Tobacco 



205 



A FIELD OF RIPE TOBACCO 



a wonderful reputation as a panacea. In the beginning of the seventeenth century the use of 

 tobacco again became general, and soon attained great popularity. The leaf was imported 

 into Holland from the West Indies in relatively large quantities " so that soon over a hundred 

 thousand guilders were paid in Holland for tobacco every year." So great a hold did tobacco 

 obtain over the people, that in 1615 plantations of the plant were actually laid out near 

 Ameersfoort and Zeeland, and soon afterwards the inhabitants of the Gelderland, Utrecht, 

 Noord-Brabant, and Limburg provinces followed suit. Every day new " tobacco houses " 

 or taverns were opened in the towns, where tobacco leaves were retailed by women to the 

 men who sat round the fires and tables of the house cutting up the tobacco and smoking it 

 in their clay, tin or silver pipes ; needless to say, the convivial glass was not without its place 

 at these gatherings, and soon all classes, both rich and poor, spent a considerable part Of 

 their leisure indulging in the new habit. 



It was at this stage that active opposition to tobacco began to make itself felt in Holland. 

 The General and Provincial Governments attempted to check the habit by the issuing of 

 severely worded proclamations and the imposition of heavy duties ; the municipal authorities 

 imposed fines on persons found " sucking " tobacco ; the governors of orphan asylums and 

 religious institutions forbade tobacco smoking under pain of instant dismissal or even im- 

 prisonment ; and finally, it was made impossible for the country's military and naval defenders 

 to obtain any of the weed at all. Nevertheless, in spite of all efforts by well-intentioned 

 people to the contrary, smoking spread with great rapidity among all classes. 



The importance of the tobacco trade to Holland grew rapidly, and at the beginning of the 



