Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 15

And there is the luxury of carriage-keeping, in many instances very detrimental to the health of women, by entirely depriving them of the use of their legs. Now, you cannot keep a carriage a-going quite as cheaply as a pipe.

Many a fine meerschaum keeps up its cheerful fire on a s.h.i.+lling a-week. I am not advocating a sumptuary law to put down carriages and cookery; I desire only to say that people who indulge in these expensive and wholly superfluous luxuries, have no right to be so hard on smokers for their indulgence.

"Nearly every gentleman who drinks good wine at all will drink the value of half-a-crown a-day. The ladies do not blame him for this. Half-a-dozen gla.s.ses of good wine are not thought an extravagance in any man of fair means, but women exclaim when a man spends the same amount in smoking cigars. The French habit of coffee-drinking and the English habit of tea-drinking are also cases in point. They are quite as expensive as ordinary Tobacco-smoking, and, like it, defensible only on the ground of the pleasurable sensation they communicate to the nervous system. But these habits are so universal that no one thinks of attacking them, unless now and then some persecuted smoker in self-defence.

"Tea and tobacco are alike seductive, delicious, and deleterious. The two indulgences will, perhaps, become equally necessary to the English world. It is high treason to the English national feeling to say a word against tea, which is now so universally recognized as a national beverage that people forget it comes from China, and that it is both alien and heathen. Still, I mean no offence when I put tea in the same category with Tobacco. Now, who thinks of lecturing us on the costliness of tea? And yet it is a mere superfluity. The habit of taking it as we do is unknown across the Channel, and was quite unknown amongst ourselves a very little time ago, when English people were no less proud of themselves and their customs than they are now, and perhaps with equally good reason. A friend of mine tells me that he smokes every day, at a cost of about sixpence a-week. Now, I would like to know in what other way so much enjoyment is to be bought for sixpence. Fancy the satisfaction of spending sixpence a-week in wine! It is well enough to preach about the selfishness of this expenditure; but we all spend more selfishly, and we all love pleasure, and I should very much like to see that cynic whose pleasures cost less than sixpence a-week."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Egyptian pipes.]

The Egyptian pipes, especially those of modern date are exceedingly fanciful in shape and resemble somewhat the pipes used by the Persians. Many of them are made of clay and are sold very cheap.[54]

The Chinese use a variety of pipes but all of them have small bowls for the tobacco. Some of their pipes are made of bra.s.s and attached to the pipe is a receptacle for water, so as to cool the smoke before it pa.s.ses into the mouth. The j.a.panese use both copper and silver pipes, most of them similar in shape and size to those used by the Chinese.

[Footnote 54: Watlin says of smoking in Egypt: "Tobacco is tolerated, and seems to become more common again, though a smoker is generally disliked and not allowed to perform the part of Imam or rehea.r.s.e, of the prayers, before a congregation. The greater part of the people, however, detest and condemn still the use of tobacco, and I remember a Shaumar Bedawry who a.s.sured me that he would not carry that abominable herb on his Camel, even if a load of gold were given him."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.panese pipes.]

A writer says of smoking among the j.a.panese:

"Let us sit down to a good j.a.panese dinner--down on the floor. Food on the floor. Fire and cigars or pipes on the floor. Sit on your heels, waiting. Enter first course--Fish-skin soup. Smoke. Third--Fish, cake and bean-cheese. Smoke. Fourth--Row fish and horse-radish.

Smoke. Fifth--Broiled fish. Smoke again, Sixth--Custard soup. Smoke. Seventh--Chicken stew, turnips and onions.

Smoke a little. Eighth--Cuttle-fish, wafer cakes, Nipon tea.

Here, if tired you can stop at the end of about two hours'

ankle-ache. All is cleanly, well spiced with talk, and served with the utmost politeness. Sipping tea may be subst.i.tuted for the infinitesimal whiffs of polite smoking.

A grand dinner is much more elaborate; at least, so far as the variety of smokes is concerned. After dinner, rest and smoke."

An English writer could very appropriately call this a cloud of smoke as he has another scene herein described.

"'Tis all smoke, possibly, but what cannot we discern, through a cloud of smoke? Objects dim, but

'Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallambrosa.'

