10 THE TOBACCO PLANT. 



effect which thought, constantly directed in a wrong 

 channel, may have in warping the judgment."* 



There is no doubt that tobacco, if much used by 

 persons of lethargic temperament, is bad from the very 

 nature of the herb, but "your hot and sanguine temper " 

 may be much improved thereby. Instances in abun- 

 dance occur where smoking really to excess, has not 

 been accompanied by any injury to the smoker : not that 

 for one moment we would here defend such practices. 

 Men have lived to a good old age who have done so. 

 The author's father died at the age of seventy -two : he 

 had been twelve hours a day in a tobacco-manufactory 

 for nearly fifty years ; and he both smoked and chewed 

 while busy in the labours of the workshop, sometimes 

 amid a dense cloud of steam from drying the damp to- 

 bacco over the stoves ; and his health and appetite were 

 perfect to the day of his death ; he was a model of 

 muscular and stomachic energy ; in which his son, who 

 neither smokes, snuffs, nor chews, by no means rivals 

 him or does him credit. But we may best conclude 

 with the following very sensible remarks, which ap- 

 peared in the Examiner of January 17, 1852. 



" Some physicians have been pleased to ascribe per- 

 nicious effects to the use of tobacco, upon about as good 

 evidence as a gipsy tells fortunes by counting the furrows 

 on the palm of a country girl's hand. A correspondent 

 favours us with an extract from a paper read before 

 the British Association at Southampton, in which a 



* Inglis, Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote. 



