Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 27

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Light, Sir."]

""Ere y'are, sir--pipe-light, cigar-light, on'y 'ap'ny a box--'ave a light, sir.' Every smoker of the larger cities knows the cry. Every tender-hearted smoker is familiar with the appeal, by day and by night, and remembers pangs of regret he has felt when the want of ha'pence or the repletion of his match-box has prevented his much-besought response. There is no need now to enlarge upon the sufferings, the adventures, the dangers of these peripatetic juvenile trades folk, spa.r.s.e of clothes and food, and full of the material which may make or mar a nation; for all this was done, and even overdone, by the graphic sensationalists of the London penny dailies when Chancellor Lowe proposed a tax on matches. 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. The tobacco hater (invariably an illogical creature, who hates that which he knows not) will hold up hands in amazement, and sniff with the nose in contempt, to whom reply would be superfluous.

"With the smoker the case is otherwise. A German writer recently said that the English were better smokers than the Germans; because, whereas the German smoked incessantly, without rule, system, or moderation, the English smoked with care, with slow and appreciative lovingness, and the determination not to overstep the bounds of rational enjoyment. Had he known more of English smokers, he would not have made so wild a statement; and had he known English women better, he would never have attributed to their sweet influence the fancied superiority he describes in English as compared with German smoking. In truth, the art of tobacco using is nowhere more ignored, nowhere more contemptuously neglected than in these 'favored isles.' For one man who smokes with a reason, for a purpose, or by system, you shall find a thousand who smoke without either; and the result is that those who smoke have little defense, in the general way, for their practice, while those who condemn the habit have far better grounds for their opposition than they have ever yet been able to explain. To those who do know why they use tobacco, it is well-nigh incredible that so many of their fellow-smokers should be ignorant of the properties, the uses, the abuses, of the weed they burn and the fumes in which they delight. Yet, even this is not so surprising as the fact that so few of those who smoke--smoke much, often and constantly--should be ignorant of, or indifferent to, the conditions which are necessary to their own adequate enjoyment of the weed.

"You will see a man light a cigar so carelessly that one side of the roll will burn rapidly, with prodigious fumigation and giving out a dark and offensive cloud, while the other side remains untouched by the fire, only to wither and crackle and twist into uncouth shapes, until the smoker flings the cigar away, with an accompaniment of expletives which attach rather to his own stupidity than to the piece of tobacco he has so abominably abused. You will see another with a good pipe, laden with good tobacco, well lit, blowing incessantly down the mouth-piece and the stem until the moisture introduced with his breath into the bowl of his pipe effectually prevents the tobacco from burning, and puts out the fire; and then you will hear him lament that he should have paid so good a price for a pipe so bad that it 'fouls' before he has smoked a single hour. You will see another who, while he talks to his friends, allows his tobacco to go out every three or four minutes, so that at length his mouth is sore and his palate nauseated with the combined fumes of lucifer matches, burnt paper and exhausted tobacco dust; and he inveighs against the 'cabbage-leaf which that rascally tobacconist sold him for good s.h.a.g or Cavendish.' Another knows so little of the art of smoking that he never 'stops' his pipe, and so allows the light dust of the burnt weed to fly about him in flakes and minute particles, to the permanent damage of his own and his neighbors' clothes. 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. Thus, one will place his pipe-bowl in a flame of gas, and pull away at the stem till his tobacco is on fire; another will thrust the bowl into the midst of a coal fire, and when he sees a glow in the bowl withdraw it, and contentedly puff away; another stops an obliging policeman or railway guard, and ignites his tobacco by hard pulling at the flame of an oil-lamp; another will stick the end of a choice cigar into the bowl of a pipe filled with coa.r.s.est s.h.a.g, thus ruining the flavor of his 'prime Havana' forever; while yet another will light lucifer matches, and apply the blazing brimstone to his pipe or cigar, thus saturating the whole ma.s.s with sulphurous and phosph.o.r.etic fumes, to the ruin of the weed and the injury of his own health.

"How much wiser the West Indian negro, who takes a burning stick from the wood fire, and tenderly lights his weed therewith, or joyfully brings a handful of the white-hot ashes in his thick-skinned palm, that 'ma.s.sa' may fire his cigar! Or the travelling peddler or tinker, who, as he sits by the way-side, patiently wooes the sun with a 'burning-gla.s.s' till his tobacco ignites, or uses with equal prudence and skill the ancient but inimitable tinder-box.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bringing a light.]

