Thomas Croxen Archer

“ Whether it is positively injurious, and has a tendency to deteriorate the human race when used, is an all-important question, which every year becomes more difficult to solve, because the rapidity with which the habit is extending is in a corresponding degree lessening the opportunities for comparison, and consequently diminishing the proofs against the habit. ”

“ Its use in America, as we learn from Humboldt, is very ancient, and its cultivation by the natives of one district at least, viz., the banks of the Oronoko, dated far back from the time of the European invasion; and if the cigar is entitled to the character it generally has, of being the most refined mode of using the weed, the use of tobacco cannot boast many improvements since its introduction, for Columbus found the natives of Cuba smoking cigars in 1492, when he landed on their coast; and to this day they can fairly challenge the whole world with “real Havannas.” ”

“ We learn from Herodotus that the Assyrians and Scythians intoxicated themselves by smoking; this, however, may have been by means of the hemp plant, still used in Asia and Africa for purposes of intoxication, by smoking and chewing, under the names of Haschish and Bang. Several writers of great authority have however contended that the practice of smoking tobacco was known in India before the discovery of America. ”

“ Cuba not only produces the best cigars, but also the best materials for making them, as a matter of course; and no cheroots equal those of Manilla, whence leaf-tobacco of exceedingly fine quality is also sent to Europe.
Besides cigars and cheroots, cigarettes form another mode of using the material much used in foreign countries. In Great Britain, the methods of manufacturing tobacco are various, but the principal is by cutting it with machines into fine filaments. ”

“ These kinds are favourites with those who chew tobacco. Besides smoking and chewing, tobacco is used as a sternutatory by inhaling through the nose, and the practice of snuff-taking in Britain is nearly coeval with smoking; the habit, which is highly objectionable in many respects, especially in a sanitary point of view, is certainly declining. ”

“ The tobacco of Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, which forms by far the greatest portion of that consumed in this country, consists of the leaves tied simply at their stalks in bunches, called hands, or of parts of the leaves with the stalks and midribs removed. ”

“ Gladstone now proposes to allow British manufacturers to make Cavendish and Negrohead, under the supervision of the Revenue Department, in bonded warehouses, and to use so much saccharine matter as will enable them to compete with the American manufacturers. The provisions of the Bill are however so clumsy that it seems scarcely possible they can ever be practically applied, and the expense of carrying them out bids fair to exceed any advantages likely to arise. Why should not the raw material be handed over to the manufacturer to do as he likes with it when he has paid the duty? ”

“ The forms under which tobacco enters into commerce are more numerous than many will suppose. In the simplest form, that is, when it appears only as dried leaves, it has really undergone a degree of manufacture ”

“ Ex fumo dare lucem cannot apply to that vast cloud which is raised by the smokers of Great Britain at a yearly expense to themselves of upwards of six millions of pounds sterling, and which cannot be positively proved to be beneficial to any but the small class of merchants and manufacturers who deal in this article, and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. ”

“ This kind is very rare and costly, and is said to be the finest manufactured tobacco in the world. Since 1851, Turkey has sent large quantities of a small yellow leaf-tobacco, which is said to be derived from the species known botanically as Nicotiana rustica; it is mild-flavoured, and has become a favourite with smokers in England. The Germans, also, send us a small quantity, but of an inferior quality; the principal use of the German tobacco is to form the covering of cigars ”

“ Whatever may be the truth in this respect, it is quite certain that the habit seems unnatural to the animal economy, and that its known effects are in antagonism to our best supported views of alimentary philosophy. ”