
In Ohio, the tobacco barns are built in a manner similar to
4192 OHIO SHEDS.
those in Virginia; constructed of logs and provided with
trenches for fires in curing the tobacco. The tobacco sheds
for hanging the tobacco cured by air-drying, are built of the
same material without trenches, as smoke is not employed in
curing “seed-leaf” tobacco. The sheds for both kinds of
curing tobacco are large structures, varying in size according
to the area of tobacco planted. Sometimes the sheds are
built near the woods where fuel can be procured, and in the
immediate vicinity of the tobacco field. The tobacco. houses
are built in the strongest manner and of the most durable
material, and are well fitted for the purpose designed. In
the counties bordering the Ohio River, where a large quan-
tity of tobacco is raised, the tobacco sheds are to be seen on
every hand, the smoke issuing from the sides of the building,
giving a stranger the idea of a burning building rather than
the curing of a great
staple. .
The following ac-
tobacco barns in Mis-
souri, is from a St.
Louis paper:
“ We believe in
small barns for any
kind of curing. A
house built 16 feet
OHIO TOBACCO SHED, inside and divided into
four rooms and six tier
high in the body is the preferable size for flue or coal curing.
For flues they should be built on a very slightly sloping
place ; just enough to make the flues draw well. Flues four
inches lower at the eye than the chimney will be slope
enough. The door should always be between the flues and
in the end of the house, to prevent the drip from falling
before the door and the eye of the flues... The tiers should
begin eight feet above the ground and be placed two feet
above each other fo the top. They should be placed across
the house so that the roof tier can conveniently be placed
above them. The door, three feet wide and six feet high,
furnished with a good, close shutter. A barn of this size will
_ KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE SHEDS. 413
eure 800 sticks of common size tobacco, which will weigh
about 1200 lbs. The proper construction of flues is of great
importance ; they should be built of any stone that will stand
fire without bursting. White sand-stone, bastard soap-stone,
or any other that does not contain flint. The size of a flue
for a sixteen foot barn, is generally about 12 inches wide by
14 inches high inside. Not much care need be taken to have
them smooth on the outside. If stone can be had to make
the inside smooth so as not to obstruct the putting on of
wood, it is all that is necessary. They should berun just far
enough from the house-side not to set the house on fire, and
there is not as much danger of this as may be supposed.
Run the walls of the house-side all around, running the stem
out at the middle of the upper side. The stem should be run
far enough above the wall of the house to avoid danger of
sparks from the chimney. The height of the inside of the
fiue should be preserved its whole length. The width may
be slightly decreased from the elbow to the chimney. The
inner wall is carried all around. But too much explanation —
bewilders; we think we have said enough. As before said,
we like small barns; where too much tobacco is together, it
all can not receive the heat alike, which is our main objection
to large barns. As to the number of barns necessary, we
would say that there ought to be enough to receive all the
crop without moving any. Say one sixteen-foot barn to every
8,000 hills of tobacco planted. As a general rule, plant one
thousand hills for every hundred sticks house-room. That is,
if you have three barns plant 24,000 hills, and if it is common
tobacco, they will receive it. A much larger quantity may
be saved in this number of barns by curing and moving out,
but it is very troublesome.”
In Kentucky and Tennessee the tobacco barns resemble
‘those of Ohio and the other Western states, and are large,
commodious structures, provided with every facility for
curing the plants. In other tobacco-growing countries the
tobacco barns and sheds differ but little from those in Amer-
ica, the only difference being in form and building material.
In countries where tobacco is a government monopoly, large
and comfortable buildings are provided for the crop with all
the necessary accessories for the curing, packing, and storing
of thetobacco. In South America many of the sheds are large
and low, built on the plantation, and close to the tobacco’
414 FOREIGN TOBACCO SHEDS.
field. In Cuba, the curing houses are located on the vegas,
and as soon as the tobacco is cut it is placed on the poles to
dry or cure. In Asia, a large quantity of the tobacco is cured
in the peasants’ huts, where the smoke is said to impart
additional flavor to the already fragrant leaves. In the Phil-
ippines the largest tobacco sheds are found, described by
Gironiere as “vast sheds,” and of suflicient capacity to hold
acres of the leaves. In Persia, where the celebrated Shiraz
tobacco is grown, the sheds are simply covered buildings
without any boards on the sides, the only protection afforded
from the weather being supplied by light, thorny bushes, so
that the plants may be exposed to the wind. After fully cur-
ing, the tobacco is removed to another drying-house and turned
every day. ~The drying-houses in other tobacco-growing
countries differ but little
from those described, while
the manner of curing is
similar, the plants being
“fired,” sun-cured, or air-
dried—the three modes
now employed in drying
the leaves. If the tobacco
of the tropics is fragrant
while growing, it is doubly
so after being harvested
and carried to the sheds.
The odor from the well-
filled barns is borne on the breeze alike to friend and foe of
the plant. As the process of drying goes on, the plants.
gradually lose the strong perfume emitted during the earlier
stages of curing, and by the time the leaves are “ cured down”
and the sheds closed, but little odor issues from the plants,
and this continues to be the case until the leaves are entirely
dried.
PERSIAN TOBACCO SHED.
CHAPTER XIII.
TOBACCO CULTURE.
in tS
\ ‘ab OBACCO at the present time is one of the great