Be the medium of the smoke an honest 'churchwarden,' a short clay, or a costly meerschaum; does the smoke emanate from a refined Havana, a neat Manilla, or a dainty cigarette, such as we are at this moment enjoying as a sequel to a modest breakfast, 'tis all smoke."

We have thus given a somewhat lengthy description of the custom and implements used in smoking, from the first discovery of the plant until now, and turn to other implements used in connection with the pipe. We, however, give the following from Cop's "Tobacco Plant,"

descriptive of the part played by tobacco on the stage two centuries ago:

"The 'Return from Parna.s.sus' was published anonymously, and the copy I have used is dateless. It was 'publicly acted by the students of St. John's College in Cambridge.' In Act I., Scene 2d, characters are given of Spenser, Ben Jonson, Marlow, Drayton, Marston and Shakespeare, together with some other of the known poets and dramatists of the Elizabethan age. It contains many references to tobacco. In 'Act IV., Scene 1st,' the characters are thus placed: 'Sir Rodericke and Prodigo at one corner of the stage, Recorder and Amaretto at the other. Two pages scouring of Tobacco pipes.'

Actual smoking from tobacco-pipes was introduced on the stage afterwards; and instances from the early dramas have been given by the writers on tobacco history. In the second scene of Act III. smoking is alluded to as one of the marks of the current man of fas.h.i.+on, and is coupled with that of wearing love-locks, which was to prove such a scandal to the Puritans. 'He gins to follow fas.h.i.+ons. He wore thin sireduelt in a smooky roofe, must take tobacco and must weare a locke.' 'Work for Chimney Sweepers, or a Warning against Tobacconists, by J. H.,' was published in quarto in the year 1602.

"It was answered in the same year by the anonymous 'Defence of Tobacco,' a quarto of seventy pages. The author of the attack followed the line of King James, or, I should rather say, showed him the line to take, for the King's 'Counterblast' did not appear until he had been King of England for some years. The book is divided into sections, each section being called 'A Reason.' The seventh 'Reason'

against the use of tobacco is, that the devil is the discoverer and suggester of smoking. 'It was first used and practised,' says J. H., 'by devils, priests, and, therefore, not to be used by us Christians. That the devil was the first author hereof. Monardus, in his 'Treatise of Tabaco,'

dooth sufficiently witnesse, saying: The Indian priests, who, no doubt, were instruments of the devil, whom they serve, even before they answer to questions propounded to them by their princes, drinke of this tobacco-fume, with the vigour and strength whereof they fall suddenly to the ground as dead men, remaining so according to the quant.i.ty of smoke that they had taken. And when the hearbe hath done his worke, they revive and wake, giving answers according to the vissions and illusions which they saw while they were wrapt in that order.' It is not unlikely that J. H.'s authority had confused opium with tobacco.

"It was the opinion of the age that every Pagan deity had a real existence in the world of evil spirits. After further quotations of Monardus, to prove that the devil is 'the author of Tobacco, and of the knowledge thereof,' J. H.

concludes his seventh reason by declaring, 'Wherefore in mine opinion this practice is more to be excluded of us Christians, who follow Veritie and Truth, and detest and abhor the devil as a lyar and deceiver of mankind.' In the first year of this century, pipes were not only exhibited, but were used upon the stage. They seem at first to have been smoked, not during 'the induction.' In the induction to Ben Jonson's 'Cynthia's Revels' (1601), the Third Child says: 'Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much ado; and here take my place, and sit down, I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin.' The Third Child thereupon smokes; but it seems as if the smoking on the stage was a kind of protest against a prior smoking in the pit. In John Webster's 'Malcontent,' as augmented by John Marston in 1604, Sly says in the introduction: 'Come, coose, (coz or goose!) let's take some tobacco.'

"In 'The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street,' published in 1607, and attributed by some to Shakespeare, tobacco-taking or tobacco-drinking (as smoking was then usually called) appears no longer in the induction, but in the play itself, Idle, the highwayman, says to the old soldier, Skirmish, 'Have you any tobacco about you?' Idle being supplied, smokes a pipe on the stage. These extracts, however, may have been cited before, together with others of like character in the great days of the English Drama. Pipes continued to appear upon the stage until its abolition (in company with the Prayer Book) by the Puritan rulers. They reappeared on the stage of the Restoration. In Thomas Shadwell's 'Virtuos' (1676),--to take one instance,--Mirando and Clarinda fling away Snarl's cane, hat and periwig, and break his pipes, because he 'takes nasty tobacco before ladies.'"