"But this is the age of Fusees. What a name! When, in our youth, those longitudinal strips of tinder, semi-divided into innumerable transverse slips, all tipped with harmless, ignitable matter, first a.s.sumed the t.i.tle, we had little notion of the atrocities which would come to be dignified by their name. This was soon after the world had been delighted by the Congreves, which drove Lucifer to the wall, and before English and German ingenuity had taught us to find 'death' in the box, as well as 'the pot.' The innocent old fusee had his faults, certainly. He would not always light; he had a bad habit of turning back on your finger-nail and burning its quick when you struck him; and he would occasionally light up, all by himself, and set fire to fifty of his fellows in your waist-coast pocket, or the tail of your best dress-coat. (Those were the days when waist-coats were gorgeous and tail-coats immense.) But what were these peccadilloes compared with the sins of the modern 'cigar-light?' 'Fusees,' forsooth! More like bomb-sh.e.l.ls, military mines, torpedoes, and nitroglycerine trains. Who has not had them explode in his eye, on his cheek, down his neck, scarring his skin, burning holes in his coats and trousers, frightening pa.s.sers-by, and doing all manner of deep-dyed devilment? Nor is this the worst. Those who will trust their skins, and their eyes, and their clothes to 'Vesuvians,' 'Flamers,' and the like, are not to be pitied; for they are more cruel to their tobacco than the fusees are to them. Our grievance is that so many engines of destructiveness and offensiveness should be so largely patronized by smokers, to their own discomfort, the ruination of their tobacco, the scandalization of gentle and simple, and the encouragement of vicious manufactures. Now, we are not going to particularize too closely, for fear of consequences. In these days, when a man may bring an action for libel because it has been said of him that he sells bad soup at a railway station, prudence is the better part of valor. But, just examine this heterogeneous pile of 'cigar-lights,' which rears its audacious head upon the table. Here are Palmers, Barbers, Farmers, Lord Lornes, Tichbornes, Bryants and Moys, Bells and Blacks, Alexandres, Bismarcks, King Williams, Napoleons, and scores of other varieties. Some light 'only on the box,' some light anywhere, some everywhere, and some nowhere. Some are on wood, some on porcelain, some on gla.s.s, some on dire deeds intent. There are vestas, safety-matches, patent flint-and-steel contrivances, with silver tubes and marvellous screws wherewith to put them out when they have served your turn. Some are excellent, many pa.s.sable, still more intolerable. One of these times it may be worth while to speak of the good ones, but at present we care only to treat of those that are bad, and that briefly.

"Here's a 'Flamer'--we name no names--everybody seems to make flamers; and this one deserves his t.i.tle. We want to light a peaceful pipe, and he bursts out in a fury like unto nothing on earth so much as Etna in convulsion, or the Tuilleries in petroleum blaze. But, if you have any respect for your tobacco, your lips, your nostrils, or your lungs, you will let him get rid of his flames before you apply him to your cigar; and, when you do venture so far, he drops off the stick and burns a hole in the carpet. Or, if you be daring enough to take a light from the flamer while he flames, you spoil your tobacco, foul your mouth, and get a taste of sulphur-suffocation such as Asmodeus might have were he to take a whiff of a smoke-and-fire belching chimney in the Black Country as he flies across that district by night. Haven't got a light? Glad of it. Try a Vesuvian-round, black and tipped with blue. There's a pyrotechnic display for you! Now, in with it, after the approved style ill.u.s.trated by the two human hands engaged in lighting a cigar on the illuminated cover of the box. 'Ugh!'

you say. Just so; you've got a mouthful of choice abominations, which will cost you much waste of saliva, several s.h.i.+vers, and the whole piece of tobacco you were about to enjoy. Here, put that away; take another, light it quietly with this wax-vesta, or this wooden 'spill,' or this screw of paper; smoke gently, don't let the fire out, and you'll be all right. In future, you may be wise enough to avoid cheap cigar-lights and pipe-lights, even for use in the streets. Our word upon it--they are far dearer than those which cost more."

