Cigar smoke

“ It is the almost universal custom of those addicted to the cigarette to inhale the smoke, which is the exception with the pipe and cigar smoker. But nicotine is not the only poison generated in the cigarette even where tobacco is not combined with opium or other drugs used to contribute to its flavor and aroma; the combustion of tobacco with the rice paper in which it is rolled makes a compound which is neither tobacco smoke nor paper smoke, but an alkaloid known as acrolein, “the name of which is known to all scientists and the smell of which is known to everyone.” ”

“ To smoke a cigar is not much more than a hobby. The cigarette is a passion, a vice.
The cigarette is intoxicating. If one inhales the aromatic smoke, draws it deep into one’s lungs, into blood and nerves, one feels that this narcotic wonder-poison liberates the soul from a profane pressure, and one’s spirit is lured to lighter and brighter regions. Intoxication is the sweet magic of the cigarette, and, therefore, the cigarette is inseparable from all extravagant enjoyments. The cigarette is in the gambling den. It can be found always where they drink champagne. ”

“ In the opinion of experienced smokers a new cigar is never good; like wine, the weed requires age to bring it to perfection—the highly prized excellences, a mild, cool aromatic smoke. Curiously enough, the marks of a mite on the outer leaf are the true signs of matured years, when the cigar is fitted to regale the jaded senses and dispose the most obdurate of men to relax into sociality. ”

“ The smoker may obviate any slight harmful effects of these substances by care. If he is a cigar smoker he must avoid chewing or sucking the butt end of the cigar in which the acqueous solution finally gathers, and he would find it better to smoke long thin cigars which afford a small area behind the burning point for the collection of acqueous vapor and give a better combustion. ”

“ Thus the smoke which the smoker keeps for half a minute in his mouth is cooled and condensed, and reflects white light—is, in fact, a white cloud—when he puffs it out, and contrasts strongly with the blue cloud coming off from the burning tobacco at the lighted end of the cigar. ”

“ If you do smoke something, beware—oh, beware!—of the native English cigar. When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking purposes it is also open to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is. The flames smolder in the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the smoke sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and when the firemen arrive you are a ruined tenement. ”

“ Cigar-smoking is a sort of devil-may-care imitation of the vulgar by gentlemen, and is no more requisite for health or amusement than whiskey, dice, or cards. It is amusing in the extreme to see old fellows aping extreme juvenility, and professing to smoke before breakfast; and it is ridiculous to see young gentlemen, very young and very green, cigar in mouth, fancying it very manly and very independent to imitate a rough, weather-beaten sailor or soldier, who, not being able to smoke a cigar, sticks to the pipe. ”

“ Leaving him the vials of digitalis and strychnine, therefore, I went back, and dined solus on my own car, indulging at the end in a cigar, the smoke of which would keep turning into pictures of Miss Cullen. I have thought about those pictures since then, and have concluded that when cigar-smoke behaves like that, a man might as well read his destiny in it, for it can mean only one thing. ”

“ The smoke of our cigar is the only wholesome aroma that rises amid these stifling rooms. The perfume of flowers could never pierce through the weight of this dense atmosphere, but would fall back again and die amid the petals whence it arose; even the strong sweet-smelling May-blossoms would struggle in vain to disperse the poison of this motionless air.
Now we have reached the room, we cannot see what forms are before us, so little light streams in through that “dirt-ditched” and cobweb-covered casement, which appears as if it were never opened,{231} ”

“ They came and began their feast as usual, but soon their sense of taste told them there was some mistake and they retired vigorously rubbing their mouth parts to take away the puckering sensation of the alum.
Cigar smokers who really enjoy the weed confess that they cannot tell except by sight when the cigar goes out. In the dark they keep right on drawing air through the cigar, and the pleasure of the smoke seems to be in nowise diminished after the cigar is out unless the smoker discovers he has no light. ”

“ There is a sentiment-exciting power [64] in the smoke of tobacco when perceived by the eye, as well as a pleasing sedative effect when inhaled; and those smokers who have any doubt of the fact should take a pipe with their eyes closed. A person who smokes with his eyes shut cannot very well tell whether his cigar is lighted or not. How soothing is a pipe or a cigar to a wearied sportsman, on his return to his inn from the moors! As he sits quietly smoking, he thinks of the absent friends whom he will gratify with presents of grouse ”

