Tobacco leaves

:LT>

loo
=00

oJohnjjain Jr.

Copyright, 1903
BY H. M. CAT.DWET.I, COMPANY

&olon..;l .:-s>.i
' Electrotyped and Printso b !«• Slironda & Co.

Boston. M.-c- - A

IN

MEMORY OF

On sea and land —

From corn silk to divine perfectos

In the •wood-shed and on promenade decks

To many pipes over the mountains and around the

camp-fire
THESE LEAVES ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

INTRODUCTION

TOBACCO and its uses have contributed
to so many phases of human nature and the
social life of centuries, that it is not strange
indeed that it should inspire in each new
generation of smokers and writers, much
new thought in the form of prose and
poetry and philosophy.

No other plant has blossomed forth to
such good offices. No other plant has
stimulated the activities of the world in
so many channels. True, it has been and
is being prostituted by Commercial pirates
and tricksters who would debase anything
for the dull yellow god of gold. In spite
of this, however, tobacco has had for its

9

INTRODUCTION

associates so many of the master-minds
of the world who have spoken and written
in its praises, that it is evident to any
one that this " great plant," rightly used,
is a power for physical, mental, and even
moral well-being.

So much of the literature of tobacco
has been collected in book form, that the
editor of this anthology would feel some
misgivings in attempting to bring forth
another volume on the subject were it not
for the fact that the influence of tobacco
and the growth of its cultivation have de-
veloped new features and vital relations
with our modern civilization. That this
deserves consideration (not alone from the
lover of tobacco and literature, but also
from him who loves to watch the sidelight
of the world's progress) I feel confident.

While some of the interesting items dis-
cussed in this little book have been touched
upon and even considered seriously in the

10

INTRODUCTION

past, they have been scattered through so
many publications, that it makes their
accessibility in this volume welcome. In
addition to this, many aspects and con-
ditions — curiously related to the above —
have since arisen as to render their embodi-
ment by contemporaries in this book, if not
original, at least fresh in treatment and
in accord with the times.

The other chapters, treating as they
do of tobacco topics, of which little has
been publicly known, but which have,
nevertheless, a bearing upon the whole,
it is felt will be found readable and in-
forming.

The Poetry of Smoke, contained in this
volume, has been selected with great care,
and, so far as can be found, has not to
any degree ever appeared between perma-
nent covers before, and very little of it
is now " in print " in any current work.

That it deserves as high a place as the

11

INTRODUCTION

poetry in the companion volume to this,
" Tobacco in Song and Story," is assured
to its readers by the sentiment it possesses.
and the fact that most of it is the product
of the pens of graceful and recognized
writers who would not sign anything un-
less it was up to their standard.

TOBACCO LEAVES

THE TOBACCO GARDEN OF THE
WORLD

ONE hundred miles as the crow flies
southwest from Havana, one hundred and
thirty miles by the railroad, is Pinar del
Rio (Pine of the River) in the province of
Pinar del Rio, a city located in the to-
bacco garden of the world. It is the heart
of the famous Vuelta Aba jo (lower turn)
district of Cuba.

Little perhaps does the critical smoker
realize, apart from the personal discom-
fort and deprivation it would cause him,

13

TOBACCO LEAVES

what a loss to the world of commerce it
would be if the Vuelta Aba jo district
were suddenly wiped off the map.

To the matchless soil of this province
are due its industrial wealth, its commer-
cial value, and its world-wide fame. Other
lands are as fertile* other climes as salu-
tary, other landscapes as beautiful, but
nowhere on the round earth is there a soil
like unto that of the Vuelta Aba jo. To
that fair district the Cuban turns with
deep affection, and every lover of good
tobacco with reverence and gratitude.

Pinar del Rio, the extreme western prov-
ince of Cuba, has been aptly compared to
a high-heeled boot, which separates the
Gulf of Mexico on the north from the
Caribbean on the south. The winds which
sweep across its hills and valleys have been
tempered by the surrounding seas, and
give the land a climate so mild and benefi-

TOBACCO LEAVES

cent that earth and air seem to smile in
perpetual delight.

Although the dusky Carib grew the
gentle herb in every province, and doubt-
less knew that Pinar del Rio produced the
best, his Castilian conqueror was not as
wise.

So far as the records run, the Spanish
Conquistadores were satisfied at first with
tribute from the captive race in the shape
of dried tobacco leaves. Not until 1580,
when the Caribs had become half extinct,
did they attempt the culture of the plant
themselves. Two hundred years rolled by
in which Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara,
and Santiago supplied tobacco to the
Spanish world. Not until 1790 does the
noble name of Vuelta Aba jo appear upon
the records. Since then it has held un-
challenged the first place among the to-
bacco-growing districts of the globe.

The province of Pinar del Rio is, roughly

15

TOBACCO LEAVES

speaking, 170 miles long and 50 miles
wide. The tobacco districts comprising
the middle and middle-western sections of
the province are about 80 miles long and
30 wide. The heart of the Vuelta lies be-
tween the small mountain range which
fringes the northern shore of the province
and the southern coast. The centre of
the heart is the city of Pinar del Rio.

The finest leaf is grown in the sections
skirted by the Guaniguanico Mountains.
There frequent rains down its slopes water
the way to numberless streams, feeding
and nourishing the earth. Here we find a
soil of peculiar richness, containing a com-
bination of mineral properties, which,
with the stimulation of strong suns, are the
chief contributors to the flavour of this
tobacco.

The tobacco farms are generally lo-
cated in the lowlands on both sides of the
many rivers of the district, or in the val-

16

TOBACCO LEAVES

leys, or are found between the low and
rolling hills.

The planting takes place usually in
November and December. Very rarely it
happens as late as January. In all cases,
the land is in a high state of cultivation.

The growing plant is given the most
constant and careful attention. All weeds
are removed, and every plant is examined
daily for the purpose of removing all in-
sects, which, if left undisturbed, would
destroy every leaf on the farm. If the
weather has been favourable, in December
beautiful five-pointed pink flowers sur-
mounting vivid green leaves begin to add
colour to the land. But not for long, for
these flowers are picked off soon after
making their appearance. All the strength
of the plant is thus thrown into the se-
lected leaves, the female plant being the
larger and better adapted for fine wrap-
pers.

17

TOBACCO LEAVES

The leaf is bright green until the cut-
ting season, which usually occurs in De-
cember. The cutting is done at different
periods, according as the leaves ripen.

In gathering the crop, the stalk is cut
into short lengths with two leaves on each.
The leaves now are slightly withered, but
not dry or brittle enough to break. They
are hung on poles, each of which holds
about 420 leaves of wrappers, and they
are carried to the curing-house, where they
remain about five weeks. They are then
ready to be assorted and baled, — a work
requiring not only long experience, but
also great skill. During the curing opera-
tion, the leaves are often so dry that the
lightest touch would convert them into
powder. When in this condition the
tobacco is never handled. But after a
heavy rain, or a period of high hygrom-
eter, the leaves absorb moisture from the

18

TOBACCO LEAVES

atmosphere, and regain their softness and
elasticity.

In assorting the tobacco, the leaves are
divided into piles graded according to
their commercial value. These piles are
made up of first and second grade wrap-
pers and fillers. The tobacco is then tied
up into " hands." Four of these hands
bunched together constitute a " carot,"
which is shaped like a fat bottle. It is
held together by narrow strips of cactus
fibre, vulgarly known as " majagua." A
bark of a certain part of the palm-tree,
which is of very tough fibre, is used as the
first covering of a bale of tobacco, which
contains eighty carets bulked down, and
varies in weight from 80 to 125 pounds.

The tobacco is then ready for shipment.
From the farms it is carried on the backs
of mules to the nearest seaport or railway
station, from which it finally reaches the
city of Havana. Over long and often dan-

19

gerous roads, up and down steep and slip-
pery mountainsides, across bridgeless
streams, through dense and tangled for-
ests, the transportation of tobacco through
the Vuelta is one involving daring and
pluck, which native familiarity and mule
peculiarity treat as a matter of routine
and duty.

This in brief is the story of the Vuelta.
While tobacco from other provinces of the
island finds a ready market in every civi-
lized land, the " smoke divine " comes
from the Vuelta leaf alone. If imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery, no other
plant has ever received such unlimited
and costly praise. Merchants, planters,
moneyed corporations, and even govern-
ments have tried, time and again, to grow
the Vuelta leaf in other lands and climes.
The seeds of Pinar del Rio have been sown
in the Philippines, Sumatra, in India and
Turkey, in Russia and Germany, in Al-

20

TOBACCO LEAVES

giers and Cape Colony, in Mexico, Brazil,
Florida, Connecticut, in Ohio and British
Columbia, but the plants which sprang into
being were changelings which bore little
resemblance to the parent stock.

Little wonder is it that a tobacco so ad-
mired by Christendom, Islam, and the
lands of Buddha should become so mo-
mentous a mercantile fact. The real won-
der is that such a little territory as the
Vuelta Aba jo should have won and held
its throne against all the lands of the earth.
A greater wonder is it that the reputation
enjoyed by the leaf should be based upon
varying qualities and not a uniform
growth. For as the stars differ among
themselves in glory, so do the Vuelta leaves
differ in excellence. At one extreme are
the highest grade wrappers, which bring
as much as $1,000 a bale, while at the
other end is filler leaf, which ranges from

TOBACCO LEAVES

$20 to $65. Between these is an endless
series of varieties.

The story of Havana and its tobacco
industries is familiar to all who have read
or travelled. Who has not heard of that
beautiful city which faces the Florida
channel, whose harbour is crowded with
ships, whose houses and suburbs cover a
score of picturesque hills, whose streets
are crowded with gaily-dressed, blithe-
hearted men and women, whose climate is
perpetual summer, and whose people give
to the world its most precious cigars and
cigarettes? The city is Cuban politically;
it is Spanish racially; it is American geo-
graphically; it is a mixture of white and
black races, with a dash of the blood of
the red men who once inhabited the island.
Its commerce is vast and various. But of
that the world little heeds. In the popular
mind, it is the City Beautiful, which sits
beneath the shadow of the Morro Castle,

TOBACCO LEAVES

smilingly exchanging, for the gold of the
nations, the leaf divine.

The industry is more than a trade; it
is a chapter of history to him who can
read between the h'nes. It is marked by
a democratic spirit which tells of the time
when employer and employed worked side
by side at the same bench. The shop
union is a relic of days when all the mem-
bers of the family worked together, each
for all and all for each. The reader who
sits or stands descanting the news of the
day from the morning paper, or who re-
lates the master fancies of Cervantes, Cal-
deron, or Lope de Vega to the listening
workers in the cigar-room is eloquent tes-
timony of the period when books and pa-
pers were rare, and of the ambition of the
Spanish race to move upward in the scale
of being. The politeness and decorum
which mark the shops are not habits of
the trade, but customs older than Colum-

23

TOBACCO LEAVES

bus. They almost speak for themselves.
These are not children of the soil working
for a pittance, — these are young gentle-
men who have left the old world to win a
fortune in the new.

Times have changed. As the Baron At-
tinghausen said in " William Tell," " New
things invade resistlessly, while old ones
pass away." Industrial methods have
changed, and already the great process of
industrial consolidation has begun to af-
fect the work and the workers. The dem-
ocratic feeling is changing into trades-
unionism, the good fellowship is becoming
business indifference; the good-natured
esprit de corps is there still, but it has lost
much of its hopefulness and joy.

It is pleasant to notice that the reader
is retained in nearly all the factories,
whether independent or consolidated.
Morning and afternoon he makes his daily
professional call. Morning and afternoon

TOBACCO LEAVES

he regales his auditors, the workmen, for
an hour and a half with selected readings,
declamations, and anecdotes. He is an
employee of the employees. He is paid
by them and ruled by them. For it is they
who by vote determine whether he shall
furnish them with humour or tragedy,
descriptive matter or rippling verse.

A summary of the reader's work during
an entire week gives a good insight into
the mental calibre and status of the cigar-
makers. It will contain a condensed ac-
count of current events, taken from the
daily and weekly press. A page or two of
history, or works of travel which elucidate
issues of the hour. A poem or two. A
number of jests — some broad and Rabbe-
laisian, others refined and brilliant. A
chapter, daily, from a standard work of
fiction. A story of a great lawsuit, and,
it may be, a review of the new play or
light opera.

25

TOBACCO LEAVES

It is a healthful custom. It not only
does not interfere with the work, but it
increases the efficiency and output of the
worker. It ensures quiet and good man-
ners among the auditors. It prevents
bickering among those sitting close to-
gether, and it develops an intellectual
tone which endures throughout life. The
village hand who enters a cigar factory
as an apprentice becomes by degrees as
well informed and intelligent a man as
his city brother who has had the advan-
tages of a fair education. Under these
auspices, it is but natural that from the
ranks of the workman should come em-
ployers, brokers, merchants, and business
men. In the course of the years many of
them attain wealth and social position.

A glance at the packing-boxes which
leave the Havana factories discloses the
many lands which are brought into rapport
with Havana through the intangible me-

26

TOBACCO LEAVES

dium of smoke. The commerce means
more than the exchange of money. It
involves the exchange of men, of goods,
and of ideas. In the business quarter of
Havana are shrewd merchants from every
civilized land. In its storehouses are the
products of every clime. In its libraries
and book-stores are representatives of the
great modern literatures. And every-
where in daily use are the latest inventions
of the four leading nations, America, Eng-
land, Germany, and France.

Without the Vuelta, Havana and Cuba
would be famous. The product of its
sugar-cane, the fruits and esculents of its
fertile soil, the tobacco of Santa Clara
and other provinces would give it high
industrial rank in the roll of the nations.
But with the Vuelta and its magical leaf,
Cuba holds a unique position in the affec-
tion and regard of mankind.

POETRY OF SMOKE
A MILD CIGAE

How sweet to me is the breath of the sea,
And the seaman's cheerful song!

How soothing is sleep, on the mighty deep,
When the ship glides calmly along!

But sweeter to me, and more soothing far,

Is the fragrant breath of my mild cigar!

In the dim twilight of an autumn night,

A walk in the country lane,
When Nature fair wafts her censer there,

Refreshes the soul again;
But all my peace and delight 'twould mar
To walk there minus a mild cigar !

28

TOBACCO LEAVES

I love to go thro' the frost and snow,
When the air is crisp and clear,

To the Serpentine, with a flask of wine,
To skate with my Katie dear ;

But tho' dear to me these pleasures are,

The dearest still is the mild cigar !

J. REGINALD OWEN.
"PER BACCO!"

A DUTCHMAN, sitting by the Zuyder Zee,
Of man's creation solved the mystery,
As, drinking deep and thinking ponder-
ously,

He smoked Tobacco.

Said he, " Man's first in order of creation,
Happy, till woman comes to cause vexa-
tion;

Then Jove is sorry, and for consolation,
Gives him Tobacco.

TOBACCO LEAVES

" For Jove himself, when Juno, unawares,
Finds out his ' little games,' and storms

and swears,
And with his thunderbolts combs out his

hairs, —

He lights his ' 'Baccy.'

" So I, ' when lovely woman stoops to

folly,'

And jilts me for another — am not jolly;
But yet, ' a pill to purge my melancholy '
I find in ' 'Baccy.'

|

" And when the tax-collector to my gates
Comes, fax for cash, and rate me for my

rates :

In short, when any trouble agitates,
I smoke Tobacco.

" Therefore, with that sage seaman I
agree,

30

TOBACCO LEAVES

Who ask'd, when granted fairy wishes

three,
1 'Bacco enough, some beer, and then,'

said he,

* Some more Tobacco.' '

JONATHAN DOWNES.
MY CUTTY

I CARE not for your meerschaum pipe,
Tho' carved with cunning hand;

With amber tip for dainty lip,
And bright with silver band.