There is printed evidence, however, in this same period to show not only that all the English ladies of the time were not enemies to tobacco, but that some of them were themselves smokers. In 1674 an anonymous quarto appeared under the t.i.tle of "The Women's Pet.i.tion against Coffee." It was a protest against the growing influence of the coffee-houses in seducing men away from their homes to sit together making mischief and drinking "this boiled soot." It was answered in the same year by "The Men's Answer to the Women's Pet.i.tion." After speaking of the providential introduction of coffee into England in the midst of the Puritan epoch, when Englishmen wanted some kind of drink which would "at once make them sober and merry," the writer glorifies the coffee-house.

John Taylor, "the Water Poet," made a kind of compromise when he attributed the introduction of tobacco, not to the devil, but to Pluto,--"Pluto's Proclamation concerning his Infernal Pleasure for the Propagation of Tobacco." It appears in the folio collection of his works of the year 1628. The confusion of tobacco with opium and such destructive drugs seems to have been common with the travelers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. Camerarius, in his "Historical Meditations," translated into English by John Malle (folio, 1621), speaks of tobacco as to be seen growing in many gardens throughout Europe. He quotes Jerome Benzo as saying that in Hispaniola "there be among them some that take so much of it, as their senses being all overcome and made drunke with the same, they fell down flat to the ground as if they were dead, and there lie without sense or feeling most part of the day or of the night."

The tobacco-box, during the reign of Elizabeth, was no unimportant part of a dandy's outfit; sometimes a pouch or bag was used.

Tobacco-boxes came into general use in England soon after the introduction of tobacco, and were much sought after by all who "drank"

tobacco. Marston, the Duke of New Castle, and other dramatists, alluded to the tobacco-box as a part of the smoker's outfit; thus in the play of "The Man in the Moone" (1609), one character, in answer to an inquiry who one of the company is, answers: "I know not certainly, but I think he cometh to play you a fit of mirth, for I behelde pipes in his pocket; now he draweth forth his tinder-box and his touchwood, and falleth to his tacklings; sure his throate is on fire, the smoke flyeth so fast from his mouth; blesse his beard with a bason of water, lest he burn it; some terrible thing he taketh, it maketh him pant and look pale, and hath an odious taste, he spitteth so after it."

The tobacco boxes of the Seventeenth Century were much larger than those of the present. Some of them held a pound of tobacco besides s.p.a.ce for a number of pipes.

Many of them were made of bra.s.s while others were fas.h.i.+oned from horn:

"There is also a simple and ingenious tobacco-box used frequently in ale-houses, 'which keeps its own account,'

with each smoker and acts also as a money-box. It is kept on parlor tables for the use of all comers; but none can obtain a pipe-full, till the money is deposited through a hole in the lid. A penny dropped in, causes a bolt to unfasten, and allow the smoker to help himself from a drawer full of tobacco. His honor is trusted so far as not to take more than his pipe-full, and he is reminded of it by a verse engraved on the lid:--

'The custom is, before you fill, 'To put a penny in the till.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Engraved boxes.]

Some of the tobacco boxes were made of silver and beautifully engraved with fancy sketches, historical scenes, or representations of personages, landscapes, flowers, etc. The late Duke of Suss.e.x had a large collection of pipes and tobacco boxes.

A journal describing them says of the collection: "The Duke of Suss.e.x had a wonderful collection of these, the values attached to some of them being almost fabulous. One example from the work-shop of Vienna--long celebrated for this description of art,--represented the combat of Hector and Achilles, the cover of the pipe being a golden hemlet cristatus of the Grecian type."

Swiss and Tyrolean artists also produce exquisite carving, but use wood as a material; and in the famous collection of Baron de Watteville will be found a marvelous piece of carving representing Bellerophon overturning the Chimera. But French pipes are the most interesting of all to collectors, from the fact that tobacco was introduced into that country long before it was known in England, and also from the ingenuity of a people who can give interest of various kinds to what might seem a simple and prosaic branch of manufacture. In the sentiment of the following lines on "A pipe of Tobacco" by John Usher, all lovers of the plant will heartily join:

"Let the toper regale in his tankard of ale, Or with alcohol moisten his thropple, Only give me I pray, a good pipe of soft clay, Nicely tapered, and thin in the stopple; And I shall puff, puff, let who will say enough, No luxury else I'm in lack o', No malice I h.o.a.rd, 'gainst Queen, Prince, Duke or Lord, While I pull at my pipe of Tobacco.