“ The cigar-smoker absorbs more poison than the cigarette-smoker, and the latter in turn than those who smoke pipes, while the smoker who takes the precaution of using a narghilie, or any other apparatus which conducts the smoke through water, reduces the deleterious effects of tobacco to a minimum. ”

“ When lighted it should burn evenly, and not to one side; it should carry a two-inch ash without endangering your coat, and if laid aside for three or four minutes, should still be alight when taken up again. It is worth remembering the golden rule known to the lovers of the fragrant weed, namely, when holding a lighted cigar, always to keep the burning end turned upwards, so that the smoke may escape into the air—never downwards, as that causes the smoke to pass through the body of the cigar. ”

“ But out of a thousand smokers not one hesitates to puff out volumes of smoke into a room where women or children that do not smoke are breathing the atmosphere. Even if smokers are accustomed to ask of those present, "Is it disagreeable to you?"—they all know that the usual reply is, "Oh, we like it!"—notwithstanding the fact that it cannot be pleasant for one not smoking to breathe the vitiated air, and to find stinking cigar-ends in glasses, cups, and plates, on candlesticks or even in ash-trays. ”

“ Some of the ladies are said to be very beautiful; but they have one practice, which is very disgusting—​that of smoking cigars. They carry their cigars in a gold, or silver case, suspended by a ribbon at their side; and as soon as one cigar is exhausted, another is lighted; and they only cease to smoke, when they eat or sleep. ”

“ A "Savage" has been known to make himself ill by smoking cigar after cigar solely for the pleasure of colouring his mouthpiece sooner than his fellows. No one cares about the flavour of the tobacco; the only important point is to draw the smoke in such a way as to colour the meerschaum equally all over. Now and again taking out a fine cambric handkerchief, the smoker will spend many minutes in rubbing the pipe with the most delicate care, while his spirit reposes in sweet abstraction from all earthly cares. ”

“ The greater number of the people in the streets are negroes and mulattos; even in the shops one sees mulattos, especially in the cigar-shops. Cigars are smoked universally, especially a small kind called cigaritos. The coloured population seem to intoxicate themselves with tobacco-smoke. I frequently see negroes and mulattos sitting dozing before the shops with cigars in their mouths. The calashero, when he waits before a house, alights, seats himself by the carriage, smokes and shuts his eyes in the sunshine. But where goes all the smoke? How can it be? It must be absorbed by the sea-air. ”

“ Cigarettes are still more injurious than cigars because of the smoke from their paper coverings; also, because from the way they are made, more of the tobacco poison goes into the lungs. The cheap cigarette which boys use is made from cast-away cigar stumps and other filthy things. ”

“ When within about one mile of town, we noticed several large sheds filled with tobacco, which is grown here in large quantities. The inhabitants, however, do not understand manufacturing it otherwise than into cigars. All smoke here—men, women, and children; and we must confess that it detracts somewhat from the beauty of a young lady to see her promenading the street with a huge cigar in her mouth, puffing away most lustily ”

“ The value of a cigar depends not only on the quality of the leaf, but largely also on the mode of manufacture. If rolled too hard or too loosely, it will burn badly.
52 Why a Cigar Should Burn Well. The best burning leaves must be used for wraps; if not, the air has no access to the inside burning parts, and the empyreumatical substances are volatilized without being decomposed. Such cigars make much smoke and smell disagreeably. If the cigar burns well, more of the nicotine is consumed and decomposed. ”

“ IT has been said that whereas a pipe is a man’s wife, a cigarette is his lady friend. In these terms it is difficult to define a cigar, but it will be agreed that the cigar is unnecessary on tramp. We have no afterdinner mood. A pipe will go a long way, the cigarette has to be cast off and renewed—the cigar does not enter in.
Nevertheless, I shall hear of excellent walkers who carried boxes of cigars in their rucksacks and lifted the smoke of Havana to [Pg 174] the noon sky. Some fellows even chew an unlighted cigar as they walk. ”