The modest, simple, homely clay,

I prize above all others ;
A common earth has given us birth,

We own the bond of brothers.

No pot-house yard of clay, or head
Grotesque designed in putty,

31

TOBACCO LEAVES

Can match the grace I fondly trace
In thee, my darling cutty.

I have guarded long thy tender form,
Well hast thou done thy duty:

Once virgin white, now black as night —
A dark but comely beauty.

When thousand cares of city life
Seem my poor brain consuming,

With thee, my pet, I soon forget
To fret while I am fuming.

Or, prostrate 'neath a mountain fir,
The bay below bright gleaming,

Thy magic bowl calms my glad soul,
Or, charmed, it floats, day-dreaming.

Abroad, at home, in social ring,
Where brother fumes commingle,

May'st thou attend, my dearest friend,
Or married I, or single.

THE BAILIE.

I REMEMBER, I remember,

The pipe that first I drew;

With red waxed end and snowy bowl,

It perfect was, and new.

It measured just three inches long,

'Twas made of porous clay ;

I found, when I began to smoke,

It took my breath away.

I remember, I remember,
In fear I struck a light;
And when I smoked a little time,
I felt my cheeks grow white;
My nervous system mutinied,
My diaphragm uprose,
And I was very, very ill —
In a way you may suppose.

I remember, I remember,
The very rod he got,

TOBACCO LEAVES

When father, who discovered me,
Made me exceeding hot.
He scattered all my feathers then,
While, face down, I reclined ;
I sat upon a cold hearthstone,
I was so warm behind.

I remember, I remember,

I viewed the rod with dread,

And silent, sad, and supperless,

I bundled off to bed.

It was a childish punishment,

And now 'tis little joy

To know that, for the selfsame crime,

I wallop my own boy.

H. i»

SMOKERS I HAVE MET

BY JOHN EKNEST MCCANN

THE first uncommon smoker I ever knew
was not a great smoker, but he was a gen-
ius. He had a studio in a building on
Tremont Street, opposite the Granary
Burying-ground, in Boston, in the early
'70s. His name was Martin Milmore, and
he was a sculptor. I used to often drift
into his studio to see him model, and watch
him gracefully smoke long all-tobacco
Spanish cigarettes. I was a small boy
in those days, and was in doubt as to
whether I would become a sculptor or a
hearse driver. It was such a fine thing
to sit on a hearse, and drive up. Tremont

35

TOBACCO LEAVES

Street to Boylston, through Boylston to
Charles Street, to Cambridge, and over the
bridge over the Charles to Mount Auburn
on a sunny day! And all the hearse driv-
ers were so happy and contented looking!
But Mr. Milmore advised me to be a law-
yer, and was about to get me a position
in the office of Augustus Russ, the great
Boston advocate, as an office boy, when I
" lit out." I can see Mr. Milmore now,
lighting his Spanish cigarettes, and grace-
fully smoking them, as he thumbed a clay
model. He looked wonderfully like Ed-
win Booth; was, I should say, exactly
Mr. Booth's height and weight, with the
great Booth eyes, long, dark hair, Oriental
complexion, and Booth modesty and lov-
ableness. He has been dead these many
years, but his work lives, on Boston Com-
mon, in many Boston places, and the great
granite Sphinx in Mount Auburn Ceme-
tery is the work of his hands — and such
36

TOBACCO LEAVES

delicate hands as they were to chisel
such a gigantic figure; but just the
hands to manipulate a cigarette.

A few years later, in April, 1875, I saw
my first great smoker. It was on the one
hundredth anniversary of the battle of
Lexington. I, with a bunch of other boys,
was on my way to Lexington, having risen
and started early from Boston, to help
carry the thing off properly. We had
walked and run all the way, and were about
a mile from the old Concord Bridge, where
the first shot of the Revolution was fired,
when along the dusty, sun-kissed road
came a lot of open carriages, four gentle-
men to a carriage. We waited for them,
and in one landau, on the rear seat, sat a
quiet, impassive, purposeful, masterful
gentleman, with a big cigar in his mouth,
smoking. It was our hero, President
Grant, and our yells could be heard a mile
as we raced beside his carriage. He looked

37

TOBACCO LEAVES

us over, with an amused smile of sympa-
thy, and that cigar between his steel-
locked jaws, as if he would never let it
go. Every time I saw General Grant that
day, except during the solemn ceremonies,
he was smoking. After that day, I did
not see him for eight years. In 1883, I
was a clerk in Mr. Russell Sage's office,
and General Grant used to come in to see
Mr. Sage almost every day, until the awful
crash of May, 1884, when the house of
Grant and Ward went down in ruins, with
many another. General Grant never
smoked in Mr. Sage's office, but he smoked
continuously in his own, across the street,
at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street.
We got to be very friendly, and everybody
in the office loved and admired him. He
was one of the nicest men in the world.
The eight greatest men I have ever known
were the quietest and most likable and
modest: Martin Milmore, General Grant,
38

TOBACCO LEAVES

Russell Sage, Jay (jould, Edwin Booth,
Nat C. Goodwin, Robert G. Ingersoll, and
Francis Saltus. All smokers with two ex-
ceptions — Mr. Sage and Mr. Gould.

Edwin Booth was a fierce smoker. His
favourite was a pipe, not a cigar. He
smoked in his dressing-room, between acts,
in his own room, constantly, and I am not
sure that he did not smoke in bed. He
loved tobacco as another man might love
food and drink. His system was full of
nicotine, for he overdid it, and he would
be alive to-day if he had been a moderate
smoker, as would General Grant.

Mr. Jay Gould I met nearly every work-
ing day for ten years, but I never saw him
use tobacco.

Mr. Sage smoked half a cigar once,
when a boy, and then let go. One day,
around 1888, somebody sent Mr. Sage a
box of cigars, with a beautiful label, and

TOBACCO LEAVES

in letters of gold on a blue ground, " The
Russell Sage Cigar."

Mr. Sage thought it one of the best
of jokes, and said:

"John, you smoke, don't you?" (He
had " caught " me in the act about five
hundred times, by appearing at absolutely
uncalled-for hours, in the office, for about
nine years.)

I answered in the affirmative, and he
said:

" Well, here's a present for you," and
he handed me the box, then went up to the
Western Union Building to attend a meet-
ing of the directors, and I lit up.

There was a broker that had cheated
me out of a commission, in an office across
Broadway, and to him I hurried with that
box of cigars, after I had smoked one of
them for a minute and a half. I presented
the box to him.

40

TOBACCO LEAVES

From that day, I have never seen that
broker.

One morning, early in 1893, I was walk-
ing up Tremont Street, in Boston, when*
just opposite to the Boston Museum, I
saw a gentleman approaching. We had
the sidewalk to ourselves, as it was so
early. He carried a grip. He was so tall,
and such a grand-looking man, with such
a divine face and great, dark, sympathetic
eyes, with the fire of genius in them, that
I looked, and looked, and looked, feeling
sure that he must be Somebody. After I
had passed, I turned to look again, and I
found him looking my way. I started to
go to him, and speak, but I lost my nerve,
and he turned into Beacon Street, and was
lost to view. Some months after, I stood
in line at Trinity Church, in Boston, for
an hour, in order to drop a flower on the
coffin of Phillips Brooks, whom I had never
heard preach, but whose sermons and good

41

TOBACCO LEAVES

deeds had gone to my heart. He lay on his
side, as if asleep, and he and the stranger
of the early morning in Tremont Street
were one. Bishop Brooks, I understand,
used to smoke eighteen and twenty cigars
a day. He had the Milmore-Booth nico-
tine complexion and eyes. He overdid,
too, poor man, and robbed the world of one
of its most lovely souls by so doing.

Colonel Ingersoll was a smoker who
knew when to stop. He smoked just so
many cigars a day, and beautiful brown
ones they were, and they never hurt him.
General Grant was a chain smoker; that
is, one cigar lit another the day long when
he was preserving the Union, and for years
after.

Mr. N. C. Goodwin, our best comediar
smokes only cigarettes, with " N. C. G."
printed on each cigarette. In the many
years that I have known him, I have not
seen him smoke a pipe or cigar. His

42

TOBACCO LEAVES

cigarettes are made for him, and cost him
about ten cents apiece. He smokes pretty
constantly in his dressing-room, holding
the cigarette in a beautiful all-amber
holder, with a good rim at its mouth. The
holder must be half a foot long. It is a
pleasure to watch Mr. Goodwin smoke, as
it is to see him act, for his methods are
dainty and thorough, in smoking as well
as acting.

The fiercest smoker whom I have ever
known was the late Francis Saltus, the
marvellous linguist, musician, composer,
writer, and traveller. He would smoke
(surely) fifty cigarettes a day. You talk
about fellows smoking in bed and between
courses at a dinner? Well, Frank Saltus
would smoke between mouthfuls. I have
seen him smoke fifty cigarettes in a day,
while turning off two or three hundred
dialogues (" squibs," he called them) for

TOBACCO LEAVES

the papers and magazines. He was a
wonder, look at him how you will, and
some day the world will know it.

U tT U

A COLONIAL volunteer officer, Captain
Brown — in times of peace, Butcher
Brown — ordered a sentry found smoking
to consider himself a prisoner. " What ! "
exclaimed the volunteer soldier, " not
smoke on sentry? Then where on earth
am I to smoke? " The dignified captain
reiterated his first remark. Then did the
sentry take his pipe from his mouth and
confidentially tap his officer on the shoul-
der. " Now, look here, Brown," said he,
" don't go and make a fool of your-
self. If you do, I'll go elsewhere for my
meat ! " Dignity went to a thousand to
three, and no takers.

POETRY OF SMOKE
To MY PIPB

COME down, old friend, from off the

mantel-tree,
Where loving fingers placed thee yester-

eve;
Come down, and hold communion now with

me,

Thou art a friend who never did deceive.
A friend who never fails in time of need,

A friend who ever lends his potent might,
When Care upon the weary mind would

feed,

Or Melancholy's gloomy spell would
blight.

45

TOBACCO LEAVES

Thy brown and polished bowl I'll fill with

care,
And then, with lips pressed close unto

thine own —

No lover drinks a sweeter draught, I swear
I'm happier than a king upon his

throne !
For in the wreaths of smoke which from

thee rise
No perfume sweeter from the rarest

rose;
No greater j oy this side of Paradise !

Thou sweet and mighty antidote of woes !

Ah, often have I come with care-worn

mind,
And placed thee to my lips in fretful

mood;
In thy companionship relief I'd find,

Thy touch would calm the fever in my
blood.

TOBACCO LEAVES

The wrinkled brow would smooth itself in

peace,
The troubled breast forget its care and

pain.
Yea, thou wilt give from Sorrow sweet

surcease,

Bring cherished dreams of happiness
again.

And ever in my home thou'lt be abiding,
A cherished friend whose counsels never

fail;

While I to thee my inmost thoughts con-
fiding,

Upon the seas of fancy oft will sail.
And not until the last sweet puff has van-
ished,
And naught but ashes lies within thy

bowl;

Then, not till then, are all my visions ban-
ished,

47

TOBACCO LEAVES

Yet still sweet peace doth linger with
my soul!

EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY,
in Gentleman's Magazine.

MY AFTEE - DINNEE CLOUD

SOME sombre evening, when I sit

And feel in solitude at home,
Perchance an ultra bilious fit

Paints all the world an orange chrome.
When Fear and Care and grim Despair

Flock round me in a ghostly crowd,
One charm dispels them all in air —

I blow my after-dinner cloud.

'Tis melancholy to devour

The gentle chop in loneliness.

I look on six — my prandial hour -
With dread not easy to express.
48

TOBACCO LEAVES

And yet, for every penance done,
Due compensation seems allowed.

My penance o'er, its price is won;
I blow my after-dinner cloud.

My clay is not a Henry Clay — .

I like it better, on the whole;
And when I fill it, I can say

I drown my sorrows in the bowl.
For most I love my lowly pipe

When weary, sad, and leaden-browed;
At such a time behold me ripe

To blow my after-dinner cloud.

As gracefully the smoke ascends

In columns from the weed beneath,
My friendly wizard, Fancy, lends

A vivid shape to every wreath.
Strange memories of life or death,

Up from the cradle to the shroud,
Come forth as, with enchanter's breath,

I blow my after-dinner cloud.

49

TOBACCO LEAVES

What wonder if it stills my care

To quit the present for the past ;
And summon back the things that were,

Which only thus in vapour last?
What wonder if I envy not

The rich, the giddy, and the proud,
Contented in this quiet spot

To blow my after-dinner cloud?

— Fun.

To THE VIRGINIAN LEAF

THOTJ grateful leaf, soul-soothing friend,
While to my brain thy fumes ascend,
Do thou thy inspiration lend,

That I may sing
What splendid thinkings have been penned,

Borne on thy wing.
The noble Raleigh, who first bore
The kindly opiate to our shore,
Through thee loved dearly to explore

The realms of thought;
50

TOBACCO LEAVES

And on thy clouds with freedom soar,
When chains his lot.

Shakespeare thy powers would doubtless

know,

And many a cloud would skyward blow,
Causing his teeming brain to glow

With grand conceit;
Whose " airy nothings " finely show

A form complete.

Milton oft felt thy soothing power
Redeem the darkness of the hour,
Making imagination shower

A rain of light;
Gifting him with a heavenly dower

Of " second sight."

Newton from thee drew thoughtful fire,
When listening to the angels' choir,
Chanting the wonders of their Sire,

Hidden from man ;

51

TOBACCO LEAVES

From lower cause divining higher,
In God's great plan.

Then who dare 'gainst thy virtues rail?
May more and more thy power prevail!
Unwise are those who dare assail

Thee, friend in need.
And doubly blest those who inhale

Thee, fragrant weed.

The greatest good may turn to ill,
When right and wrong lie with the will ;
Thou use may bless, abuse may kill ;

Let manhood ripe,
With prudent moderation, fill

The soothing pipe.

THE DOMINIE.

SMOKERS I HAVE NEVER MET

BY JOHN ERNEST MCCANN

IT is not certain that Sir Walter Ral-
eigh was the man who introduced tobacco
to the English people, for King James
says in his works (1616), page 215, that
it was not brought in by a worthy, virtu-
ous personage, but by two or three In-
dians, arriving from America, who died
shortly after. Cause and effect. But
whoever it was, Sir Walter will always
have the credit for it, for it will be as
impossible to rob him of it, as it is, and
ever will be, to deprive Shakespeare of
his ever green laurels to place them on
the head of Francis Bacon.

53

TOBACCO LEAVES

Raleigh must have been the first man to
>smoke in London; and Ben Jonson one of
the first men, for his plays are full of
smoking, entire scenes being devoted to
it. Shakespeare never mentions tobacco
or smoking. That seems to be one of the
mysteries of that most mysterious of all
the men that ever lived ; for what else
escaped his falcon eye and magic pen in
the England of his time? How was it
possible for him to keep Trinidado, smok-
ing and smokers out of his comedies, which
were all written while his beard was young ?
What chances he had of making Sir John
Falstaff philosophically hold forth on the
virtues of tobacco and pipe ! In " Twelfth
Night," as it is played, Sir Toby Belch
and Sir Andrew Aguecheek smoke long
" churchwardens," and have a very funny
scene, in which Sir Andrew tries, while
drunk, to light his long pipe held by the
drunken Sir Toby; but it is not in the
54

TOBACCO LEAVES

written play, nor were " churchwardens "
known in Shakespeare's time. Yet there
was smoking, as well as drinking, at The
Mermaid, The Devil and Apollo, The
Boar's Head, and all the other London
taverns which Shakespeare frequented;
for you may be sure that, like Dickens,
this great reporter knew every tavern,
church, public house, and street in the
town, for which he has done more than
all its rulers put together; for Shake-
speare is the real king of England — the
king of all her kings.