The following description of "Home Made Cigars" is from _All the Year Round_, and will doubtless be read with interest by many growers of the weed who may recall similar scenes:

"'Apropos of cigars,' said Wilkins, lighting a second fragrant Havana with the stump of the first, 'let's go and see the farmer's establishment for making them. You see that field of tobacco over yonder? Old Standish raises his own weed, dries it in the big open sheds behind the barn, cures it--I don't quite know the whole process--and then has it made into sixes and short fives, Conchas and Cabanas, like a Cuban senor. I went over the establishment about a year ago, and it is worth seeing.'

"We strolled first over to the tobacco field. The weed was then just at its full ripeness, and the long, flappy, delicately-furred green leaves bent gracefully over toward the ground, growing smaller and smaller the higher they were on the stout stalk. Few foreigners know that even as far north as New England, in the sunny valleys of Connecticut, sheltered as they are from the bleak east winds of the Atlantic and accustomed to a long and steady summer heat, tobacco is grown in large quant.i.ties, flourishes exuberantly, and is one of the chief sources of profit to the farmers. It needs a rich warm soil and careful tending; but it gives in its growth, a sentimental reward to the cultivator; for it comes up gracefully, rapidly, and beautifully, and is with some care, one of the most satisfactory crops to 'handle.' Having gazed at and tasted the thick leaves, we sauntered behind the barn, and there saw the long open shed, with beams running parallel from end to end, where the gathered tobacco leaves were hung to be thoroughly dried by the sun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Making cigars.]

"Then Wilkins conducted us for some distance along the river bank; we jumped into a boat and rowed perhaps half a mile, landing by the side of a little shop-like building, where we heard the hum of voices and the commotion of many busy persons. We entered and found ourselves in a long, low room, having wide tables ranged along the walls; here, working rapidly, were rows of chatty country girls, who, as they worked, laughed and talked, and now and then hummed a verse of some familiar ballad. Neatly packed piles of the dried and cured leaf lay upon the table before them.

"Each was armed with knives and cutters, and we watched the quick transformation of the flat leaves into the smooth and compact cigars. The tobacco grown upon the farm was, we discovered, only used as wrappers for the cigars. The good farmer imported, for the interior filling, a fine tobacco from Havana. Strips and little pieces of this the girls placed in the centre of the cigar, wrapping the Connecticut tobacco in wide strips tightly about it, then pasting each of the last with some paste in a pot by their side. It seemed to be done almost in an instant; the Havana slips were laid down, cut and trimmed, and pressed into shape in a twinkling; the wrappers were cut as quickly; and, more rapidly than I can describe it, the cigar was made. These girls were mostly daughters of neighboring farmers, who received so much per hundred cigars made; intelligent, bright-eyed and witty; many of them comely, with rosy cheeks and ruddy health; educated at the common schools, and able, their day's work over, to sit down at the piano and rattle away _ad infinitum_.

"His stock of cigars thus made up, from the first sowing to the last finis.h.i.+ng touch, the good squire (being Yankee-like, a sort of Jack-of-all-trades,) would have them put up in gorgeously labeled boxes, carry them to town, and sell them to retail dealers; not disdaining himself, twice or thrice a year, to go through the neighboring States with samples, and acting as his own commercial traveler."

This description, however, may not convey a correct idea of the exact mode of manufacture to many growers of tobacco in the Connecticut Valley inasmuch as many planters of the "weed" make the entire cigar (more particularly for their own use) wrapper, binder and filler wholly of seed-leaf tobacco, such cigars do not readily sell to the trade except at inferior prices which admit of but a small profit to the manufacturer. The following spicy article from the "London _Figaro_" may be interesting to all smokers as well as guide them in the selection of a good cigar.

"I am an imaginative person, and 'society' has treated me shamefully of late--its tangible delights are absent from me. Allow me, then, to console myself by the 'creations of smoke,' as Lord Lytton puts it. I am scouted by society because I am in love. I am told I look:

"As hyenas in love are supposed to look, or A something between Abelard and old Blucher."

And, moreover, I am an ugly man, but there was only a fortnight's difference in gaining a woman's love between John Wilkes and the handsomest man in England, courage, Jehu! I like idleness, because it shows that one can afford it; so I am puffing idly--ah! the balmy fragrance of this mild Havana! 'Oh! the effect of that first note from the woman one loves!' says one; 'Oh! the kiss on the dimpled cheek, the sound of the silver voice!' says another; but what can compare to the dreamy exquisite luxury of a good cigar? But, heavens, what am I saying? I am in love, and Julia reads the "_Figaro_!" The paleness of Flaxman's ill.u.s.trations spreads over me--please, reader, look upon the sentiment as sarcastic. I am in a fog of smoke, and am quaffing claret from the silvered pewter. There's plenty of it; and no soul can say:

"That in drinking from _that_ beaker I am sipping like a fly.'