"When I feel the hot strife of the battle of life, And the prospect is aught but enticin', Mayhap some real ill like a protested bill, Dims the suns.h.i.+ne that tinged the horizon; Only let me puff, puff,--be they ever so rough, All the sorrows of life I lose track o', The mists disappear, and the vista is clear, With a soothing mild pipe of Tobacco.

"And when joy after pain, like the sun after rain, Stills the waters, long turbid and troubled, That life's current may flow, with a ruddier glow, And the sense of enjoyment be doubled,-- Oh! let me puff, puff, till I feel _quantum suff_, Such luxury still I'm in lack o', Be joy ever so sweet, it would be incomplete, Without a good pipe of tobacco.

"Should my recreant muse,--Sometimes apt to refuse The guidance of bit and of bridle, Still blankly demur, spite of whip and of spur, Unimpa.s.sioned, inconstant, or idle; Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries enough, Such excitement is all I'm in lack o', And the poetic vein soon to fancy gives reign, Inspired by a pipe of Tobacco.

"And when with one accord, round the jovial board, In friends.h.i.+p our bosoms are glowing; While with toast and with song we the evening prolong, And with nectar the goblets are flowing; Still let us puff, puff--be life smooth, be it rough, Such enjoyment we're ever in lack o'; The more peace and goodwill will abound as we fill A jolly good pipe of Tobacco."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tobacco jars.]

The tobacco jar is another accessory of more recent date than tobacco pipes but interesting from the varieties of style and shapes. The finest are made of porcelain and are lavish in design and enrichment.

Of all the articles of the smokers' paraphernalia none however exhibit more fanciful designs than Tobacco-stoppers used by smokers for crowding the tobacco into the pipe while smoking. The author of "A Paper of Tobacco" says:

"This was the only article on which the English smoker prided himself. It was made of various materials--wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver: and the forms which it a.s.sumed were exceedingly diversified. Out of a collection of upwards of thirty tobacco-stoppers of different ages, from 1688 to the present time, the following are the most remarkable: a bear's tooth tipped with silver at the bottom, and inscribed with the name of Captain James Rogers of the Happy Return whaler, 1688; Dr. Henry Sacheverel in full canonicals, carved in ivory, 1710; a boat, a horse's hind leg, Punch, and another character in the same Drama, to wit: his Satanic majesty; a countryman with a flail; a milkmaid; an emblem of Priopus; Hope and Anchor; the Marquis of Granby; a greyhound's head and neck; a paviour's rammer; Lord Nelson; the Duke of Wellington; and Bonaparte. The tobacco-stopper was carried in the pocket or attached to a ring worn on the finger."

In Butler's Hudibras it is alluded to in connection with the astronomer's sign.

"----Bless us! quoth he, It is a planet now I see; And if I err not, by his proper Figure that's like tobacco-stopper, It should be Saturn!"

In James Boswell's "Shrubs of Parna.s.sus" (1760) a description in verse of the various kinds of tobacco-stoppers is given:

"O! let me grasp thy waist, be thou of wood Or levigated steel, for well 'tis known Thy habit is disease. In iron clad Sometimes thy feature roughen to the sight, And oft transparent art thou seen in gla.s.s, Portending frangibility. The son Of laboring mechanism here displays Exuberance of skill. The curious knot, The motley flourish winding down the sides, And freaks of fancy pour upon the view Their complicated charms, and as they please, Astonish. While with glee thy touch I feel, No harm my fingers dread. No fractured pipe I ask, or splinters aid, wherewith to press The rising ashes down. Oh! bless my hand, Chief when thou com'st with hollow circle crowned With sculptured signet, bearing in thy womb The treasured Cork-screw. Thus a triple service In firm alliance may'st thou boast."

Tobacco-stoppers were often made of wood from some relic like a celebrated tree or mansion which gave additional value by its historic a.s.sociations. Taylor alludes to several made from the well known Glas...o...b..ry thorn. He says:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tobacco stoppers.]