Smoking

“ A pipe of tobacco, or a cigar, after a day's hard exercise, whether mental or bodily, and after the cravings of hunger and thirst are appeased, may be fairly ranked amongst the most delightful and most harmless of all earthly luxuries. It fills the mind with pleasing visions, and the heart with kindly feelings. A hard-working laborer, smoking by the side of his hearth at night, presents a perfect picture of quiet enjoyment. ”

“ Often in the dark I not only vowed to give up smoking, but wondered why I cared for it. Next morning I went straight from breakfast to my pipe, without the smallest struggle with myself. Latterly I knew, while resolving to break myself of the habit, that I would be better employed trying to sleep. I had elaborate ways of cheating myself, but it became disagreeable to me to know how many ounces of tobacco I was smoking weekly. Often I smoked cigarettes to reduce the number of my cigars. ”

“ We all know how the thinkers, historians, and critics of yesterday and to-day answer that question; but our hearts and brains tell us that they are astray. By an amazing oversight they have said nothing of the Influence of Tobacco. The Elizabethan age might be better named the beginning of the smoking era. No unprejudiced person who has given thought to the subject can question the propriety of dividing our history into two periods—the pre-smoking and the smoking. ”

“ but it is good to be a German, the Germans are the most philosophic people in the world, and the greatest smokers: now I trace their philosophy to their smoking.'
'I have heard say their philosophy is all smoke—is that your opinion?'
'Why, no; but smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly. ”

“ Penitent and shattered, I vow to lead a new life; to forswear spirits, to drink nothing but water. Indeed, the sight and smell of brandy make me ill. All goes well for some weeks, when I grow nervous, discontented, moody. I smoke, and am soothed. But moderation is not to be thought of; little by little I increase the dose of tobacco. Five pipes a day become six or seven. Then I count up to ten and twelve, then drop to three or four, then mount to eleven at a leap; then lose count altogether. Much smoking excites the brain. ”

“ He stopped smoking at least once a month. He went through with it like the solid citizen he was: admitted the evils of tobacco, courageously made resolves, laid out plans to check the vice, tapered off his allowance of cigars, and expounded the pleasures of virtuousness to every one he met. He did everything, in fact, except stop smoking. ”

“ If smoking was a solitary habit, it would be less likely to lead to drinking; but the same companionship, and habits of treating prevail, as in the saloon, and the step from the estaminet to the bar-room under invitation, is an easy one, where the diseased thirst, so often induced by tobacco, favors the movement to treat. ”

“ The development of cigar-smoking among those classes from which tobacco had long been practically banished, and the natural consequent spread downwards of the use of cigars—in accordance with the invariable law of fashion—together with the continued devotion to the pipe among those whose love of tobacco had never slackened, made smoking a much more general practice than it had been for some generations. ”

“ SMOKING CREATES A MORBID THIRST. The first step is cigarette smoking. It will give you catarrh, weaken the lungs, cause heart disease, destroy the health, and create a morbid thirst which will lead you to the second step,—the drinking of cider, beer, and malt liquors. Soon you will crave stronger fluids, and will swallow gin, wine, brandy, whiskey, rum, and all sorts of seductive drinks made from alcohol. ”

“ And smoking a yard of clay.
Up to about the middle of Queen Victoria's reign female smoking in the nineteenth century in England may be said to have been pretty well confined to women of the classes and type already mentioned. Respectable folk in the middle and upper classes would have been horrified at the idea of a pipe or a cigar between feminine lips; and cigarettes had been used by men for a long time before it began to be whispered that here and there a lady—who was usually considered dreadfully "fast" for her pains—was accustomed to venture upon a cigarette. ”

“ Before the full maturity of the system is attained, even the smallest amount of smoking is hurtful; subsequently, the habit is generally prejudicial. Smoked just after a meal a cigar is said to act as a digestive stimulant, and as a food when other forms of nourishment are not procurable. In some persons smoking increases, in others diminishes mental activity. Chewing is considered the most deleterious form in which to use tobacco. The different kinds of tobacco exert a different influence on the smoker according to the amount of noxious ingredients which they contain. ”