How changed from the long, long days ago, when I was a connoisseur in Parparillo cigars, brown-paper cigarettes, and cane cheroots! Then I fondly adored Sir Walter Raleigh as my earthly idol, for giving me tobacco--when I had the halfpence to buy it--and delighted in the story, told by queer Oldys, of Sir Walter's servant extinguis.h.i.+ng the Virginny smoke that issued from his master's lips, by drenching him with ale. Alas! my idol is shattered by Hawkins. The Spaniards say, 'The lie that lasts for half an hour is worth telling.' History has lied for longer, by a considerable period. Fond even as I was of my brown-papered cigarettes when baccy failed, I must confess I never reached the stage attained by Sir Christopher Haydon's chaplain, William Breedon, parson of Thornton, in Bucks, who was so given to

"October store and best Virginia,"

that when he had no tobacco (and too much drink) he used to cut the _bell-ropes_ and smoke them!

"The Polyglot--three parts--my text; Howbeit--likewise--now to my next."

"On Smoke.--It is a vulgar, ludicrous, and foolish custom to bite off the nose of a cigar. Don't be a Vandal--you are not a Sandwich Islander, about to chew your _Kava_. A cigar should be handled daintily; it is a fragile, graceful creature--don't mar its beauty. Tear off the twist, and the pleasure of smoking is at an end! The outer leaf becomes untwirled. Ere it is half finished, you have a ragged end between your lips--nasty, foul, and unsightly--through which the smoke comes in huge clouds to your mouth, instead of slender streams on the palate. 'How, then,' say you; 'p.r.i.c.k it, or cut it, or what? Tear it not, cut it not; nor yet puncture it. Don't be frightened of the cigar--thrusting a half-inch alone into the mouth; but, when you begin, take a good half of it in the mouth; pull at it l.u.s.tily for a few seconds, to open its pores; then draw it out, allowing but an inch to be held within the lips--believe me, you will enjoy it a hundred-fold more; and there are but few cigars that will not allow of their virtue being drawn though their leaves. Never bite the end off, and never use your cigar cruelly, by squeezing it, biting it, or re-lighting it.

Cigar-holders, tubes, quills, and such like inventions, we despise. If you cannot bear the cigar in your mouth--aye, and enjoy it--you have no business with it: go back to your brown paper and cane!

"What is the best beverage to imbibe whilst inhaling the precious weed? Momentous question! Coffee, or claret, says Jehu. I do not believe in bitter, as an accompanying liquid to a cigar. The Corporation of Christ-church, years ago, smoked cigars, and drank with them that then famous concoction known as 'Ringwood Beer.' What was the result?

The first toast at every civic banquet held for years in that borough was gravely given out, and b.u.mpered with due solemnity, as follows:--

'Prosperation to this Corporation.'

Brandy is a perfect antidote to inebriation from beer, so we are told. The Corporation should have known this, and been awakened from their long and pleasant dream of _prosperation_. Brandy I should hardly reckon amongst the drinks that ought to be with cigars, notwithstanding that Tennyson has asked:--

'For what delights can equal those Which stir, with spirits, inner depths? &c.'

Brandy-and-water, gin, whisky, and the likes are only fit for those who nocturnally lay the foundation for matutinal 'hot coppers,' with the vilest s.h.a.g in the most odorous of yards of clay. 'Smoking leads to drinking,' has been a favorite old woman's saying for time out of mind. How I hate old women's sayings! A grain--requiring to be picked out with a pin and microscope--of truth, with a bushel of bunk.u.m or cant. How is it, that ever since the days of James I, of 'hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain' memory, there have always been carpers on the injurious effects of smoking? 'Nicotine!' they say, with a would-be-taken-for-know-all-about-it-air. Quite so; but, as recent investigations have proved that, so far as the actual 'poisoning' is concerned, it would take upwards of a thousand years to kill the most inveterate of healthy smokers, we have still time to breathe--and 'it please the pigs.' _Mem._ for pipers--French tobacco contains the greatest, Turkish the least, per-centage of nicotine.

Havana, two and one-half per cent.

