The Funny Side of Physic Part 83

See them "marching along, marching along," to the tune that never an "old cow died on" yet, or hogs, or any animal, except he unfortunately became mixed up involuntarily with viler humans,--with jolly banners, blacked in the smoke and stench of great battles, bearing the words "Death to Purity!" "War to the Hilt with Health!" "All hail, Disease, Drunkenness, and Death!"

Splendid picture!

Alas! true picture!

And what do they leave in their wake?

Death to all animal and vegetable life!

The vile spittle and debris dropped by the way have killed all vegetable life. There's nothing vile and filthy that they have not cursed the ground with.

The following are a few of the articles mixed with various brands of tobacco, as though the original poisonous weed was not sufficiently deleterious: Opium, copperas, iron, licorice,--blacked with lampblack,--the dirtiest refuse mola.s.ses, the offal of urine, etc.

The effluvia and smoke arising have killed the foliage and the birds by the wayside, and miles of beautiful forests have been burned away. Nothing but a broad strip of blackened, cursed, and barren waste, remains. To offset this evil there is--nothing.

Now, this army is daily on its march through our land, and I have only _begun_ to mention its depredations. Who will stop it?

ITS NAMES AND NATIVITY.

Tobacco is a native of the West Indies. Roma.n.u.s Paine, who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, seems to have been the first to introduce tobacco into Europe as an article of luxury. Paine is said to have lived a vagabond life, and died a miserable death.

The natives called it _Peterna_. The name tobacco is derived from the town of Tabaco, New Spain. The Latin name, Nicotiana Tabac.u.m, is from Jean Nicot, who was a French amba.s.sador from the court of Francis I. (born the year tobacco was introduced by Paine) to Portugal. On the return of Nicot, he brought and introduced to the French court the narcotic plant, and popularized it in France. Thence it was introduced all over Europe, but encountered great opposition. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into England about 1582.

History informs us that a Persian king so strongly prohibited its use, and visited such severe penalties upon its votaries, that many of his subjects fled away to the caves, forests, and mountains, where they might wors.h.i.+p this matchless deity free from persecution. The czar prohibited its use in Russia under penalty of death to smokers, mitigating snuff takers' penalty to _merely slitting open their noses_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUNISHMENT OF THE TURK.]

In Constantinople a Turk found smoking was placed upon a donkey, facing the beast's rump, and with a pipe-stem run through his nose, was rode about the public streets, a sad warning to all tobacco smokers. King James thundered against it. The government of Switzerland sounded its voice against it till the Alps echoed again.

But in spite of opposition and the vileness of the article, it has worked itself into a general use,--next to that of table salt,--and to-day a majority of the adult male population of our Christianized and enlightened United States are its acknowledged votaries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMOKERS OF FOUR GENERATIONS.]

In the year 1850 I saw in a house in Sedgwick, Me., individuals of four different generations smoking. The old grandmother was eighty-five years old. She smoked. A grandmother, sixty-three, with her husband, smoked.

Their son smoked, and had very weak eyes. His two nephews smoked and chewed tobacco. The elder lady died with scrofulous sore eyes, not having, for years before her death, a single eyelash, and her swollen, inflamed eyelids were a sight disgusting to view. All her grand and great grandchildren whom I saw were scrofulous. Some suffered with rheumatism, and all were yellowish or tawny.

LITTLE CHILDREN LEARN TO SMOKE.

I once saw a father teaching his little three-year-old boy to smoke. I knew a boy at Ellsworth who learned to smoke before he could light his pipe. His father, who taught him the wicked habit, was not at all respectable, and had often been jailed for selling rum.

The following is a sample of the modern John Hay's style of teaching:--

LITTLE-BREECHES.

"I come into town with some turnips, And my little Gabe come along-- No four-year-old in the county Could beat him for pretty and strong; Peart, and chipper, and sa.s.sy, Always ready to swear and fight, And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker, Jest to keep his milk teeth white.

"The snow come down like a blanket As I pa.s.sed by Taggart's store; I went in for a jug of mola.s.ses, And left the team at the door.

They scared at something and started-- I heard one little squall, And h.e.l.l-to-split over the prairie Went team, Little-Breeches and all.

"h.e.l.l-to-split over the prairie!

I was almost froze with skeer; But we rousted up some torches, And sarched for 'em far and near.

At last we struck hosses and wagon, Snowed under a soft white mound: Upsot, dead beat--but of little Gabe No hide nor hair was found.

"And here all hopes soured on me Of my fellow-critters' aid-- I jest flopped down on my marrow bones, Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

By this the torches was played out, And me and Isrul Parr Went off for some wood to a sheep-fold, That he said was somewhar thar.

"We found it at last, and a little shed Where they shut up the lambs at night; We looked in, and seen them huddled thar, So warm, and sleepy, and white.

"And thar sot Little-Breeches, and chirped As peart as ever you see: 'I want a chaw of terbacker, And that's what's the matter of me.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I WANT A CHAW OF TERBACKER."]

WHIPPING SCHOOL BOYS AND GIRLS TO MAKE THEM SMOKE.

In London, in 1721, Thomas Hearne tells us school children were compelled to smoke. "And I remember," he says, "that I heard Tom Rogers say that when he was yeoman beadle that year, when the plague raged, being a boy at Eaton, all the boys of his school were obliged to smoke in the school-room every morning, and that he never was whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking."

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG SMOKERS.]

Some boys, nowadays, would gladly undergo the "flogging" if they could be permitted to enjoy a smoke afterwards.

There are but few people inhabiting the eastern coast, and following fis.h.i.+ng for a vocation, who do not smoke or chew tobacco; and their wives and children also smoke.

Sailors are proverbially addicted to smoking and chewing. Their love of tobacco far exceeds their appet.i.te for grog.

The following letter from a sailor below port to his brother in London explains itself:--

NEAR GRAVESEND, on board Belotropen.

TO DEAR BROTHER BOB.

DEAR BOB: This comes hopin' to find you well, as it leaves me safe anch.o.r.ed here yester arternoon. Voyge short an' few squalls. Hopes to find old father stout, and am out of pigtail.

Sight o' pigtail at Gravesend but unfortinately unfit for a dog to chor. I send this by Capt'n's boy, and buy me pound best pigtail and let it be good--best at 7 diles (Dials), sign of black boy, and am short of s.h.i.+rts--only took two, whereof one is wored out and tother most.

Capt'n's boy loves pigtail, so tie it up when bort an' put in his pocket. Aint so partick'ler about the s.h.i.+rts as present can be washed, but be sure to go to 7 diles sign of Black boy and git the pigtail as I haint had a cud to chor since thursday. Pound'll do as I spect to be up tomorrow or day arter. an' remember the pigtail--so I am your lovin' brother

Tom ----.

P. S. dont forget the pigtail.