162 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. 



effects wliicli proceed from Avine, it is a sufficient luxury 

 to many who without it would have recourse to intoxicat- 

 irig beverages, merely to pass away hours of idleness.' 

 Mr. Layard, whose intercourse with Eastern nations has 

 been most extensive, entertains the same opinion ; while 

 Mr. Crawford, who has also seen much of Eastern life, 

 thinks it can hardly be doubted that tobacco must, to a 

 certain extent, bave contributed to the sobriety both of 

 Asiatic and European nations.* 



" These opposite facts form another interesting phy- 

 siological study. In North America the smoking of 

 tobacco provokes to alcoholic dissipation ; in Asia it re- 

 strains the use of intoxicating drinks, and takes their place. 

 How complicated are the causes out of whicb these dif- 



* Journal of the Statistical Society, March 1853, p. 52. 

 The Dr. Pidduck before quoted in notis reproduces one of 

 Mr. Lizars's hobgoblins — enervation of the reproductive 

 organs. He asks, " How is it, then, that the Eastern nations 

 have not ere this become exterminated by a practice which 

 is almost universal ? The reply is, that by early marriage, 

 hefore the habit is fully formed, or its injurious effects decidedly 

 developed, the evil to the offspring is prevented," &c. Now, 

 in reply to this reply of the doctor, he is informed that in 

 India all classes and both sexes smoke — ^where infanticide 

 feeds the sharks of the Ganges — and yet population is exube- 

 rant. The Burmese of all ranks, of both sexes and of all 

 ages, down even to infants of three years old, smoke cigars, 

 according to Crawford. In China, again, a country of re- 

 dundant population, the practice is so universal, that every 

 female, from the age of eight or nine, wears, as an appendage 

 to her dress, a small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a 

 pipe. See Johnston's ' Chemistry of Common Life,' No. vii. 

 p. 9. Are these facts compatible with the doctor's reply, 

 that *' by early marriage," &c. 