It is quite easy to see that great group
around the table in The Mermaid, smok-
ing, drinking, and exchanging verbal coins
of the realm: the truculent Jonson, send-
ing clouds to the ceiling, or into an adver-
sary's face; the reserved and aristocratic
Raleigh, reflectively drawing the smoke
that cheers, but not inebriates; the bitter
Marston, the biting Cyril Tourneur, the

55

TOBACCO LEAVES

excellent, but too serious, Ford, the learned
Chapman, who finished (in more than one
way) Kit Marlowe's lovely poem, " Hero
and Leander," after Kit's death; Web-
ster, Fletcher, Heywood, Middleton, Essex,
Drake, Southampton, and the scores of
others who dropped in nights to the ban-
quets of humour and wars of wit; and
Shakespeare, the quiet, unobtrusive mas-
ter of them all, a little in the background,
taking it all in; for Shakespeare (like
Dickens) had no ambition to be a street,
club, or tavern wit, or a master of argu-
ment, except in his plays. He cared not
what opinions a man held, so long as he
held fast to the fact, you may be sure.
His favourite volume was Man, and every
one of its thousand and one leaves he had
read until they were in rags.
. Did Shakespeare smoke? History turns
away without replying. But such an inves-
tigator must have smoked; at least, tried
56

r

TOBACCO LEAVES

the weed; and, for all we know to the
contrary, he may have been an honest
smoker, — one whose pipe never went out
until the bowl was full of ashes. In Shake-
speare's time, men were Spartan smokers,
for the tobacco was rank stuff in his day,
yet the smoke was inhaled from pipes, and
sent in volumes from the nostrils. That
way would kill the smokers of the present
day. That brings us to this logical con-
clusion, that Shakespeare, who must have
been the most delicately organized of mor-
tals, could not have been a smoker, for
the smoke of vile tobacco sent through his
lungs and nostrils would have killed him.
We must not be too hard on King James
the First, for his " Counterblast " against
tobacco, when we bear in mind its vileness.
Napoleon tried to smoke — once. Some-
body gave him a box of Turkish cigar-*
ettes, and it nearly did for him what
Europe had been trying to do to him for

57

TOBACCO LEAVES

years — killed him. He is the only illus-
trious man whom I have never met who
gave up trying to learn to smoke after one
trial. Mr. Russell Sage is the only man
whom I have met who did the same thing.
He told me that he once tackled a cigar,
and that the cigar then tackled him. The
rest is silence.

Edward VII., England's king, is an-
other gentleman whom I have never met
who is a smoker of the first rank. His
cigars have been made especially for him
for many years, and are worth ninety
cents apiece, or nine hundred dollars a
thousand. As Prince of Wales, when he
offered a cigar to one of his " set," it was
etiquette to refuse it, and social suicide
to accept it, though I think Mr. John L.
Sullivan took one from his divine hand
without losing caste.

Another great man whom I have yet to
meet is Carlyle, the London Diogenes.

58

TOBACCO LEAVES

Carlyle was born in 1795, and died in
1881, at the age of eighty-six. For about
seventy of those eighty-six years Carlyle
smoked, and made most of his contempora-
ries smoke. The trouble with him was that
he was too fond of smoking a rank pipe
on an empty stomach. That gave him
stomach pains, and his contemporaries par-
ticular — pains ; for puir auld Carlyle
was as savage as a meat-house dog all
the time. He cared for but two men in the
world, — Tennyson and Dickens. All the
rest were puir, feckless, reckless, intem-
perate bladders and gas-bags, and all be-
cause Tom did not know how to clean his
pipe, and keep it clean, and would smoke
before breakfast.

Alfred Tennyson did not know how to
smoke, either; for he would smoke a long
clay pipe once and then break it. A new
pipe is a most unpleasant thing to draw,
and sometimes when his pipe was not in

59

tune with his muse, Tennyson was brusque.
But it is easy to forgive a genius, espe-
cially if he is beset with all sorts and con-
ditions of men, as Tennyson was. It is
said that Tennyson was often offensive to
Americans. We cannot blame the English
poet for refusing to receive a certain type
of American who is persona non grata
even in his own country. At any rate,
Tennyson was not insensible to American
beauty, for he treated Miss Mary Ander-
son nicely, and even allowed her to fill his
pipe for him.

Bismarck was one of the greatest smok-
ers that ever lived, and him I have never
met. He would require a chapter, but it
is impossible in the space allotted to me
to speak of all the smokers whom I have
yet to meet; still, Charles Lamb must be
mentioned. At the " smokers " in his house
I have often been, in spirit; particularly
on one great night, when, over their pipes,

60

TOBACCO LEAVES

Hazlitt, Coleridge, Lamb, and a few oth-
ers discussed Shakespeare's genius, and a
layman gave it out, after lingering for
two hours, that, in his opinion, " That
Shakespeare was a very clever man ! "
Then Charles arose, with a lighted candle,
and gravely examined that chap's bumps.
Lamb was a great jo — smoker.

But the greatest smoker that I have yet
to meet was Nero. He smoked a city.

61

POETRY OF SMOKE

AN INTER WHIFF

HERE on my back on the bank I lie,
With a pipe in my mouth, and watch the

sky;

And well do I know, beyond a joke,
That nature, like me, delights to smoke.
The little zephyrs down here in the grass
Puff at the weeds as they swiftly pass ;
While the breeze of the ether is not too

proud —

Though almost too lazy — to blow a cloud.
Every bird has a pipe of its own,
And each has its " bird's eye " views, 'tis

known.

TOBACCO LEAVES

The trees rejoice in a stem and bole,
For the King of the Forest's like old King

Cole;

And the hedges as well the practice suits,
For they all of them boast their briar

roots.

Smoking, in short, is loved by all
The works of nature both great and

small —
Down to the very small grub, to be

brief, —

You'll find he is given to rolling a leaf.
So why shouldn't I, —
As here I lie

On my back to the bank — all those defy
Who fain would the pleasant plant decry?

— Fun.

63

TOBACCO LEAVES

THE UNIVERSAL FLOWEB

PLANT of the world! Cosmopolite,
Whose fragrance gives us pure delight

And peace of mind!

When friends desert, and fortune frowns
On peasant head or kingly crowns,

It joy can find.

The universal flow'r, whose leaves expand,
Whose branches spread o'er every land

And every creed.

In thee do all believe, and bless the Giver,
And on the banks of life's dark river

We sow thy seed.

Deist, Christian, Turk, or Jew,
Brahmin, Fakir, and Dervish, too,

All thee adore.

The soldier, sailor, king, or prince,
Thou hast no trouble to convince

Of thy great pow'r.
64

TOBACCO LEAVES

Whate'er opinions they profess,
Whate'er their tenets, numberless,

Orthodox or heretic,
Thy incense offer to the skies,
Thy glorious fumes from all arise,

For thou art Catholic.

None doubt thee, for thy religion's good,
For centuries thy fame hath stood,

This is the test.

It suits all men ; for, understand,
Each thinks his own peculiar brand

" The very best."

The strongest will their voices raise,
And lift on high their meed of praise

To pungent Cavendish.
The languid swell, who hates exertion,
His off'ring tends to glorious Persian,

Or dreamy Turkish.

65

So we all smoke, all have our choice,
Yet all, without dissentient voice,

Thy fame proclaim,
And laud thy virtues ev'rywhere,
From land to land, from year to year,

All sing the same.

The glorious weed from sunny lands,
In varied form and beauteous brands,

To England's shore
It wends its way, unconquered still,
Bending the strongest, mightiest will,

And will for evermore.
W. H. W., in Cope's " Tobacco Plant."

NAPOLEON No SMOKER

THE great Napoleon knew to conquer

kings,

But there was one thing that he could
not do;

66

TOBACCO LEAVES

He could not smoke; he never saw the

blue

Clouds curl about his brow in airy rings ;
The opiate power " divine tobacco " brings
To rest both body and mind he never

knew;
Friend of the weak, the strong man it

o'erthrew,
Who all the pleasure missed that from it

springs.
'Tis said he once a splendid pipe would

try,
A Sultan's gift. He could not learn to

puff.

Then Constant for his master lighted it.
Choked by a whiff, the Emperor loud did

cry,
" It makes me sick, the abominable

stuff!

Only for fools and sluggards it is fit."
W. L. SHOEMAKER.

67

TOBACCO LEAVES

TIME(S) TO SMOKE

A. M.
A PIPE at nine IX.

Is always fine.

A puff at noon XII.

Is none too soon.

p. M.

A " concha " at three III.

The thing for me.

Another at five V.

On which to thrive.

A " perf ecto " at seven VII.

An aroma to heaven!

A " breva " at nine IX.

Is half divine.

A "boquet" before slumber. .X. ? or XI. ?
Makes just the right number.

ARTHUR GRAY.
68

EARLY LITERATURE OF TOBACCO

LOOKING backward over the ages and
pages of history, the student and enthusi-
ast is always surprised and delighted at
the mine of matter on subjects dealing
with the delights of the senses, the luxuries
of the mind, and the comforts of the body.

Painters and poets have pictured and
sung of the beauty, sublimity, and nobility
of nature in all her varying moods. Apart,
from this, every fruit of the soil in the
scheme of creation has been given its
proper setting in song and story and writ-
ten record.

Among all the offerings of the earth,
however, no leaf, plant, berry, bean, flower,

69

TOBACCO LEAVES

or tree can compare with tobacco in
amount, variety, and excellence of the lit-
erature devoted to the growth, develop-
ment, and use of this plant. No other
product has so pronounced a place, so
definite a claim upon the thoughts and
feelings of the human race as tobacco.
There is — as every smoker knows — a
reflective fragrance, a certain sentiment
in the use of this weed that cannot be
applied to any other blessing of nature
connected with our existence. Little won-
der is it, then, that tobacco-smoking has
to itself, of itself, and by itself inspired
the pens and brushes, footsteps and fin-
gers of some of the world's greatest writ-
ers, artists, discoverers, and artisans.

It is in its literature, however, that to-
bacco can claim its greatest distinction.
What real writer has not written of the
delights of smoking? Those who have not
were not smokers, or, if they were, they

70

TOBACCO LEAVES

could never have known a " heart to
heart " smoke. But let that pass. What
of the poets and philosophers who have
puffed the praises of the plant divine?
Long life to their ashes — past, present,
and future.

In looking over the literature of smok-
ing, we can go back almost to the day of
its introduction as a civilized article of
consumption. Of course, tobacco had its
ill wishers and enemies ; but of them we
have no account to settle. They are all
below the clouds, so to speak.

Perhaps the first literary effusion, ac-
cording to the Overland Monthly, wholly
devoted to the " Nicotian weed " is Nash's
" Lenten Snuffe," an octavo tract, of date
anterior to A. D. 1600. It is dedicated to
Humphrey King, a London tobacconist
and poor pamphleteer. Nash was an in-
veterate Bohemian, and, as might be ex-
pected, was extravagant in his praise of

71

TOBACCO LEAVES

what Spenser called " divine tobacco."
This was followed by a larger and better
work, in mock heroic verse, entitled the
" Metamorphosis of Tobacco," and dedi-
cated to Drayton. Although published
anonymously, the authorship is credited
to Sir John Beaumont. It has since been
reprinted in England, but there are prob-
ably no copies of this literary curiosity in
America.

" Looke to It for lie (I'll) Stabbe Ye "
is the threatening title of a sixty-four-
paged quarto published in London about
A. D. 1604, and written by Samuel Row-
lands. The merit and tone of the whole
may be judged from the following quota-
tion : —

" There is a humor us'd of late

By every rascall swaggering mate

To give the Stabbe: He stabbe (says he)

Him that dares take the wall of me.

72

TOBACCO LEAVES

If you to pledge his health denie

Out comes his poinard — there you lie.

If his Tobacco you dispraise,

He swears a stabbe shall end your daies."

The author then continues to threaten all
classes, dagger in hand. In another pam-
phlet by the same writer, published a few
years later, he assumes a more peaceful
attitude. It is a satire called " A Whole
Crew of Kind Gossips, All Met to be
Merry," and in it he shows up the man-
ners of the time by imaginary crimina-
tions and recriminations between six hus-
bands and their wives. " Good tobacco,
sweet and strong," is spoken of as one of
the allurements to public resorts. Perhaps
the husbands did not dare or care to smoke
in the home then, and that was the cause
of the trouble. How times have changed;
tobacco has come to its own in these regen-
erate days.

73

TOBACCO LEAVES

" Laugh and Lie Downe, or the World's
Folly," is a quarto of 1605 A. D., London.
This little book describes a fop of the day,
and shows how indispensable the pipe had
become to complete the outfit of a " man
of fashion."

" The next was a nimble-witted and
glib-tongued fellow, who having in his
youth spent his wits in the Arte of Love,
was now become the jest of wit; but his
looks were so demure, his words so in print,
his graces so in order, and his conceits so
in time, that he was — yea iwis (I wis)
so was he, such a gentleman for a jester
that the Lady Folly could never be better
fitted for her entertainment of strangers.
The pick-tooth in the mouth, the flower in
the eare, the kisse of the hand, the stoupe
of the head, the leer of the eye, and what
not that was unneedful, but he so perfecte
at his fingers endes, that every she was my
Faire Ladye, and scarce a Knight but was

74

TOBACCO LEAVES

Noble Sir: the tobacco-pipe was at hand,
when Trinidado1 was not forgotten —
why all things so well agreed together that
at this square table of people, or table of
square people, this man made by rule,
could not be spared for a great sommee."

"The Gull's Home Book" (the "Green-
horn's Hand Book") was a well-known
pamphlet of A. D. 1609. It was a satire
made up of advice as to proper city beha-
viour. Of the table in the inn it says:

" Before the meate comes smoaking to
the board, our Gallant must draw out his
tobacco-box, the ladle for the cold snuff
into his nosthrill, the tongs and the prim-
ing iron. All this artillery may be of gold
or silver, if he can reach the price of it;
it will be a reasonable, useful pawn at all
times when the current of his money falles

1 Trinidado was the name .given to a favourite
brand of tobacco, and by "square people" was
meant in those times simply "blockheads."

75

TOBACCO LEAVES

out to runne low. And here you must ob-
serve to know that what state tobacco is
in town better than the merchants, and to
discourse of the potecaries where it is to be
sold as readily as the potecary himselfe."

Here we see it suggested that the new
luxury was an expensive one. Further
proof of this is shown in a comedy called
" The Sun's Darling," published about the
same time as the above. A foppish gal-
lant is characterized as " some alderman's
son, — one that blows away his patri-
mony in feathers and tobacco." Accord-
ing to Sir Edwin Sandys, England was
yearly importing, in 1620, from Spain,
£120,000 in value of tobacco. There were
three popular brands, Trinidado, Leaf,
and Pudding tobacco. The first kind came
in rolls or coils; the last was probably
cut or chopped. Although the beaux of
that day carried elegant snuff-boxes, which
were often built of ivory and inlaid woods,

76

TOBACCO LEAVES

it does not appear that the pipe was made
of expensive materials. Bishop Bonner,
who was much given to the pipe, however,
and died in 1596 at the Golden Lion Inn,
Fulham, while sitting in his chair smok-
ing, was supposed to have been the owner
of some valuable pipes. One of these
pipes was found, after the place was pulled
down, in the wainscot of the room in which
the bishop died. It was an old pipe of
quaint design done in brass. It must have
been the bishop's. At any rate, it has been
catalogued as the " Bishop's Own " in a
local museum. A glance at the business
methods of those times shows that they
were no more virtuous then than now.
From Ben Jonson's comedy of " The Al-
chemyst," we infer that tobacconists soon
learned to adulterate and flavour the weed
with foreign substances. Captain Face,
one of the characters in the play, furnishes

77

TOBACCO LEAVES

the following testimonial to Drugger, the
apothecary :

" This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow.
He lets me have good tobacco, he does not
Sophisticate it with slack lees, or oil,
Nor washes it with Muscadel or grannis,
Nor buries it in gravel underground,
Wrapp'd up in greasy leather or old clouts,
But keeps it in fine lily-pots, that opened,
Smells like conserves of roses."