“ Their mode of smoking is very peculiar. They first take a whiff after the usual manner, and puff out the smoke. But, when they have expelled nearly the whole of the smoke, they make a kind of catch at the last tiny wreath, and swallow it. This they are pleased to consider the very essence or spirit of the tobacco, which is lost if the smoke is exhaled in the usual manner. ”

“ Smoking is an old and venerable institution in this kingdom of ours, and dates far back beyond the introduction of tobacco to our shores. Long before Sir Walter Raleigh was thought of, there is reason to believe herbs and leaves of one kind or other—coltsfoot, yarrow, mouse-lax, sword-grass, dandelion, and other plants, and even dried cow-dung—were smoked for one ailment or other, and in some instances for relaxation and pleasure, and thus, no doubt, became habitually used. ”

“ The social taboo was by no means universal—some of the exceptions will be noted in these pages—but speaking broadly, the general, almost universal smoking of tobacco which had been characteristic of the earlier decades of the seventeenth century did not again prevail until within living memory. ”

“ Taking a general survey of army medical officers’ reports of work done in the hospital-camps, he finds evidence in abundance supporting the view that tobacco-smoking does in some indefinable way mitigate suffering and help to a speedy recovery. ”

“ We may, upon occasion, feel for the manufacturers and venders of 'lights,' but more generally we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the purchasers of such contrivances for the ignition of pipes and cigars. The smoking of tobacco is an art; an art which, in its proper exercise, requires much care, much prudence, and not a little skill. This is a proposition which must, from its very nature, be startling to non-smokers, and surprising to many smokers. ”

“ They were distressing themselves too much, I told her; smoking in moderation was not only harmless, especially to those who worked out of doors, but it was a well-nigh universal habit, and many leading men in the religious world, both churchmen and dissenters, were known to be smokers. ”

“ A certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke so fast, and supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried out, 'O Jhesu, Jhesu man, for the passion of Cod hold, for by Cod's splud ty snowt's on fire,' and having a bowle of beere in his hand, threw it at the other's face, to quench his smoking nose. ”

“ The using of tobacco, especially by smoking, is any thing but kindness or the kindly expression of it, when it creates an atmosphere, which, whether it comes directly from the pipe, the cigar, or deeply imbued clothing, or worse than alligator breath, is absolutely insupportable to many, who do not use it, causing depression of strength, dizziness, headache, sickness at the stomach, and sometimes vomiting. ”

“ Smoking is, and always has been, a healthful and fashionable English custom; there were schools and professors established here for the purpose of teaching the mystery of smoking, on the first introduction of the Virginian weed, and the mode of exspifflicating the smoke out of one's mouth is at present, as it were, a Shibboleth demonstrative of an English gentleman. ”

“ The man was smoking, at intervals serenely drawing his amber-hued meerschaum from under his thick mustache. The youth was not smoking—he was waiting to be a man. Once his uncle had remarked: "Tobacco is for men if they wish tobacco, and for pioneer old ladies if they must have their pipes. Begin to smoke after you are a man, Downs. Cigars for boys are as bad as cigars would be for old ladies." ”

“ Or, once more, if our meal ends in tobacco, we may please ourselves by contemplating the alternate, but never contemporaneous, glories of snuff and tobacco, and note the sage's curious, but strictly truthful, account of the advantages and disadvantages of smoking. "Smoking has gone out. To be sure it is a shocking thing, blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us. ”

“ Us boys were smoking cigarettes one day made of paper and dried dandelion leaves, and the boy at the butcher shop said if we would dry some wiener skin and cut it up and put it in the cigarette and smoke it, it would make the finest flavor, and make us strong. ”

