204 



The World's Commercial Products 



adopted by a few individuals than it spread with marvellous rapidity among all nations, the 

 most rapid strides in the spread of the habit taking place during the seventeenth century. 

 The rapid increase in the use of tobacco was viewed by the authorities, and especially 

 by the priestly classes, with the greatest concern, who saw in the habit the final_jx)niplete 

 demoralisation of the people. Even in our own country, in- spite of the praises, of the poets, 

 the divines bitterly denounced the new herb which rapidly gained popularity among, all classes 

 of the people, notably among the soldiery. Strong as the opposition to tobacco was in England, 

 the vehemence with which it was opposed was as nothing compared to the drastic measures 

 taken for its suppression on the Continent, and it will be of interest to note the rise of the use 

 of the fragrant weed in the chief countries of Europe. 



The practice of smoking tobacco did not become general in France until the reign of Louis 



XIII, when the habit took a 

 great hold upon the people — 

 even women smoking. So 

 great a hold, indeed, that the 

 Government, with possibly 

 more than one object in 

 view, thought fit to levy a 

 tax upon all tobacco im- 

 ported from America. The 

 people, at first, smoked small 

 pipes with a metal bowl fitted 

 with an oaten straw stem r 

 the model being copied from 

 the pipes introduced from 

 Spain ; but very soon it 

 became the fashion to smoke 

 tobacco in pipes of the elabo- 

 rate design used by the 

 Orientals for their bhang and 

 opium. It was not long 

 before a heated controversy 

 arose between the people on 

 the one hand and'* the 

 scholars and physicians on 

 the other as to the morality 

 of tobacco smoking, but the 

 habit grew so rapidly among 

 all classes and the national exchequer was benefited to so great an extent that before long 

 tobacco received royal support, and Louis XIV directed that all his troops, then being 

 despatched on an expedition to Holland, should be provided with tobacco and pipes. 



Among the upper classes smoking did not become so popular, tobacco being taken more 

 generally in the form of snuff, and, in consequence of this, it was about the end of the 

 seventeenth century that the craze for expensive snuff-boxes set in. 



The actual date of the introduction of the fragrant weed among that nation of smokers, 

 the Dutch, is somewhat uncertain. In 1590 the physician William Van der Meer wrote that 

 he had seen English and French students smoking the new herb at Leyden, but there is some 

 reason for supposing that the habit had been indulged in by Dutch sailors some years previously. 

 Nevertheless, smoking does not seem to have made any great progress amongst the people 

 at this time, and, indeed, we read that for some years after the preliminary attempts of the 

 students and seamen, tobacco was relegated to the chemist's shop, where, however, it held 



A CUBAN PLANTATION 