How like to-day. The good old times were
full of fakirs, too. Of course Ben Jonson
smoked. There are too many allusions to
the weed in his works for him not to have
been a smoker. Besides his portraits make
him look like one — a puff and a grunt,
a growl, a side shaking with laughter,
meditative smokes and goose quill. Can
we not see him in all of these occupations?

In 1618 there was produced a curious

78

TOBACCO LEAVES

comedy by Holiday, called " Techno-
gamia, or the Marriage of the Arts," in
one of the acts of which is taken up this
lively song, each verse concluding with a
rousing chorus:

" Tobacco's a Musician,
And in a pipe delighteth;
It descends in a close,
Through the organs of the nose,
With a relish that inviteth.

Chorus.

This makes me sing, soho, soho, boyes,

Ho boyes sound I loudly,

Earth ne'er did breed

Such a jovial weed,

Whereof to boast so proudly.

Tobacco is a Lawyer,

His pipes do love long cases ;

When our brain it enters

79

TOBACCO LEAVES

Our feet do make indentures,
While we seal with stamping paces.

Chorus.

Tobacco is a Physician,

Good both for sound and sickly ;

'Tis a hot perfume

That expels cold rheume,

And makes it flow down quickly.

Chorus.

Tobacco is a Traveller,

Comes from the Indies hither;

It passed sea and land

Ere it came to my hand,

And 'scaped the wind and weather.

Chorus.

Tobacco is a Critticke
That still old paper turneth;
80

TOBACCO LEAVES

Whose labor and care
Is smoke in the aire,
That ascends from a rag when it burn-
eth.

Chorus.

Tobacco is an ignis fatuus,
A fat and fyrie vapoure
That leads men about
Till the fire be out,
Consuming like a taper.

Chorus.

Tobacco is a Whyffler
That cries « Huff Snuff ' with f urie,
His pipes, his club and linke;
He's the wiser that doth drink ;
Thus armed I fear not f urie.

Chorus."

81

TOBACCO LEAVES

This song was accompanied by a dance,
which brought out by gestures the force
of the puns in the second verse. Whyffler
(" whiffler " in Shakespeare) was a herald
who went in advance of stately proces-
sions, with trumpets (pipes), clubs, and
links (lanterns' fire), clearing the way
with loud " furie."

The phrase to " drinke " tobacco, which
meant the same as to smoke tobacco, is
used in a poem of 1620, generally cred-
ited to George Wither. However, in 1631
appeared a poem called the " Soule's Sol-
ace, or Thirty and One Spiritual Em-
blems," by Thomas Jenner, which has the
same reading. In the original poem there
is an illustration accompanying it of a
bearded gentleman at a table smoking.
The words of the poem are:

" The Indian weed, withered quite,
Green at noon, cut down at night,

82

TOBACCO LEAVES

Shows thy decay all flesh is hay.
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.

The pipe that is so lily-white
Shows thee to be a mortal wight,
And even such, gone with a touch.
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.

And when the smoke 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."

83

TOBACCO LEAVES

There are, of course, other old poems on
the subject, but among them all the one
above is not only the best literary effort,
but is also the best champion of the smok-
er's cause, which had then, as it has now
to some extent, its opponents. The poem,
which has a fine human and serious strain
in it, in reflecting as it does upon the sins
and vanities of this life, must also have
echoed the general opinion of smokers in
associating thinking and smoking to-
gether. As the same opinion has been
held since then, and as most of our great-
est writers have been smokers, who can
deny the inspiration of the leaf? From
the days of Queen Elizabeth, and for
nearly one hundred years later, tobacco
had its own struggles to establish itself
in popular and permanent favour. But
it conquered as it deserved to conquer. Its
enemies in the early days called tobacco,
in the words of Withers, " a thing of bar-
84

TOBACCO LEAVES

barism and shame." Its friends repre-
sented Vulcan resting by the forge, pipe
in mouth, and envied by all the dwellers
on Olympus.

It is now over three hundred years since
tobacco got into literature. Who can quote
a single line from a literary opponent of
the leaf? But Ben Jonson, Spenser, and
Sir Walter Raleigh live. With the advent
of Charles Lamb, tobacco and its literature
has grown both in goodness and abundance.
Granted that the use of tobacco affects the
mind, who would not welcome back to earth,
with their pipes, Ben Jonson, Spenser,
Marlowe, Addison, Milton, Fielding, Lamb,
Byron, Kingsley, Thackeray, Carlyle,
Dickens, and all the other smokers whose
works are fragrant with life and truth?

tr tr tr

85

TOBACCO LEAVES

ACCORDING to a " bloomin' Britisher,"
a Yankee's idea of a cool smoke is sitting
on an iceberg smoking a long pipe, attired
in a costume of paper collar, and one of
Professor Swindle's patent corn plasters
on his favourite toe.

86

POETRY OF SMOKE
LOVE AND SMOKE

O, BOLL of snow,

The moments go

On wings of velvet smoke unending,

When I have thee

To comfort me,

Companion of supreme befriending.

With thee alight

No fears affright —

No sorrows set my soul a-whirling ;

Each vain regret,

Sweet cigarette,

Is lifted from me in thy purling.

87

TOBACCO LEAVES

n.

Against all harm
Thou hast a charm

For heart of peasant, king, or vagrant;
There is a balm —
A cheerful calm —

Within thy cooling breath so fragrant.
Within my dreams
Thou art, meseems,

Love's philter, drawn from poppy's chal-
ice,

Which, cigarette,
Makes me forget
This cold old world and, with it — Alice.

m.

Forgettest thou,
In days ere now,

When she and thee and I, a-dreaming,
Lulled by thy spell,
In Love's pow'r fell,
88

TOBACCO LEAVES

Thy light the only star a-gleaming ?

Dost thou forget

How, sans regret,

And, fickle as thy clouds which hover

Within this room of loveless gloom,

Her heart turned toward the richer lover?

IV.

Ah, cigarette!

Thou trusted pet!

We'll not confess how, at her scorning

(With Bab and Bess

And Blanche and Jess)

Our broken heart went into mourning.

Nor shall we say

How, in a way,

Love, unrequited, fuming, fretting,

Though seldom cured,

Can be endured

Through other girls and cigaretting.

JOE KERB.

89

TOBACCO LEAVES

THE MEERSCHAUM

WHEN the Sea-god bold,
In the days of old,

Would reward his mermen brave,
He'd fashion a pipe
In his mighty gripe

From the foam of a silver wave.

'Twas a talisman sure
'Gainst the spirits impure

That in ocean's depth do cower;
Nor the siren's song,
Nor the whirlpool strong,

Could prevail o'er the meerschaum's
power !

Though the Sea-god's sway
Has passed away

The spell doth still remain;
And the pipe's sweet breath
Carries woe and death

To the Spirits, Care and Pain.

90

TOBACCO LEAVES

The ills of life,
Its toil and strife,

From memory fade away,
As the sweet smoke rain
On the dry, tired brain

Works the charm of magic fay.

Then honour the pipe!
May its blessings ripe

To weary hearts ne'er cease;
May its power to soothe
Make the rough path smooth —

The sad hours, hours of peace !

— New York Tobacco Leaf.

THE SMOKE OF MY OLD BLACK PIPE
A Song

As the blue smoke curls from my old black

pipe,
I dream of the days gone by —

91

TOBACCO LEAVES

Of the rare old days of my golden

youth,

When the tide of hope ran high.
I dream of a face that was fair to see,

Of a voice that was sweet to hear,
Of a hand that was warm in the grasp of

love,
Of a heart that to mine was dear.

I dream of the time when the whisp'ring

wind

Brought legends of joy to me,
When my soul was blind to the cares of

life,

And my spirit-pulse beat free;
Of a time when the sound of a rippling

laugh

Was the music that woke each day,
When the gladsome smile of the mate of

my heart
Drove ev'ry shadow away.

TOBACCO LEAVES

As the blue smoke curls from my old black
pipe,

I dream of a darker time,
When that gentle spirit was called away

To a better and higher clime;
When the clouds were gathered from far
and near

To sadden my lonely days,
And she who had been my angel mate

Had vanish'd beyond my gaze.

I dream of a time when we yet may meet

In the world beyond the tomb,
Where the clouds ne'er come, and the

smiles ne'er fade,

And the joy flowers always bloom;
Of the time when that voice will speak

again,

When the love that sleeps will wake,
When the grasp of our souls will be

stronger far
Than death hath power to break.

93

TOBACCO LEAVES

So my old black pipe is a friend to me,

And smooths the paths I tread,
Recalling the joys of the former time,

Reviving hopes that were dead.
Yea, my old black pipe is a friend to
me,

Bridging the stream of life,
Landing my soul in the world of rest,

Free from earth's care and strife.

As the blue smoke curls from my old black

pipe,

The burthen of grief grows light ;
The morning of joy breaks bright and

clear,

Dismissing the ghosts of night.
Thus my soul looks out for the brighter

time,

The dew from my eyes I wipe,
And I seem to mate with my love again
As I smoke my old black pipe.

j. D.
94

TOBACCO LEAVES

SONNET ON TOBACCO
FROM THE FRENCH OF GRAEVIUS

SWEET enchantment of my solitude,
Companion glowing-pipe-sublime delight ;
To my dull'd soul thou bringst clearest

sight,
To my sad heart a calm and happy

mood.

Tobacco ! rapture of my mind, when I
See, like the lightning, vanish in the air
Thy smoke, I find an image striking rare
Of my life's feebleness and brevity.
With eloquence thou tellst unto me
What I, alas ! alas ! must one day be —
I, animated ashes — and I feel
Confused, ashamed, that, running after

smoke,

I lose myself, like thee ; thou dost evoke
Regrets when most thou dost thy charms

reveal.

95

TOBACCO LEAVES

NOTE. — Graevius was one of the most
distinguished scholars of the seventeenth
century. He was born at Nainburg, in
Saxony, on January 29, 1632.

In 1661 he was appointed professor at
Utrecht, where he died on the llth of
January, 1703. His character was esti-
mable as his erudition was astonishing.
Two kings, who were rivals and enemies,
— Louis XV. and William III., — joined
in doing him honour, and three universi-
ties, Leyden, Heidelberg, and Padua, made
him, but in vain, the most flattering offers
and invitations. By his wife, Edile de
Camp, he had eighteen children, four only
of whom survived him. His library, con-
sisting of five thousand printed and a
hundred manuscript volumes, is now incor-
porated with the library of Heidelberg
University. Long ago there was a trans-
lation into German of his famous Sonnet

96

TOBACCO LEAVES

on Tobacco, but so far as we know, our
own is the first translation into English.
COPE'S "Tobacco Plant"

MAHOMET'S MOUTHPIECE

MAHOMET sat in Paradise,

His hookah calmly smoking;
And at his side a houri sat,

Enchantingly provoking ;
She cared not for the glowing weed,

Her eyes much brighter twinkled;
And from her twin rose-buds proceed

A scent, like Rimmell's sprinkled.

Still " all serene " his Highness smoked,

Nor paid his tribute kisses,
Tho' these form items No. 1

Of every Turkman's blisses;
Till sportively the houri snatch'd

The prophet's rich narghile,
For like " Miss Bailey," she declared,

" He used her ungenteelly."

97

TOBACCO LEAVES

The amber mouthpiece left the stem,

Through seven heavens sinking;
In course of time, it reach'd the earth,

And set the savants thinking.
The East is famous for wise men,

And Persia had its quota;
Who settled lusus naturae

Quite right to an iota.

In full divan, 'twas soon arranged

'Twas owned by great Mahomet ;
The amber was a talisman;

What charms might not come from it !
And Persia's shah has now the gem —

So say our morning papers;
Though some of those small " on dits "

are
But typographic vapours.

j. B.
CHIBOUQUE

AT Yeni-Djani, after Rhamadan,
The pacha in his palace lolls at ease;
98

TOBACCO LEAVES

Latakieh fumes his sensual palate please.
While round-limbed almees dance near his
divan.

Slaves lure away ennui with flower and

fan;
And as his gem-tipped chibouque glows,

he sees,

In dreamy trance, those marvellous mys-
teries
The prophet sings of in the Al-Koran!

Pale, dusk-eyed girls, with sequin-studded

hair,
Dart through the opal clouds like agile

deer,

With sensuous curves his fancy to pro-
voke—

Delicious houris, ravishing and fair,
Who to his vague and drowsy mind ap-
pear

99

TOBACCO LEAVES

Like fragrant phantoms arabesqued in
smoke.

FRANCIS S. SALTUS.

THE MEERSCHAUM *

SCORN not the meerschaum. Housewives,
you have croaked

In ignorance of all its charms. Through
this small reed

Did Milton, now and then, consume the
weed;

The poet Tennyson hath oft invoked

The muse with glowing pipe, and Thack-
eray joked

And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;

Hawthorne with this hath cheered his soli-
tude;

A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell
smoked ;

Reprinted by permission from Harper's Magazine.
100

TOBACCO LEAVES

Full oft have Aldrich, Taylor, Stoddard,

Cranch,

And many more whose verses float about,
Puffed the Virginian or Havana leaf ;
And when the poet's or the artist's branch
Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to

pout
Consolatory whiffs — alas ! too brief !

101

THE ETIQUETTE OF TOBACCO

IT is not four hundred years since
Christendom learned to use the gentle
weed, and yet in that period the use of
tobacco has passed from land to land, and
been adopted by every race, civilized, semi-
civilized, and savage. It has influenced the
etiquette of every country, and been influ-
enced by the etiquette in return.

When Columbus discovered America,
the Indians had developed an etiquette re-
specting the leaf of the most complex
sort. Of their system but little has been
preserved, and yet that little is of deep
interest. To the Indian, the primary use
of tobacco was religious. He burnt it

102

TOBACCO LEAVES

as an incense to the Almighty, just as the
Western nations burned myrrh, benzoin,
and frankincense. Smoking the great
peace calumet, or pipe of peace, was in
reality taking a solemn form of oath. A
second purpose, partly religious, was the
production of stupor or prophetic dreams
on the part of a medicine-man or priest.
Third, was the reward to heroic sagamore
and sachem, which came from inhaling to-
bacco smoke. No young man could use
the pipe or cigar until he had proved his
courage, while squaws were forbidden the
pleasure until they had reached old age,
and had been the mothers of warriors.
Spain carried the fire of the cigar to South-
ern Europe, while England, a generation
later, transported to Northern Europe the
Algonquin pipe. The Castilian was rich,
refined, and courtly. He wove around the
weed his own delightful manners, and made
smoking an accomplishment of the nobil-

103

TOBACCO LEAVES

ity. The Englishman of that time was
bold, poor, and careless of the graces of
life. In England smoking was the com-
fort of the masses. In the Spanish eti-
quette, which was developed in the course
of the years, were many odd touches indic-
ative of the Castilian character. You
asked a smoker for " the favour of his
fire," and not to give you a light, as in
blunt English. When you received it,
you bowed, used it, handed it back with
a bow and an apology, and at the same
time offered him a fresh cigar or cigarette,
according to that with which he had fa-
voured you. In offering a lighted cigar,
you always presented the fire end, so that
his hand should not be soiled by the mouth
end, and in returning a cigar or cigarette,
you offered the mouth end, so as to give
him the least trouble in replacing it be-
tween his lips. This rule in regard to giv-

104

TOBACCO LEAVES

ing and returning a lighted cigar is now
the practice of every civilized country.