"But an unique old woman of Jehu's acquaintance goes further still; boldly a.s.serting that 'smoking is well for making good soldiers, well for making good sailors, well for making sometimes good lawyers; not so well for making good Christians.' Oh! ashes of Hawkins and Raleigh, shudder for the results of 'baccy on degraded human nature.' There must be a rarity of good Christians, then amongst the parsons; they are all fond of it. Dean Aldrich was, perhaps, tho greatest smoker of his day. His excessive attachment to this habit was the cause of many wagers. Here's one:--At breakfast, one morning, at the 'Varsity, an undergraduate laid his companion long odds that the Dean was smoking at that instant. Away they hastened; and, being admitted to the Dean's study, stated the occasion of their visit. The Dean replied, in perfect good humor, to the layer of the bet, 'You see, sir, you have lost your wager; for I am not smoking, but filling my pipe.' But--my cigar has reached its last dying speech, and there is but a drop left in the beaker.

'I'll not leave thee, thou lone drop!

'Twould be mighty unkind, Since the rest I have swallow'd, To leave thee behind.'

"Final exhortation. Choose the small, sound, tolerably firm, and elastic cigar: the dwarf contains stuff within which the giant hath not. Don't flatter yourself you're smoking cabbage, if not tobacco--its any odds on rhubarb!

'For me there's nothing new or rare, Till wine deceives my brain; And that, I think, 's a reason fair To fill my pipe again.'"

Charles Lamb, "the gentle Elia" was during a portion of his lifetime a famous smoker. In a letter to Hazlitt he writes, "I am so smoky with last night's ten pipes, that I must leave off." It is said that he smoked only the coa.r.s.est and strongest he could procure. Dr. Parr inquired of him how he acquired his "prodigious smoking powers." "I toiled after it, sir," was the reply, "as some men toil after virtue!"

Lamb was constant in his use of tobacco, and among all the great luminaries of English literature we know of none more addicted to the use of the pipe. Lamb might often be seen in his chambers in Mitre Court Building, puffing the coa.r.s.est weed from a long clay pipe, in company with Parr who used the finest kind of tobacco in a pipe half filled with salt.

It was no easy task to relinquish the use of tobacco and it cost him many a struggle and much determined effort. In writing to Wordsworth he says:--"I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my 'Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years. I have had it in my head to do it (Farewell to Tobacco) these two years; but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises."

Lamb's poem is without doubt one of the finest pieces of verse ever written on tobacco, and seemingly contains both words of praise and dispraise--the latter however in some sense are insincere.

"May the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse If I can a pa.s.sage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant,) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!

Or in my terms relate Half my love, or half my hate; For I hate, yet love thee so, That whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the pa.s.sion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, thou mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege do'st lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death.

Thou in such a cloud do'st bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us.

And ill fortune that would thwart us, Shoots at rovers shooting at us; While each man through thy height'ning steam Does like a smoking aetna seem, And all about us does express (Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou though such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And for those allowed features Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to feel Chimeras Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow, His tipsy rites, but what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle?

Some few vapors thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and n.o.bler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born, The old world was sure forlorn, Wanting thee, that aidest more, The G.o.ds' victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls, Of his piping Baccha.n.a.ls.

These, as stole, we disallow Or judge of thee meant: only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed G.o.d now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume-- Chemic art did ne'er presume, Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sov'reign to the brain.

Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell.

Roses, Violets but toys For the smaller sort of boys; Or for greener damsels meant; Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her fois on Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite---- Nay, rather, Plant divine of rarest virtue: Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.

'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee; Irony all, and feigned abuse, Such as perplex'd lovers use, At a need, when in despair, To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her c.o.c.katrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly traitress, loving foe, Not that she is truly so, But no other may they know, A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly wot, Whether it be pain or not; Or, as men constrained to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To oppose their frantic gall, On the darling thing whatever Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, That I must) leave thee.

For thy sake, TOBACCO, I Would do anything but die, And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise.

But as she who once hath been, A king's consort, is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any t.i.tle of her state, Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain, And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarred the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch, Some collateral sweets, and s.n.a.t.c.h, Sidelong odors, that give life Like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places, And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquered Canaanite."

Thomas Jones, in the following neat little tribute to tobacco, pays a deserved compliment, not only to the plant, but to the great English smoker, "ye renowned Sir Walter Raleigh."