“ Among the Indians, ceremonial smoking was a universal rite, and had a deep religious significance, smoke being considered as an incense of the gods, while the act of smoking was the strongest form of oath. ”

“ Cigarette smoking! Why, Bob, some of the most refined women in the world smoke cigar [128] ettes—clever, intelligent women, too. And I never could see any justice at all in the idea some people have that it's any worse, or more vulgar, as you say, for women to smoke cigarettes than for men. ”

“ Smoking that is termed idle, is singularly popular with mechanics, the most industrious classes of England.
Smoking that is said to be dirty and filthy, is in the greatest esteem, among the most moral and cleanly sect in Christianity—the Society of Friends or Quakers. ”

“ They appear to have a natural propensity for the fumes of tobacco, which they invariably inhale into the lungs, and eject through the nostrils. They make no use of this article except in smoking, which is an {256} indulgence of which they are exceedingly reluctant to be deprived. ”

“ But in nothing is the inartistic character of English smoking so conspicuously exemplified as in the use of 'lights.' Those who form the great majority of smokers amongst the English-speaking races seem to consider that, so long as their pipes are set alight, it matters not how or from what source the light is obtained. ”

“ And what is worse, the cigarette is the favorite form of the “weed.” All seem to smoke it except the babies. Small boys scarcely in their teens puff lustily at cigarettes; and I have seen several respectable-looking women smoking in the open-air cafés. ”

“ Besides this, there can be no doubt that the cigarette-smoking now practically universally prevalent after lunch and dinner has been a considerable factor in the direction of temperance, and has ended the practice of consuming large quantities of wine, which in old days was more or less universal. On the whole, I believe that smoking does more good than harm, in spite of the attacks sometimes levelled against it. ”

“ In our railroad cars smokers have to separate themselves from wives, children, and friends and go by themselves into a smoking-car or apartment, and why? simply because tobacco smoke is unpleasant to every man, woman, and child who is not accustomed to it ”

“ My people never let the tobacco habit get the better of them as they can go all day without smoking or quit smoking for several days at a time and never complain in the least. The men, after supper, on going into the sweat-house take their pipes and smoke and some take two or three smokes before they go to bed. The old women doctors will smoke through the day and always take a smoke before lying down to sleep. All inhale the smoke, letting it pass out of the lungs through the nose. ”

“ Rush, "is it possible to contemplate the creature man in a more absurd and ridiculous light, than in his foolish and disgusting attachment to the poisonous weed, tobacco." Who then can witness groups of boys ten or twelve years old [36] in our streets, smoking cigars, without anticipating such a depreciation in our posterity with regard to health and character, as can scarcely be contemplated without pain and horror! ”

“ “We’ll meet you on some corner. I’ll be the man smoking two cigarettes.” ”

“ Everything is dim with tobacco smoke, but otherwise as clean as soap and sand can make it.
Next, picture two sleepy, shabby-looking men, in wooden shoes, seated near the glowing fireplace, hugging their knees and smoking short, stumpy pipes ”

“ One soon tires, however, of converting himself into a movable coffee-pot and perambulating smoke-stack to afford these natives a means of showing that they are pleased with his visit. I have never seen smoking carried on to such an extent as in this country. While dressing in the morning and undressing at night they puff their cigarettes. ”

“ I may say, however, that some have denied that smoking in anything which moves, whether carriage, boat, or ship, can reasonably be called smoking in any place whatever, since "mobile movetur nec in loco quo est, nec in loco quo non est"—that which is in motion moves neither in the place where it is nor in the place where it is not. ”

“ But these illustrious examples of great tobacco smokers are, in respect to the whole community, altogether exceptional, and may be regarded as having no more bearing on any general rule applicable to all men than had their individual capacity for imbibing, say, ‘sweet waters.’ It may be observed, however, that those who pass severe censure on the smoking habit seem to overlook the fact that men do not eat or drink tobacco; that the prudent smoker is quite contented if its ambient fumes gently float about him, regaling his olfactory sense. ”