Smoking having been adopted by the
upper classes in Spain, was employed by
men and women alike. There was no prej-
udice against the fair sex enjoying the
weed. The countries which learned smok-
ing from Spain adopted these views.
There was and is no prejudice against
women smoking in Portugal, France, Italy,
Greece, Turkey, Africa, Asia, Mexico,
Central and South America.

In England the masses were the first to
smoke, and the upper classes regarded the
habit as vulgar and low. Not until 1820
could a gentleman smoke without losing
caste, and not until 1885, when the Prin-
cess of Wales, now the Queen of England,
served cigarettes at luncheons to her own
sex, were women allowed to smoke without
fear of social ostracism. The English
prejudice was adopted by Canada, the

105

TOBACCO LEAVES

United States, Scandinavia, Holland,
North Germany, and Switzerland.

In the Latin countries, for many gener-
ations, it was considered discourteous to
offer a friend or a guest a ready-made
cigarette. Were you alone with your
friend, you rolled the cigarette yourself,
and offered it to him, or else handed him
the picadura and papers for him to use
himself. At your own house, your wife or
daughters rolled the cigarettes, and served
them along with a candle or taper, lamp
or burning charcoal, with which they were
lighted. Commerce and manufactures
change manners, and the hand-made and
machine-made cigarette have driven the
good old custom to the wall. Yet in the
Latin-American countries and in Spain,
Southern France, and Italy the ancient
custom survives in many old-fashioned
families. In Moslem families, the wife,
or one of the wives, rolls the Turkish leaf

106

TOBACCO LEAVES

into cigarettes for the husband, while a
slave girl does the same for the guest. In
India the nautch girl and bazar girl, in
China the flower-boat girl and sing-song
girl, in Japan the geisha and tea musme
perform the same function.

While the Orient has learned smoking
from the Occident, it has already paid back
part of its debt in the practice of serving
cigarettes with the sorbet at dinner-parties.
This comes from Southern China, where
state dinners are broken at intervals by
recesses, during which the attendants hand
around cigarettes and perfumed water-
pipes to the guests.

Around the plebeian pipe comparatively
little etiquette has developed, at least, so
far as the Occident is concerned. Among
the natives of Yucatan and Central Amer-
ica is the practice of using what are known
as " loving-pipes " and " family-pipes."
In these the stems are from four to seven

107

TOBACCO LEAVES

feet long, and branch into two or three
parts, each of which is supplied with a
mouthpiece. The latter are about two feet
apart. When they are used, the host and
his guest, or the man and his wife, sit
side by side. The bowl rests on the floor;
the host holds the stem where it is single,
and the two branches rest comfortably in
the mouths of the two smokers. The same
result is obtained with this pipe and solid
branching stem as with the narghile and
flexible stem of the Moslem world. In
the latter, the double, treble, or multi-
stemmed narghile is intended for a group
of friends, or for a family circle.

It is rare that an Englishman or an
American keeps pipes for visitors. In Asia
and Northern Africa the rule is the exact
opposite. In Turkey and Egypt there are
always extra narghiles; in India, extra
hookahs; in China, extra hubble-bubbles,
vater-pipes, and bamboo pipes. In the

108

f

TOBACCO LEAVES

Occident, it is not a discourtesy for a host
to light his own pipe and not offer one to
a guest. In the Orient it would be either
a terrible breach of manners or a direct
insult.

At one time in Cuba many of the plan-
tation owners had a jovial custom of roll-
ing cigars from leaf grown on their own
plantations, and giving these to their
guests. Thomas Wilson, who travelled in
Cuba in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, speaks of the excellent cigars
which the wealthy planters were wont to
roll from the leaves of their own growing.
" The smell," he writes, " is exceedingly
delicious, but they are so strong that I
can never smoke more than half a one
without turning my stomach."

109

POETRY OF SMOKE
AN OLD PIPE

OLD mined pipe, that all would cast aside,
Nor give thy fate a single transient

thought,
To me with tender memories thou art

fraught,

Recalling those brief days of happy pride
When my sweet Lady wandered by my side
Through life's strange ways, and always

unbesought
Came rapturous joys no wealth had ever

bought,

And I each day by love was deified.
For once, I mind it well, in playful vein,
She filled thee with the fragrant honeyed

weed,
110

TOBACCO LEAVES

And lit it for me with such witching grace
I could not choose withhold the lovesome

meed.
And now thou bringest to my sight her

face,
As then she thrilled me beneath my kiss's

strain.

— Bon Tabac.

THE CONSOLING PIPE

THE heathen god Pan
Was a good-looking man,
But unluckily cursed with the legs of a

goat;

Which made Syrinx look down
Upon Pan with a frown —
And on Syrinx, it was, he was fated to
dote.

He was pining away —
Grew thinner each day —
But small consolation from Syrinx he got.

Ill

TOBACCO LEAVES

And her sneers at his legs
So embittered the dregs
Of life's cup ; it was clear Pan was going
to pot.

One morning he grew

So pressing, she flew

To Minerva, or some one, to help her in
•need;

And, obtaining her change,

In a manner most strange,
Rushed into the water and turned to a reed-

On seeing which, Pan,
Like a sensible man,
Just cut her at once — and invented the

pipe;

Which ever since then
Is by all jilted men

Held the best cure for love — of which
smoke is the type.

— Fun.
112

TOBACCO LEAVES

"!N FUMO OMNE EXIT!"

IN lazy clouds toward the skies,

From out my meerschaum curls the va-
pour,
Blue as the depths of Celia's eyes,

And dreamy as the folds that drape her.
And, gazing on the same yeux bleus,
Sad as the sighing of Melpomene
Rings in mine ear the warning true
" In fumo exit omne ! "

Yes, sweet! the flowers that deck your

brow,
And those that in your cheeks blush

deeper,
Their summer fled, meek heads will bow

Beneath the sickle of the reaper.
Still, though in smoke our gladness end,
The sigh that clouds, the tear that
checks it,

113

TOBACCO LEAVES

Will each in turn in vapour blend —
" In f umo omne exit ! "

H. T. M. JOHNSON.

TOBACCO

WHENE'ER I'm out of sorts or sad,
Oppress'd with care, and well-nigh mad,
What comforts me, and makes me glad?

Tobacco !

What builds such castles in the air,

And paints my prospects bright and fair,

And makes me negligent of care?

Tobacco !

How is it that I'm so resigned,

Whene'er my wife must speak her mind.

And ne'er retaliate in kind?

Tobacco !

What makes my holidays so sweet,
And ev'ry " outing " such a treat
114

That I would fain their joys repeat?

Tobacco !

Whene'er my brain is dull and dark,
And utterly beside the mark,
What wakes the latent, slumb'ring spark?

Tobacco !

What changes all my scowls to smiles,
And many a tedious hour beguiles,
And ne'er by any chance me riles?

Tobacco !

Enlarger of our mortal ken,
Familiar of the artist's den,
Beloved by literary men —

Tobacco !

Far kinder than the kindest friend,
Oh, teach us how your powers blend !
And from your heavenly throne descend,

Tobacco !

E. H. s.
115

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 doom'd to
death.

REV. WALTER COTTON.

THE TOBACCONIST'S INDIAN

WHEN I was young I shook with fright

Whene'er I passed you by;
E'en in my dreams at dead of night

I saw your cruel eye.
116

TOBACCO LEAVES

How scared I was to see, one day,
A drunkard throw you down!

I felt so certain you would slay
Or chase him out of town.

My mother said that after dark
You scalped all naughty boys,

And so I dared not have a lark
At dusk, nor make a noise.

I lost my fear the day I saw

A painter's boy apply
Vermilion paint upon your jaw

And varnish to your eye.

But now that I am twelve and more

I use you every day
As target for my putty-blower
When after school I play.

F.
117

TOBACCO LEAVES
PLANTA DIVINA

WHEN the gods, at their symposia,
Supped on nectar and ambrosia,

Surely something more was needed than

they knew.

'Tis quite true there was no lack o'
Food and drink — but no tobacco —
For the only " pipe " then known Pan
softly blew.

At the court where Odin lorded,
Neither he knew — nor yet Thor did —

Of the grateful fragrance of the balmy

weed;

For a " pipe," to those Walhallans,
Meant a many, many gallons

Of their foaming and exhilarating mead.

No! 'Twas left for mighty Gitche
Manito to send so rich a

Blessing down upon his children here
below.

118

TOBACCO LEAVES

Fill the calumet and hookah,
And we'll send in wreaths of smoke a
Savoury incense up to Gitche Manito!
— The Bohemian.

LONE WOODEN INDIAN

WHERE are thy kinsmen, lonely brave,

Who erst adorned the city's walks,
And raised above the thronging pave

A row of hickory tomahawks?
Who stood in menacing array

Along the border of the flags,
And filled with swift, supreme dismay

The owners of nocturnal jags!

Lines to a Wooden Indian.

ODD EPIGRAMS FOR TOBACCO JARS

I AM, and am not,
A family jar.

119

TOBACCO LEAVES

Fill the bowl, you jolly soul,
And burn all sorrow to a coal.

A weed you call me, but you'll own
No rose was e'er more fully blown.

Behold ! This vessel hath a moral got :
Tobacco smokers all must go to pot.

Your pipe's your friend !

A greater friend am I;
For in itself that friend will lack

What I supply.

" Man's life is but a vapour ! "

Believe me or not — I most truly contain
A soother of woe and an easer of pain!

Great Jove Pandora's box with jars did

fill —
This jar alone has power those jars to

still.
120

TOBACCO LEAVES

A jar, behold me! taste my store,
Take all you want, but take no more.
I'm " Solitaire," and Social's pal,
I'm Baccyful, not Bacchinal;
I'm Friendship's bond, I'm Freedom's

type,

I'm Welcome's emblem — take a pipe!
Still, should you choose my worth evoke.
You'll own my faults all end in smoke.

Although no artist, I can draw

My pipe to ease my care;
No architect, yet oft I build

Grand " castles in the air ; "
No author, yet I can compose

My nerves, if aught should mar
My happiness, by virtue of

The plant within this jar.

There are jars of jelly, jars of jam,
Jars of potted beef and ham;
But welcome most to me by far
Is my dear old tobacco jar.

TOBACCO LEAVES

There are pipes producing sounds divine.
Pipes containing luscious wine ;
But when I consolation need,
I take the pipe that burns the weed.

All ye who feel oppress'd amidst the strife,
The ceaseless wear and strain of busy life ;
All ye whose spirits sink beneath the

weight

Of dire misfortune, or of adverse fate,
Search well within the jar, and you will

find

The certain solace for a troubled mind.
Use with discretion what is offer'd there,
Inhale its fragrance, and forget its care.
COPE'S " Tobacco Plant."

LAST CIGAR

'TWAS off the blue Canary Isles,

A glorious summer day,
122

TOBACCO LEAVES

I sat upon the quarter-deck,
And whiffed my cares away;

And as the volumed smoke arose,
Like incense in the air,

I breath'd a sigh to think, in sooth,
It was my last cigar.

Chorus

It was my last cigar,

It was my last cigar,

I breath'd a sigh to think, in sooth,

It was my last cigar.

I leaned upon the quarter rail,

And looked down in the sea,
E'en there the purple wreath of smoke

Was curling gracefully;
Oh, what had I at such a time

To do with wasting care?
Alas! the trembling tear proclaimed

It was my last cigar.

TOBACCO LEAVES

Chorus

I watched the ashes as it came

Fast drawing to the end,
I watched it as a friend would watch

Beside a dying friend;
But still the flame crept slowly on,

It vanished into air,
I threw it from me, spare the tale,

It was my last cigar.

Chorus

I've seen the land of all I love

Fade in the distance dim,
I've watched above the blighted heart,

Where once proud hope hath been;
But I've never known a sorrow

That could with that compare,
When off the blue Canary Isles

I smoked my last cigar.

Chorus

TOBACCO FACTS AND FANCIES

TOBACCO FIRST NOTICED

ACCORDING to Notes and Queries, the
earliest notice of tobacco is contained in
a work of Benzo, of Milan, printed in
1578: "The natives bind the ripe leaves
into bundles and hang them to dry. When
they desire to use them, they entwine one
leaf of the plant with one leaf of the corn
grown in the country, so as to make of
them one tube or pipe, lighting one end
of which, they put the other in their mouth,
and draw in the breath and air, and at last
inhale so much of the smoke as to fill their
mouths, throats, and heads, and patiently

125

TOBACCO LEAVES

continue the process as long as the pleasure
which they derive from it is not of the
nature of a penance; and so intoxicate
themselves with this smoke that their senses
are in time almost out of the mind's con-
trol. There are some who smoke so greed-
ily and furiously as to fall lifeless to the
ground, and lie there for the greater part
of the day or night. Some, on the other
hand, smoke more temperately, until they
merely become giddy, and carry the process
no further."

Wu's TRIBUTE TO TOBACCO

MINISTER Wu's oration on General
Grant Memorial Day contained a notable
tribute to tobacco smoking which is well
calculated to grieve the narcotics commit-
tee of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union. If the words are not before long
used for an advertisement by cigar manu-

126

TOBACCO LEAVES

facturers, those men will be lacking in
business acumen. " What an important
part the fragrant Havana plays in the
world of affairs," said the philosophic Wu.
" Imagine what a clear head it gave the
great soldier in planning his campaigns,
and in ordering his victories, and what a
mental calm and equipoise it enabled him to
maintain in the confusion and excitement
of battle." The question arises how that
long and illustrious line of great generals,
from Alexander down to Napoleon, con-
trived to win battles without " the fragrant
Havana," as most of them were obliged
to. But it may be ungracious to pick
flaws in Mr. Wu's oration. He was pay-
ing a tribute to Grant. Yet the other side
will be sure to point out that the cancerous
growth that led to General Grant's illness
and death was laid to excessive smoking.
— Springfield Republican.

127

TOBACCO LEAVES
" EGYPTIAN " TOBACCO

PROBABLY few smokers of Egyptian
cigarettes trouble themselves greatly where
the tobacco they enjoy comes from, and
if asked, would answer, " Egypt, of
course." As a matter of fact, however,
practically no tobacco is grown in Egypt,
for the soil is too sandy; every bit of it
comes from Turkey, though the manufac-
ture of the best qualities of leaf tobacco
into cigarettes, both for foreign and for
Turkish consumption, is carried on almost
exclusively in Egypt, and the paper is
made in the same country. Of late years,
the consumption of Turkish cigarettes in
America has grown enormously, and mil-
lions are now manufactured here where
there were thousands a few years ago.
The cheaper grades are mixed with native-
grown tobacco; a better grade is made
exclusively from one variety of Turkish

128

TOBACCO LEAVES

leaf, but the best grades contain as many
as nineteen different kinds of the finest
selected Turkish tobaccos.

A BOY'S ESSAY ON TOBACCO

TOBACCO grows something like a cab-
bage, but I never saw one cooked, though
I have heard men say that cigars given
them on election day were mostly cabbage
leaves. Tobacco stores are mostly kept
by wooden injuns, who stand at the door
and fool little boys by offering them a
bunch of cigars, which is glued into the
Injun's hands, and is made of wood also.
I tried to smoke a cigar once and I felt
like Epsom salts.