“ No, madam, don’t—pray [Pg 80] don’t pretend that good tobacco-smoke is objectionable. I speak not of mundungus, of the poisonous negro-head, of the raw, coarse cavendish. These, I admit, discharge fumes fit only for hothouses. I have in my mind the dry, the nutty, the aromatic cigar, to which, give me leave to ask, did ever an engaged woman object? Fie! you liked it, Julia, when James was courting you. Didn’t you give him a silver match-box? It is wifely tyranny, I say, that drives him and his intimidads into a back-room; it is caprice that kecks at his comforts, not at his cigars. ”

“ In another instant the point of a cotton umbrella was thrust from the window, followed by the wrathful injunction: “Scat, you gray-headed wretch!”
There is a young physician who has never been able to smoke a cigar. “Just one poisons me,” says the youthful doctor.
Recently the doctor was invited to a large dinner-party. When the women had left the table cigars were accepted by all the men except the physician. [Pg 262] Seeing his friend refuse the cigar the host in astonishment exclaimed:
“What, not smoking? Why, my dear fellow, you lose half your dinner!” ”

“ Furthermore, the tobacco is generally drier in a cigarette, and for that reason the combustion is better, for the products of the combustion of dry and damp tobacco are not the same. But since it is a little difficult to inhale a pipe or a cigar without choking, the smoke products of a pipe or cigar are usually absorbed only by the mouth, nose, and throat, whereas the inhaled smoke of the cigarette is absorbed by the entire area of windpipe and bronchial tubes. ”

“ But differences of color and of rank are wholly disregarded when a light for a cigar is requested, a favor which it is not considered a liberty to ask, and which it would be deemed a gross act of incivility to refuse. It is chiefly cigarritos which are smoked.
"The cigarrito, as is well known, is tobacco cut fine and dexterously wrapped in moist maize leaves, in paper, or in straw. Only the laborers on the plantations smoke small clay pipes. Dearer than the cigarritos are the cigars, which are not inferior to the best Havanna. ”

“ And so I've wandered 'round (too much, perhaps) ,
And got acquainted with the fireman chaps,
And planted good cigars where they would seem
Inclined to grow up helpful to my scheme.
(I never smoke; but, travelling near and far,
There's few things help one like a good cigar;
When safe between a neighbor's teeth 'tis hung,
It oils his ways and loosens up his tongue.
I get more from cigars, before it's through,
Than all the fellows that I give them to.
Perhaps they should not smoke; but, if they will,
My method helps their families foot the bill.) ”

“ July 4, 1829, he noted—"When I had finished my bit of dinner, and was in a quiet way smoking my cigar over a glass of negus, Adam Ferguson comes with a summons to attend him to the Justice Clerk's, where, it seems, I was engaged. I was totally out of case to attend his summons, redolent as I was of tobacco. But I am vexed at the circumstance. It looks careless, and, what is worse, affected; and the Justice is an old friend moreover." Tobacco in any form was suspect. A man might smoke a cigar, but he must not take the odour into the drawing-room of even an old friend. ”

“ The later generations of ministers of this vicinity, as a body, have abandoned tobacco, and yet the evil has not diminished. An eminent divine of our acquaintance, who does not smoke daily, always finds a cigar relieve a trifling bronchitis, to which he is occasionally subject The curious will find in the "Medical Journal" of this city, for 1839, that quite as much can be said on one side as on the other of this subject.
The minor, rarely the graver affections of the nervous system, do follow the use of tobacco in excess. ”

“ They permit the cigar fumes to blow into the faces of passers-by. They sit where the wind carries the smoke of their pipes so that others must inhale it. They expectorate upon the floor of cars, hotels, and even private homes. ”

“ Holders made from the last wood are the best, because they are generally longer than the others, whereby the smoke may become cooled, and because, being very cheap, they can be frequently renewed. Other inconveniences, involving questions of cleanliness, are avoided by the use of the cigar-holder. Too many hands touch the tobacco while it is being manufactured into a cigar for one to be able to say it has not been soiled, and cases of its having been the vehicle for conveying contagious disease are not unknown. ”