Tobacco was invented by a man named
Walter Raleigh. When people first saw
him smoking they thought he was a steam-
boat and was frightened. My sister
Nancy is a girl. I don't know whether

129

TOBACCO LEAVES

she likes tobacco or not. There is a young
man named Larry who comes to see her.
He was standing on the steps one night
and he had a cigar in his mouth, and said
he didn't know as she would like it, and she
said : " Larry, the perfume is agreeable."
But when my big brother Tom lighted his
pipe Nancy said : " Get out of the house,
you horrid creature; the smell of tobacco
makes me sick." Snuff is Injun meal
made out of tobacco. I took a little snuff
once, then I sneezed.

TOBACCO SMUGGLING

Two young men were carrying a parcel
of smuggled tobacco to Vienna ; but when
they drew near to the city, and caught
sight of the custom-house, they began to
be afraid. They were on the point of
throwing away their parcel when one of
them conceived a clever device, and said,

130

" No, the tobacco must go into Vienna ;
but you must do what I tell you. You
must go on before me, carrying the to-
bacco, and when we come to the custom-
house you must rush rapidly into the city
how loud soever I may shout to you."

Due obedience was given to the com-
mand. When the young men arrived at
the custom-house, the officer on duty stood
with folded arms before the door. The
young man who was behind shouted,
" Fritz, wait and let me also carry the
tobacco; it is too heavy for you."

Fritz made no reply, but went with
swift steps on, while his companion came
slowly behind. The officer thought that
the young man wanted to make fun of him
in a fashion with which he was too famil-
iar. He abstained, therefore, from search-
ing them, lest he should furnish them
with fresh subject for ridicule.

131

TOBACCO LEAVES

" AH, sir, it is no lie, but a blessed truth,
as I can tell, who have ere now gone, in
the strength of the weed, three days and
nights without eating; and therefore, sir,
the Indians always carry it with them on
their war-parties. And no wonder! for
when all things were made, none were bet-
ter than this — to be a lone man's com-
panion, a bachelor's friend, a hungry
man's food, a sad man's cordial, a wakeful
man's sleep, and a chilly man's fire; while
for stanching of wounds, purging of them,
and settling of the stomach, there's no
herb like it under the canopy of heaven ! "
KINGSLEY'S " Westward Ho."

rr u u

ONE of Louis XVIII.'s secretaries of
state was once with the king in the cabinet
of the latter. Affairs of importance had
to be debated and decided. So earnest in
discourse grew the secretary that, without

TOBACCO LEAVES

thinking of it, he laid his handkerchief
and his snuff-box on the table.

" You are emptying your pockets," said
the king, with a smile.

" Here," replied the secretary, " it is
better that a minister should empty his
pockets than fill them."

TELEGRAPHY OF THE CIGAB,

To light the cigar — " Attention ! "

To hold it between the forefinger and the
lips — "I long to clasp thee in my arms."

To hold the cigar with three fingers —
" I am thy slave."

To hold the cigar with the thumb and
the forefinger — " This floor is not to let."

To pass the cigar from one hand to
another — " Thou hast hit me there."

To puff the cigar lightly — "I am in
a hurry."

133

TOBACCO LEAVES

To shake the ashes from the cigar —
" All is over."

To move the cigar with the finger —
" I'll think of it."

To smoke the cigar with vengeance —
" Farewell for ever."

To contemplate the column of smoke —
" Wilt thou ever cease to love me ? "

To sweep away the smoke with the hand

— "I long for thee, but without any
mother-in-law. "

To bring the lighted end of cigar to
the lips — "What a sell!"

To puff the smoke with force — " Devil
take the intruders ! "

To puff the smoke through the nostrils

— " I confide in thee."

To puff the smoke through both mouth
and nostrils — " Thy neighbour is fright-
fully in my way."

To puff the smoke forward — > " Wilt
thou give me a kiss? "

134

TOBACCO LEAVES

To puff the smoke sideward — " You
have forgotten me for another."

To puff the smoke through the ears —
" I believe what thou tellest me."

To puff the smoke through the eyes —
" I will marry you."

To swallow the smoke chokvngly — "I
am hooked."

" Is smoking offensive or defensive? "
inquired a brawny man, with a broad smile
and a bad cigar, as he settled himself in
the empty seat in the smoker, alongside of
a thin, dyspeptic individual who was look-
ing sadly out of the car window.

" I should say it was both," was the
weary reply. " Judging from the stench
of that ' gutter - ' you have in your
mouth, you ought to be able to offend and
defend yourself against the whole world."

135

TOBACCO LEAVES

SMOKING on shipboard is made impera-
tive, for does not the captain " pipe all
hands " on deck?

rr t? rr

ONE of the most interesting sights to
be seen in the prominent cigar factories
in Havana is the tobacco artists at work
on the expensive cigars for the European
markets. The number of men qualified to
manipulate the tobacco put into these
high-priced smokers is small, and most of
them work only a few hours at a time.
They earn big wages, and can afford to
take things easy, for the demand for la-
bour as skilled as theirs is always greater
than the supply. The writer recently sat
for an hour, watching one of these nico-
tian artists working on a difficult shape
for one of the European courts. After
his long, tapering fingers had finished the
work of putting the wrapper on the cigar,

136

TOBACCO LEAVES

he held it up before him, and viewed it
with as much admiration as a painter
would a picture after he had put the last
touch of the brush to the canvas. The
cigars which this man was making cost
wholesale $1,500 a thousand, packed in
inlaid cabinets.

DAD tells me my pipe will take all the
fire of youth out of me. Nonsense; it
puts fire in, for the old maxim says,
" Where there is smoke there is fire."

U tT U

To smoke a fine cigar, after a real din-
ner, with a good friend, is about as near
" heaven on earth " as the average man
will ever find south of the stars.

u rr u

THERE are two things a man seldom for-
gets — his first love and his first smoke.

137

TOBACCO LEAVES

LEARN to smoke slow. The other grace
is to keep your smoke from other people's
faces. — Punch.

tj u rr

AT the battle of Minden, where the
French were signally defeated, the grena-
diers of France were exposed to the fire of
a battery, which made terrible havoc in
their ranks. M. de Saint-Pern, who com-
manded them, tried to make them as pa-
tient as he knew them to be brave. He
therefore made his horse go up and down
in front of them at the very slowest pace,
as if he were coolly training it. His
snuff-box he held in his hand, and from
time to time he took a pinch with the
greatest deliberation. Seeing the grena-
diers startled and alarmed by murderous
crash on crash, he said to them : " What
is the matter, my children? Do the can-
non-balls disturb you? Doubtless they
kill; but that is all."

138

TOBACCO LEAVES

CHARACTER IN SMOKING

The Ideas of a Woman Who Has Been
Sizing Up the Other Sex Unawares

ACCORDING to a man's manner of smok-
ing you shall know him, is the opinion of a
keen observer of habits and characteristics.

Let him gnaw at the end of his cigar
and roll it between his lips, and you may
depend he is cynical, likely to look always
on the wrong side of human nature, and
not to trust any one completely.

The man who smokes with his cigar
tilted upward has the traits that make for
success, is brisk, aggressive, and likely to
triumph over interference with his wishes.

The smoker who guards his cigar jeal-
ously, and will smoke it almost up to the
point of charring his moustache or burn-
ing his nose, is a tactician, scheming, self-

139

TOBACCO LEAVES

seeking, and with an intense desire for
power.

The cigar tilted toward the chin de-
notes the day-dreamer, the person who may
have ideas and ambitions but seldom the
practicality to carry them out.

The cigar held steadily and horizontally
indicates a callous, calculating nature,
strong traits, but poor principles, the sort
of man who could be brutal with indiffer-
ence, should occasion arise.

Men who let their cigar go out, and
then try to relight it, also those who, after
smoking for awhile, let the cigar go out
and then throw it away, are likely to be
irrational and without the capacity to put
their powers to use.

Men of quick, vivacious temper hardly
touch the tip of their cigar with their
teeth, and after taking two or three whiffs
will remove it and hold it in their hand
in absent-minded fashion. They are men

140

{TOBACCO LEAVES

who change their opinions and ambitions
often, and require the spur of novelty or
necessity to make them exert their best
powers.

The man who, after lighting his cigar,
holds it not only between teeth and lips,
but with two, three, or four fingers of his
left hand, is fastidious and possessed of
much personal pride. Such a smoker will
often remove the cigar and examine the
lighted end to see if it is burning evenly
and steadily. Such actions indicate care-
fulness, sagacity, and a character worthy
of confidence and esteem.

The smoker who sends forth smoke from
both corners of the mouth in two divergent
puffs is crotchety and hard to get along
with, though he may have good mental
faculties.

The spendthrift, sometimes the adven-
turer, is declared by the act of biting off
the end of a cigar. Lack of judgment,

141

TOBACCO LEAVES

dislike to pay debts, and not overniceness
of habits are declared by this practice.

The pipe smoker who grips his pipe so
firmly between his teeth that marks are
left on the mouthpiece is mettlesome, of
quick, nervous temper, and likes to be
tenacious of his opinions one way or an-
other.

The pipe held so that it hangs some-
what toward the chin indicates the listless,
ambitionless person, who might stand up
to such responsibilities as come to him,
but would never seek them or strive for
high place.

The man who fills his pipe hastily, hap-
hazard fashion, and emits irregular puffs
of smoke is of incautious, generous im-
pulses, the sort of man who is a good
comrade and has powers of entertaining,
but whose friendship is not likely to be
lasting nor to warrant implicit confidence.

The man who fills his pipe slowly and

TOBACCO LEAVES

methodically and smokes mechanically and
regularly is likely to be reserved, prudent,
and a good, dependable friend, while not
of showy exterior.

Many smokers, no matter how many
cigar-cases they have, carry their cigars
in the upper left-hand waistcoat pocket.
This habit indicates a love of self-indul-
gence and disinclination to make the slight-
est exertion other than absolutely neces-
sary.

These observations, it should be remem-
bered, are those of a woman who has been
observing men who smoke.

— New York Sun.

Do's, DON'TS, NEVERS, AND REMEMBERS
FOR SMOKERS

GIVE your last cigar away occasionally.
It will make you feel better.

Don't light a cigar in the presence of

143

TOBACCO LEAVES

a respected friend or acquaintance, unless
you give him one. This does not apply
to employees, fellow boarders, or any one
with whom you come in daily contact.

Never refuse a light to any smoker. If
you haven't a match to give him, let him
borrow some of your fire, even if it spoils
your cigar.

Remember that all smokers are equal —
when smoking.

Do keep a fresh pipe — if he is a pipe
smoker — for your friend.

Do the " nice thing " — once in awhile.
If you have more than one cigar, and no-
tice a man looking sadly out of the smok-
ing-car window, proffer him one of your
smokes, with the understanding that there
have been times when you were short on
smokes and long on loneliness yourself.

Give your friend your best cigar. You'll
have lots of fine future smokes coming to
you if you do.

144

TOBACCO LEAVES

Remember you can display more broth-
erly feeling in the way you proffer a cigar
than in a world of nice words or small
loans.

Remember that the hospitable smoker
is one of nature's choicest creations.

Never play a joke on a smoker. Don't
give the meanest of them a loaded cigar.
It's a brutal, dangerous, and stupid thing
to do.

Don't be a cigar or cigarette " sponge."
It's a low down habit. You can lose your
self-respect and the respect of your friends
more in this way than any other.

Don't be a strutting, nose-tilting smoker.
It's tough.

Never smoke in the presence of ladies,
unless you know it is not offensive. If
you don't know, ask them. If they object,
don't smoke. In spite of Kipling, any
good woman is far finer than any cigar
ever dreamed of.

145

TOBACCO LEAVES

" Life is too short for poor food, poor
company, poor clothes," and poor smokes.

Remember that silence and a good cigar
are two of the finest things on earth. Even
a hermit can be an angel under these cir-
cumstances, and a man of the world a man
of the other world.

Puff your smoke heavenward, and pitch
your thoughts toward the clouds.

COFFEE without tobacco is like meat
without salt. — Persian Proverb.

rr n u

MANY an after-dinner party, although
above suspicion, has been " under a cloud."
A cloud of contentment, a brand of har-
mony, and an aroma of good-fellowship
always good to look upon.

146

TOBACCO LEAVES

THE Dean of Carlisle has been denounc-
ing tobacco smoking as pestiferous. Well,
we prefer a cloudy atmosphere to a close
one. — Fun.

U U U

WITH many men, cigars supply the in-
tellectual vacuum which others ingeni-
ously (?) fill up with sighs, shrugs, slan-
der, shuffling, silly schemes, vagaries,
vicious thoughts, whistling, weeping, wail-
ing, beering, and bawling.

U U TJ

THAT I won't smoke enny more cigars,
only at somebody else's expense. — Reso-
lution by Josh Billings. Josh represented
a very numerous and respectable body of
smokers.

u u u

The Memory of the Past — The first
cigar.

147

TOBACCO LEAVES

MY LADY NICOTINE AND How SHE SE-
DUCED ME

SHE is a common wench, this well-
beloved mistress o' mine. There is no
roystering blade, no gallant courtier, no
ragged tramp, no rollicking sailor boy,
who is not welcome to her close embrace,
her sweet, perfumed kiss, and the languor-
ous, delicious content that follows a brief
hour's dalliance with her charms. And
yet I love her!

Even as she is not nice in her choice
of those to whom she gives her favours,
so she is by no means fastidious as to the
time or place of her assignations. Revel
she will, it is true, in the daintiest boudoir,
leaving the perfume of her presence on
silken hangings, soft couches, and even in
the costly rugs her lovers trample. Yet
she speeds as joyously to the meanest hovel
or den, where lurks some burly ruffian,

148

TOBACCO LEAVES

who eagerly turns to her for solace after a
day of toil or a night of crime.

She is as ready to grant a stolen, hasty
kiss to the tired, wet sentry on his guard,
who perils a heavy punishment for the
fleeting favour, as to linger on the lips
of some puissant prince or potentate, it
may be, of the Church itself.

Wanton she is in her reckless, bound-
less lust of conquest, not delicate of selec-
tion, as even a Messalina might be, but
robustious and all-devouring, as one of
Smollett's trolls.

And yet I love her passing well.

How dearly I remember the hour of my
seduction. Hardly more than a mere lad,
I had yet maintained for years a Puritan's
contempt for the riotous libertines who
surrendered themselves to the strenuous
sway of the Circean sorceress. Filled I
had been with orthodox lies about the swin-
ish transformations she wrought in her vic-

149

TOBACCO LEAVES

tims, polluting their bodies, enervating
their wills, and depraving their souls till
they should be fit for all the nameless law-
lessness from which I held myself so scorn-
fully aloof.

For it is unhappily true that even as
her lovers love her, so do those hate her
who have not tasted of her delights. And,
as if in retribution for their folly, there
comes upon these poor creatures a sort of
madness, so that they rage and imagine
vain things. Whereby it happens that
they tell, and tell, one to another, grotesque
fictions which they come to believe. And
they utter these grievous fictions even to
credulous youth, believing them only be-
cause they will believe anything against
my Lady Nicotine. Whereas, God knows
no worse need be said than I say, who
speak the truth barely, and who do truly
love her.

But I was not then as one who knoweth

150

TOBACCO LEAVES

good from evil, for I had not yet tasted
the forbidden joy. For me there was Puri-
tan asceticism on the one hand — the witch-
ery of the world on the other. And I was
still young. Witchery stood for sin.
Pleasure, that had pleasure for its own
sole excuse, was voluptuousness — a snare
and a wile and a device of the Evil One
with two capital letters ; not the benevolent
indulgence of an all-loving Father.

And the jade tempted me and I fell.

It was of a Sunday afternoon, a long
summer day. Sick to desperation with
heimweh; with nothing to read in the
camp ; scruple-bound too fast and too
hard to join in the pursuit of the only
game to be found at that hour of the day
— draw-poker. I watched with empty
and longing soul my comrades' calm con-
tent as they puffed their pipes, and dream-
ily traced the smoke wreaths lazily and
gracefully floating upward.

151

TOBACCO LEAVES

Despite the wearisome longings of
heimweh, despite the perils and discom-
forts of the lonely camp, the spell of the
lotus-eaters was upon me. The old song
rang with the subtle charm of unheard
music to my inner ear:

" Death is the end of life. Ah! Why
should life all labour be? "

Vague desire, tempered with dread, and
struggling with growing might against
the old Puritan principle of self-denial
for self-denial's sake, kindled the flame
that brought my Lady Nicotine to me,
warm with her lascivious pleasing. The
bashful, virgin lips on which she had not
yet left the ineffaceable trace of her touch,
were half-reluctantly, half -willingly parted.
A few tremulous, hesitant gasps of doubt-
ing, fearsome yielding and I was hers.

Not for me was any sickening revul-
sion; I had no qualms of pain, scarcely
a pang of regret. I was the predestined

152

TOBACCO LEAVES

slave of the common mistress of the multi-
tude.

Since then, how she has comforted me!
I have never wavered in my devotion —
though, alas, I share her favours with un-
numbered rivals. What measureless joy
might be mine, I dare not imagine, could
I but selfishly keep her all my own. Gar-
gantua's most enormous thrill of gigantic
ecstasy would seem a throb of pain beside
the rapture of such magnificent, illimitable
egoism. It is too great for even a dream.
'Twould be an eternal ecstasy.

Save for this wild fantasy of desire,
however, born of a fancy as hopeless as
it is iridescent, I can have no fault to find
with my Lady Nicotine. She has never
failed me, never refused me, never disap-
pointed me. She has soothed me in trouble,
eased me in pain, even calmed my racked
nerves when my heart was wrung with sor-
row. She is an indulgent mistress, jealous

153

TOBACCO LEAVES

of none, tender, and always sympathetic,
even faithful in the sense that she is true
to all her lovers.

Does she not deserve my praise?

DAVID A. CURTIS.

MINING MEERSCHAUM IN TURKEY

AT present there are four districts in
Turkey in which any one who so desires
may enter into the business of meerschaum
mining simply by paying the Ottoman
government the sum demanded for a li-
cense, namely, five piasters. These dis-
tricts, as described by the Revue Scienti-
fique, are Sari-Sou, Sepetdji, Geikli, and
Menlon. The five thousand miners already
engaged in this industry are Kurds and
Persians, and all of them work according
to the most primitive methods. The work
is carried on night and day by means of
petroleum lamps, the blocks of meerschaum

154

TOBACCO LEAVES

being brought to the surface still imbedded
in their matrix. On the weekly sale day
the workmen meet and sell their goods to
the " luledjis," or pipe manufacturers of
Eskichehir. The blocks are then taken to
the town and washed, after which they are
cut into suitable pieces while the matter
is still very soft. Sorting and classing is
then proceeded with, and the "iuledjis"
in their turn sell their purchases to the
larger dealers, who export the meerschaum,
carefully enveloped in cotton wadding.
Meerschaum is composed of about 70 per
cent, of carbonate of magnesia, 0.25 of
silex, and 0.05 of aluminum.

A CIGAR HELPS THOUGHT

ELIHU ROOT thinks that a cigar after
breakfast is the smoke of the day, and
there are many smokers who will agree with
him. He is reported as saying : " My

155

TOBACCO LEAVES

breakfast is a very simple meal, and con-
sists of a cup of coffee or chocolate and a
roll. When I have finished it, I light my
cigar. I find that it assists me in my work.
It does not aid me in the creation of ideas
so much, nor in reading or actual writing;
but when I want to prepare my plans for
the day, when I want to arrange and put
in shape* the work I have before me, I
find that smoking is a valuable assistant.
I never smoke a large cigar in the morn-
ing, and usually do not prolong the smoke
beyond the time it takes me to arrange my
day's programme. Altogether I should
say that I smoke five cigars a day. I have
smoked steadily for the past thirty years,
and during the first ten years I smoked a
pipe. It has been my experience that
smoking relieved me at any time when I
felt overworked. Consequently, if I find
at any time of day that my brain is get-
ting tired, and that my ideas are getting
156

TOBACCO LEAVES

muddled, I stop and light a cigar. I don't
think that smoking has a sedative effect
upon me, but it composes my thoughts and
soothes me to some extent."

A BETTER MAN FOB, SMOKING

WHEN the Bishop of Manchester lived
in Melbourne, Victoria, his open-air study
and smoking den was in his garden, under
the shade of a giant blue-gum-tree. A
lady visitor having once suggested that
tobacco was of Satanic origin, Bishop
Moorhouse replied : " Pardon me, madam.
I smoke, and I am a better Christian for
doing so. Do you read my letters in the
papers ? " The lady answered that she
did, with pleasure. " Do you ever see
anything discourteous or unkind in them ? "
" Certainly not ; I often remark how well
you keep your temper." " Well, madam,
the first drafts of these letters contained

157

TOBACCO LEAVES

the most cutting things I could think of.
Then I would go and sit on the butt of that
old gum-tree, light my pipe and have a
quiet smoke. After that I would return
to the house and strike out every line that
might give pain to others. So you see
smoking makes me a better Christian."

U U tJ
The Smoker's Paradise — Puffin Island.

WHEN your favourite cigar does not
taste good, do not put it away for ever.
You may not be in condition. Give it
another trial. If its light burns low re-
peatedly, bury its ashes among the mem-
ories of dead friendships, and — try an-
other brand.

158

TOBACCO LEAVES

TOBACCO AND THE HEART

THE New Orleans Times-Democrat gives
the following interesting interview on the
above subject: "I don't like to upset a
cherished tradition," said a doctor who is
himself a devotee of the weed, " but the
talk one hears of nicotine saturating the
system of smokers is mostly rot. Nicotine
is a deadly poison. One drop of it will
make a good-sized mastiff turn up his toes,
if injected subcutaneously, and it would
take precious little of it to kill a man.
The truth is that very little is absorbed,
even by the most confirmed smokers. Now
and then you read of men who die from
excessive tobacco using, and are found on
autopsy to be literally reeking with nico-
tine. All rubbish. Nothing of the kind
ever happened.

" Again, it's a favourite experiment to
blow smoke through a handkerchief, and

159

TOBACCO LEAVES

the stain that is produced is popularly
supposed to be made by nicotine. It is
really oil of tobacco, which is a horse of
quite a different colour. No, the chief
harm done by smoking is the stimulus
which it gives to the heart. This is par-
ticularly true where ' inhaling ' is prac-
tised. Each time the smoke is inhaled it
acts as a slight spur to the heart, and,
needless to say, there is sure to be a reac-
tion. If the smoker is in good general
health, he will probably never feel it; bu
if he isn't, there will be periods of pr
found depression, and, not knowing the
cause, he is apt to try to brace up on a
drink, which makes matters just that much
worse. If he has organic heart trouble
— valvular weakness, I mean — it's quite
possible that he will tumble over some day
and put his angel plumage on. Those are
the cold facts about smoking — none oth-
ers are genuine."
160

TOBACCO LEAVES

To a young man who stood smoking a
cigar the other day there approached the
elderly and impertinent reformer of im-
memorial legend.

" How many cigars do you smoke a
day ? " asked the meddler.

" Three," answered the youth, as pa-
tiently as he could.

" How much do you pay for them? "

" Ten cents," confessed the young man.

" Don't you know, sir," continued the
sage, " that if you would save that money,
by the time you are as old as I am you
could own that big building over the
way?"

" Do you own it? " inquired the smoker.

" No."

" Well, I do," said the young man.

U tJ U

IT'S an ill weed that nobody can smoke.

161

TOBACCO LEAVES
WENT AWAY SATISFIED

HE had asked for a certain brand of
cigars and was reaching in his pocket for
a coin, when something near the window
attracted his attention and caused him to
look around. When he faced the cigar
counter again, he saw the cigar girl do an
awful thing. She had his cigar on her
tongue and was pasting back the loose
wrapper. When she saw him, she blushed
and tried to stammer an apology.

" I prefer my cigars unlicked, if you
please," said the young man, in icy tones.

She looked up and answered humbly
and sweetly : " But I don't lick cigars for
every one. Have you thought of it in
that way?"

Evidently he hadn't, for he insisted on
taking the repaired cigar, and went away
with a smile of satisfaction. — Kansas
City Star.

162

TOBACCO LEAVES

GRANT'S CIGARS

" MY father," said General Frederick
D. Grant, " tried to smoke while at West
Point, but only because it was against the
regulations ; and then he didn't succeed
very well at it. He really got the habit
from smoking light cigars and cigarettes
during the Mexican war, but it wasn't a
fixed habit. When he left the army and
lived in the country, he smoked a pipe —
not incessantly. I don't think that he was
very fond of tobacco then, and really
there was always a popular misconception
of the amount of his smoking.

" But he went on as a light smoker, a
casual smoker, until the day of the fall of
Fort Donelson. Then, the gunboats hav-
ing been worsted somewhat and Admiral
Foote having been wounded, he sent
ashore for my father to come and see him.
Father went aboard, and the admiral, as

163

TOBACCO LEAVES

is customary, had his cigars passed. My
father took one and was smoking it when
he went ashore. There he was met by a
staff officer, who told him that there was
a sortie and the right wing had been
struck and smashed in. Then my father
started for the scenes of operations. He
let his cigar go out, naturally, but held it
between his fingers.

" He rode hither and yonder, giving or-
ders and directions, still with the cigar
stump in his hand. The result of his ex-
ertions was that Donelson fell after he
sent his message of ' unconditional sur-
render ' and ' I propose to move imme-
diately upon your works.' The message
was sent all over the country that Grant
was smoking throughout the battle, when
he only carried this stump from Foote's
flag-ship. But the cigars began to come in
from all over the Union. He had eleven
thousand cigars on hand in a very short

164*

TOBACCO LEAVES

time. He gave away all he could, but he
was so surrounded with cigars that he got
to smoking them regularly. But he never
smoked as much as he seemed to smoke.
He would light a cigar after breakfast
and let it go out, then light it again, and
then let it go out and light it ; so that the
one cigar would last until lunch-time." —
McClure's Magazine.

THE BEIAE - ROOT INDUSTEY

ME. CAEMICHAEL, British Vice-Consul
at Leghorn, devotes an interesting section
of the report on his district for the past
year to an account of the briar-root in-
dustry. The wood, he says, from which
briar pipes are made is not the root of the
briar rose, but the root of the large heath
known in botany as the Erica arborea.

165

TOBACCO LEAVES

Our " briar " is but a corruption of the
French bruyere — broom, or heath. The
briar-root industry has had a somewhat
curious history. First begun in the Pyr-
enees some fifty years ago, it travelled
along the French Riviera and the Ligu-
rian coast, taking Corsica by the way, to
the Tuscan Maremma, and it has now
reached Calabria in the south, which is at
present its most flourishing centre. Nat-
urally, when a district has been exhausted
of all its roots, the industry must come
to an end there, and the opinion has been
expressed that the Italian branch of it can-
not last much more than another ten years.

Leghorn has always been the centre of
the export of Tuscan briar-root since the
Maremma industry came into existence,
but, as the South Italian briar is of su-
perior quality, a large quantity of the
Calabrian root is also imported into Leg-
horn for selection and subsequent export.

166

TOBACCO LEAVES

The total export from Leghorn is esti-
mated at 50,000 cwt. per year, valued at
about £28,000. Fully half the export is
Calabrian root. All the root that arrives
in Leghorn has already been cut on the
spot into the shape in which it is exported
to the pipe-manufacturing centres, which
are principally, as regards Italian briar,
St. Cloud, in France, Nuremberg, in Ba-
varia, and various towns in Rhenish Prus-
sia and Thuringia. The roots, which are
sometimes of a circumference of two feet
or more, are cut into blocks and then
boiled.

If there is any defect in the root which
has not been discovered before the boiling
process, the blocks will split sooner or
later. Briar-root blocks are cut into about
twenty-five different sizes and three prin-
cipal shapes. The shapes are " Marseil-
laise," "releve," and "Belgian." The
first two are the more usual shapes; from

167

TOBACCO LEAVES

the first are cut the ordinary briar pipes,
which have bowl and stem at right angles ;
" releve " blocks are cut into a shape for
hanging pipes, and " Belgian " blocks, for
which there is but small demand, are
shaped to fashion into pipes which have
bowl and stem at an obtuse angle. The
minimum size of " Marseillaise " blocks is
about three inches long, two inches thick,
and one and a half inches broad.

The Calabrian blocks, selected at Leg-
horn and exported thence, seem to be in
favour with the trade, as they remain so
long on the dealer's hands that they would
be almost certain to split before export if
they were defective. A Leghorn dealer
who does his own cutting in Calabria has
first to send the roots by wagon to his
workshops, where they are boiled and cut,
thence again by wagon to the seacoast,
where they are placed in lighters for ship-
ment to Leghorn. At Leghorn they are

168

TOBACCO LEAVES

once more transferred to lighters and
placed in carts for transport to the ware-
houses, where they are unpacked for selec-
tion. They are then repacked in bales
and carted to the goods station for convey-
ance abroad. Hence a considerable amount
of time must elapse before they leave the
hands of a merchant who does his own cut-
ting in Calabria. A considerable number
of blocks are sent to the United States, but,
apparently, none whatever to the United
Kingdom.

CIGARETTES IN CHINATOWN

" IT is my belief," said an old resident
of New York, " that the Chinese were the
first to smoke cigarettes in this part of
the country. I remember the first China-
men who came to New York, some fifty
odd years ago. They were the curiosities
of the day, and with other small boys I

169

TOBACCO LEAVES

followed them about the streets in open-
mouthed wonder. They wore the long
flowing robes which have characterized
the garments of the race for three thou-
sand years, and the shining silk, queer
felt shoes, and long, dangling queues were
marvellous to the American beholders.
They carried fans in their hands, and
whenever the sun shone too strongly they
slapped them open, as they do on the
comic-opera stage, and shielded their
faces, but never used them to create cooler
air while in the street. But it was the
cigarette innovation that struck us with
most awe. None of the Chinamen was
engaged in the laundry business as now,
and the sale of tobacco — the strong Chi-
nese variety, which resembles our Loui-
siana Perique — and cigarettes seemed to
form their sole occupation. They kept
little stands on the street corners, and

170

TOBACCO LEAVES

there they would stand and roll cigarettes
all day long, and smoke and puff them
and blow the smoke through their nos-
trils, and make rings and go through all
the tricks of the fancy smoker until they
had gotten the more daring to purchase
their wares. After that it became a fad,
and the dandy of the day was the one
who could sport his eye-glass, rattan cane,
pointed shoes, and Chinese cigarette to ef-
fect the greatest show. I won't say that
it did not make a great many of the gen-
tlemen of fashion very sick. They could
smoke cigars, but the cigarette habit was
a novelty then, and the veteran of to-day
who consumes half a dozen packages in
twenty-four hours would laugh at the
amount of coughing and expectorating
and uneasiness caused by the consump-
tion of one of the slender articles brought
over by our heathen friends."

171

TOBACCO LEAVES
A DEY SMOKE

EVERY evening the 5.10 o'clock train to
Chestnut Hill from the Reading terminal
carries a young lawyer to his suburban
home. He always takes a seat in the
smoking-car, and, pulling a cigar from
his waistcoat pocket, carefully cuts off
the end and places it in his mouth. Then
he sits and reads his paper. Sometimes
the man sharing the seat with him will
offer a match or a light from his own
cigar, but it is invariably declined.
" When are you going to light that ci-
gar? " asked one of his fellow suburbanites
the other evening. " I don't know ; pos-
sibly never," was the reply. " You see.
I have heart trouble, and the doctor for-
bids me to smoke. It's been over five years
now since I've had a lighted cigar in my
mouth. But I love the odour of a cigar,
and that's why I always ride in the smok-

172

TOBACCO LEAVES

ing-car and indulge in a dry smoke myself.
I always like to have a cigar in my mouth,
and I use up a good many of them that
way. I used to smoke from twenty to
twenty-five cigars a day." — Philadelphia
Record.

TOBACCO IN WAR

THE war in South Africa has taught
many things of greater and of less im-
portance. Perhaps nothing that it has
demonstrated has been more marked than
the important part which tobacco plays
in the soldier's existence. Whether this
is to be reckoned as a great fact or a small
one, there can be no doubt about the truth
of it. Yet the Duke of Wellington's ar-
mies had no tobacco worth speaking of.
If they did not forbid its use, at any rate
the Iron Duke's officers were directed to
advise their men strongly against it.

173

TOBACCO LEAVES

What a curious contrast with the cam-
paigning in South Africa, where marches
and privations as long and as stern as any
suffered by our great-grandfathers were
borne by the volunteers and soldiers of
to-day, with a grumble only when their
" smokes " failed them.

We have it from many who took part
in the forced marches leading to Paarde-
berg, to Bloemfontein, to Pretoria, and
beyond, that when rations were but two
or three biscuits a day, the only real phys-
ical content of each twenty-four hours
came with the pipe smoked by the smoul-
dering embers of a camp-fire. This pipe
eased the way to sleep that might other-
wise have lingered, delayed by the sheer
bodily fatigue and mental restlessness
caused by prolonged and monotonous ex-
ertion. It is difficult, then, to believe that
tobacco is anything but a real help to
men who are suffering long labours and

174

TOBACCO LEAVES

receiving little food, and probably the
way in which it helps is by quieting cere-
bration — for no one doubts its sedative
qualities — and thus allowing more easily
sleep, which is so all-important when semi-
starvation has to be endured.

The cases of acute mental derangement
in the course of campaigns such as the
present are many. There have indeed been
many in South Africa. It would be most
profitable and interesting could medical
officers have taken special note of the ca-
pacity for sleep previously evidenced by
those who broke down and also of their
indulgence or non-indulgence in tobacco.
We are inclined to believe that, used with
due moderation, tobacco is of value second
only to food itself when long privations
and exertions are to be endured.

Two features are to be noted with re-
gard to the smoking practised in active
service. It is almost entirely in the open

175

TOBACCO LEAVES

air and it is largely on an empty stomach.
The former is always an advantage; the
latter we generally reckon a most unfa-
vourable condition. Shall we see in the
near future patients with tobacco ambly-
opia or smoker's heart, acquired while the
trusting friend of tobacco thought that
he was enjoying unharmed the well-earned
solace of a hard day's march? We believe
not, and that the open air will have saved
what might have been the untoward re-
sults of smoking when unfed. — London
Lancet.

HE is a poor moke who can't smoke.

THE older the pipe the sweeter the per-
fume. Like old friends who have been
tried by fire and never " smoked out "
stronger, more fragrant, more mellow.

176

TOBACCO LEAVES

" NOBODY comes whose talk is half as
good to me as silence. I fly out of the way
of everybody, and would much rather
smoke a pipe of wholesome tobacco than
talk to any one in London just now. Nay,
their talk is often rather an offence to
me, and I murmur to myself, — why open
one's lips for such a purpose." Poor Car-
lyle! tobacco was about the only thing in
which he took comfort.

WHAT THE MAN WITH THE BEIARWOOD

SAYS

WHEN we see womankind taking to-
bacco in the privacy of its own chamber,
with its feet on the fender, and " none to
supervise ; " more particularly when we
see it solacing itself with a pipe, then, but
not till then, shall we be forced to admit

177

TOBACCO LEAVES

" the sex " to the privilege of full equality
with us — a state of things which mascu-
line prejudice still considers must be the
highest circumstance of earthly bliss.

It is but a poor, shallow devotion to to-
bacco that is content with anything but a
pipe. The cigarette is well enough in its
way ; it may suffice " between the acts,"
or during similar brief escapes from a
smokeless world, or for offering to our
friends and neighbours as the best modern
substitute for the elaborate civility of the
snuff-box, but it rises not to the dignity
of serious smoking. The cigar, too, with
all its charms, leaves something to be de-
sired. It is too ostentatious, too obviously
a " luxury " to be really delightful. It
satisfies not; for somehow, far away, is
the Ideal cigar, not to be purchased by or-
dinary mortals, and yet, according to the
connoisseur, the only cigar worth smok-
ing. It has, too, an overwhelming sug-

178

TOBACCO LEAVES

gestion of respectability, of sparing no ex-
pense and always travelling first-class, of
faring sumptuously every day, of wearing
a very good hat all the week through,
and a still better one on Sunday. It
should be reserved for special occasions;
for ordinary, every-day consumption there
is nothing that can approach the familiar

Pipe-
There are pipes and pipes. Archaic

persons are still to be found who declare
for the churchwarden. There is, it is true,
something fascinating in its —

" Lip of wax and eye of fire,
And its snowy taper waist
With my fingers gently braced ! "

something also marvellously impressive in
its proper manipulation by one who is
a master of the art, but this is within
the reach of few. It needs its proper sur-

179

TOBACCO LEAVES

roundings — a blazing fire, a sanded floor,
a group of comfortable and, if possible,
capacious gentleman with a strong tend-
ency to silence and punch; none of which
are prominent characteristics of modern
society. The present-day smoker of the
churchwarden is something of a poseur,
as a rule; he is very young; eccentricities
in pipes are the privilege of the young,
being designed to impress those who are
still younger. And then, when it has been
successfully coloured, the labour of months
is apt to be destroyed by the implacable
housemaid. The old-fashioned smoker was
less susceptible to the sorrow of such a
calamity as this ; he was content to call,
like Sir Roger de Coverley, for a " clean
pipe," and apparently cared not for the
vanities of colouring. His pipe was but
the fortuitous companion of an evening,
wedded to him by no enduring ties, " called
for " at his coffee-house as though it was
180

TOBACCO LEAVES

merely a toothpick, to be used but once and
then cast away. But now we desire a more
permanent alliance, and so the day of the
churchwarden is past, and even its humbler
relation, the short clay, having the family
failing of brittleness, is disappearing.

There are devotees of the meerschaum;
but it is not every one who will undertake
such a responsibility. Its humours and its
delicacy become oppressive; it is not to
be touched with the hand or smoked out-
of-doors, nor too near the fire; nor to be
knocked out, or otherwise roughly treated ;
nor smoked too fast or too slow. And
then, with all our care, we find some happy-
go-lucky individual, apparently the espe-
cial favourite of the Goddess of the Weed,
who does all these forbidden things, and
still gets his pipe to a state of perfection
which the more painstaking person attains
but in his dreams. There is something
distinctly irrational in a meerschaum pipe;

181

TOBACCO LEAVES

we may wax it, plug it, humour it in every
possible way, and yet it will not go right ;
and then, when we set at defiance all the
canons that the collected wisdom of meer-
schaum smokers has formed, it will assume
such colour and brilliancy as to be the
marvel of all beholders. One is tempted
to doubt whether the law of casualty ap-
plies to meerschaum. They have their
charms ; they may gratify the aesthetic
sense with eagles' claws and negroes' heads
and skulls and other delightful and fan-
tastic figures; and when brought to per-
fection may inspire legitimate pride; but
they demand too much of sacrifice and
tender treatment. Doubtless they are good
masters, but they are bad servants; it is
not every one who will submit to their
exactions.

In the modest briar there is less poten-
tiality of splendour ; but still it has graces
enough to win for itself the adherence of

182

TOBACCO LEAVES

the great bulk of those who profess the
cult of the pipe. There are some, indeed,
who have no eyes for its idiosyncrasies,
and, being severely utilitarian, think all
pipes alike. But the connoisseur in briars
is a nice and subtle critic. The selection
of a new pipe he considers a serious mat-
ter. He will tolerate nothing but his fa-
vourite grain ; he can foresee the possibil-
ities of colour and potash; is not deceived
by meretricious pluggings and varnishing;
and his pipes gleam and glitter in the
firelight like newly shelled horse-chestnuts.
It is a thankless thing to present him with
a pipe ; indeed, the presentation of smok-
ing implements generally is a perilous
practice for the unwary, and one which
only feminine ignorance will, as a rule,
attempt. The pipe of that class described
as " suitable for presents " is a frightful
trap for the well-intentioned; in silver
fittings and plush-lined cases it is indeed

183

TOBACCO LEAVES

resplendent, but it will move the initiate
in the cult almost to tears. It is disfigured
by all sorts of horrible improvements ; has,
as a rule, patent sanitary arrangements
of the most complex and unnecessary na-
ture; things which the seasoned smoker
cannot tolerate. The choice of a pipe is
a thing to be left to the expert; and for
him to delegate the office is the highest
mark of confidence he can bestow. — Lon-
don Globe.

SENTIMENTALISTS have frequently be-
wailed the passing of the noble redman.
They say that he is disappearing with the
other denizens of the once free and track-
less plains. Civilization is wiping them
all out. The buffalo has vanished before
the furbelow, and where the wild antelope
once roamed, the tame cantaloupe now
thrives. In a few years hence there will

184

be no more aborigines except on football
teams and in Wild West shows. It is very
sad.

But, strange to say, nobody has seemed
to notice that the wooden Indian is also
becoming extinct. Time was when wooden
Indians were as plentiful as pledges be-
fore a primary. In those halcyon days
a tobacco store without a painted warrior
extending a bundle of cigars in one hand
and brandishing a hatchet in the other was
as incomplete as " Hamlet " minus the
Melancholy Dane. At present New Or-
leans might be scoured from end to end
without discovering enough wooden Indi-
ans to make the head set at a ghost dance.
As a matter of fact there is only one gen-
uine, old-time wooden Indian left in the
entire city. He is the last of the Mohi-
cans. There are a few others, but they are
fake Indians made of terra cotta. They
are not the real stuff.

185

TOBACCO LEAVES

This singular discovery was made in a
singular manner. Ever since Tammany
Hall, in New York city, acquired national
prominence, Indian names and titles have
been popular among local Democratic or-
ganizations. New Orleans, for example,
has its Choctaw Club, and elsewhere such
tribal appellations as Wyandotte, Chero-
kee, Arapahoe, Navahoe, and even Black-
foot have distinguished the societies of
the faithful. Among the many Southern
clubs which have followed this picturesque
and pleasant custom is that of Donaldson-
ville, La. It calls itself " The Mohawk."

When the name was determined upon,
not long ago, the officers of the organiza-
tion were seized with a happy inspiration,
namely, to secure a large and robust
wooden Indian and station him as a sen-
try in the vestibule. Such an effigy, as
they very sensibly argued, would not only
form a neat and appropriate emblem of the

186

TOBACCO LEAVES

order of Donaldsonville Mohawks, but
would lend dignity and impressiveness to
the outer portals and scare away any boozy
wanderer who might seek to penetrate the
inner secrets. It would be easy, they felt
assured, to remove the bunch of cigars
from the chieftain's right hand and sub-
stitute a ballot-box or a copy of the club's
charter.

Nobody dreamed that there would be
the slightest difficulty in securing a suit-
able Indian in a city the size of New Or-
leans, and a commission to that effect was
promptly forwarded to a trusted friend
who stands high in the counsels of the local
Choctaws.

" Purchase for us immediately," it ran
in substance, " one full-grown wooden In-
dian of good moral character, and send per
earliest freight, accompanied by draft and
bill of lading. P. S. — Do not send us
any cast-iron or crockery Indians. Cut

187

TOBACCO LEAVES

a splinter off of him before closing trade
and see that he is sure enough wood."

The gentleman who undertook this in-
teresting and delicate mission had a vague
idea that he could encounter a wooden
Indian on almost any corner in the busi-
ness district. What, therefore, was his
amazement to learn that wooden Indians
had long since disappeared from the haunts
of commerce.

" You might as well look for a plesiosau-
rus in Lake Pontchartrain," said a scien-
tific friend. " The wooden Indian has be-
come entirely extinct."

However, after a long and patient
search, one lone survivor was discovered.
He was found guarding the entrance of
a tobacco store on Camp Street, and it
needed no second glance to determine that
he was a relic from the remote and legend-
ary past. In spite of fresh war paint and
varnish, he carried abundant evidences of

188

TOBACCO LEAVES

antiquity. His Roman nose was fractured
from some forgotten fall, his legs were
scarred by the pocket-knives of vandals
innumerable, his left arm was evidently a
restoration, and from scalp-lock to moc-
casin his weather-beaten frame bore heavy
traces of the touch of time.

His origin is enveloped in mystery, but
according to tradition he has stood at his
present post for more than forty years.
Historical personages are said to have re-
clined against his breast when overcome
by fatigue on their way home from lodge ;
there are even stories — but let that pass.
Suffice it to say he is a landmark — a red-
man with a record.

Nor has he figured before the public
solely in the character of a curbstone sen-
try. On more than one occasion he has
been borrowed to lend realism to a sidewalk
setting on the stage. His last appearance
in that capacity was when he enacted the

189

TOBACCO LEAVES

role of a cigar sign in the comedy of
" McFadden's Flats " at the Tulane Thea-
tre. It was thought by many that he was
the best actor in the cast.

But to resume the thread of the story:
Overjoyed at the discovery of so unmis-
takable an antique, the representative of
the Donaldsonville Mohawks lost no time
in interviewing the present proprietors.
His proposition was received coldly, al-
most with indignation. Part with the only
adult wooden Indian in New Orleans ! Rob
the city of a statue older and uglier than
Henry Clay! Oddsblood! Perish the
thought ! The offer was turned down, also
spurned.

But the Donaldsonville Mohawks were
not so easily thwarted. When advised of
the situation, their yearning for a wooden
Indian was, if anything, redoubled. The
braves and sachems laid their heads to-

190

TOBACCO LEAVES

gether and wrote their agent to make
another and more tempting bid. This has
been done, and whether the second prop-
osition will fare better than the first re-
mains to be seen. The figure is alluring,
but, if accepted, New Orleans will be with-
out a wooden Indian to its name. That
is to say, without a full-grown wooden
Indian. There are others, as already
stated, but they are either pigmies in stat-
ure or counterfeits in material. Moreover,
the art of making wooden Indians is lost.
So far as can be learned, there is nobody
at present in the business. It has passed
into desuetude with the carving of figure-
heads for ships.

The only other old-time wooden effigy
of heroic size now in New Orleans is the
ancient admiral who has squinted through
a sextant at upper Canal Street ever since
the year of grace 1856. He was made in

191

TOBACCO LEAVES

London, and belongs to the tribe beloved
of Captain Cuttle. — New Orleans Demti-
crat.

THE END.

192

SECT. DEC I* 1978

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

GT Bain, John

3020 Tobacco leaves

B35