30 



THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 



[1853 



position only excited more general attention to the plant, awak- 

 ened curiosity regarding it, and promoted its consumption. 



So in the East — the priests and sultans of Turkey and Persia, 

 declared smoking a sin against their holy religion, yet neverthe- 

 less the Turks and Persians became the greatest smokers in the 

 world. In Turkey the pipe is perpetually in the mouth; in 

 India all classes and both sexes smoke; in China the practice is 

 so universal that " every female, from the age of eight or nine 

 years, wears as an appendage to her dress a small silken pocket, 

 to hold tobacco and a pipe." It is even argued by Pallas that 

 the extensive prevalence of the practice in Asia, and especially in 

 China, proves the use of tobacco for smoking to be more ancient 

 than the discovery of the New World. " Amongst the Chinese," 

 he says, " and amongst the Mongol tribes who had the most in- 

 tercourse with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so fre- 

 quent, and has become so indispensable a luxury ; the tobacco 

 purse affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress; the 

 form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the 

 model of theirs, so original ; and, lastly, the preparation of the 

 yellow leaves, which are merely rubbed to pieces and then put in 

 to the pipe, so peculiar — that they could not possibly derive all 

 this from America by way of Europe, especially as India, where 

 the pra?tice of smoking is not so general, intervenes between 

 Persia and China."* 



Leaving this question of its origin, the reader will not be sur- 

 prised, when he considers how widely tb.3 practice of smoking 

 prevails, that the total produce of tobacco grown on the face of 

 the globe has been calculated by Mr. Crawford to amount to the 

 enormous quantity of two millions of tons. The comparative 

 magnitude of this quantity will strike the reader more forcibly, 

 when we state that the whole of the wheat consumed by the in- 

 habitants of Great Britain — estimating it at a quarter a-head, or 

 in round numbers at twenty millions of quarters — weighs only 

 four aud one-third millions of tons ; so that the tobacco yearly 

 raised for the gratification of this one form of narcotic appetite 

 weighs as much as the wheat consumed by ten millions of Eng- 

 lishmen. And reckoning it at only double the market value of 

 wheat, or two pence and a fraction per pound, it is worth in 

 money as much as all the wheat eaten in Great Britain. 



The largest producers, and probably the largest consumers, of 

 tobacco, are the United States of America. The annual produc- 

 tion, at the last two decennial periods of their census returns, was 

 estimated at 



1840 - - - 219,163,319 lb. 



1850 - - - 199,752,646 " 

 being about one-twentieth part of the whole supposed produce 

 af the globe. 



One of the remarkable circumstances connected with the his- 

 tory of tobacco, is, the rapidity with which its consumption and 

 growth have increased, in almost every country, since the discov- 

 ery of America. In 1662, the quantity raised in Virginia — the 

 chief producer of tobacco on the American shores of the Atlantic 

 — was only 60,000 lb. ; and the quantity exported from that col- 

 ony in 1689, only 120,000 lb. In two hundred and thirty years 

 the produce has risen to nearly twice as many millions. And 

 the extension of its use in our own country may be inferred from 

 the facts that, in the above year of 1689, the total importation 

 was 120,000 lb. of Virginian tobacco, part of wkich was probably 

 re-exported; while, in 1852, the quantity entered for home con- 

 sumption amounted to 



28,558,753 lb. 



being something over a pound per head of the whole population ; 



'JM'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, edit. 1847, p. 1314. 



and to this must be added the large quantity of contraband to- 

 bacco, which the heavy duty of three shillings per pound tempts 

 the smuggler to introduce. The whole duty levied on the above 

 quantity in 1852, was £4,560,741, which is equal to a poll-tax 

 of 3s. a-head. 



Tobacco, ps every child among us now knows, is used for 

 smoking, for chewing, and for snuffing. The second of these 

 practices is, in many respects, the most disgusting, and is now 

 rarely seen in this country, except among seafaring men. On 

 shipboard, smoking is always dangerous, and often forbidden ; 

 while snuffing is expensive and inconvenient ; so that, if the weed 

 must be used, the practice of chewing it can alone be resorted to. 



For the smoker and chewer it is prepared in various forms, 

 and sold under different names. The dried leaves, coarsely bro- 

 ken, are sold as canaster or knaster. When moistened, compres- 

 sed, and cut into fine threads, they form cut or shag tobacco. 

 Moistened with molasses or with syrup, and pressed into cakes, 

 they are called cavendish and negrohead, and are used indifferent- 

 ly either for chewing or smoking, Moistened in the same way, 

 and beaten until they are soft, and then twisted into a thick string, 

 they form the pigtail or twist of the chewer. Cigars are formed 

 of the dried leaves, deprived of their midribs, and rolled up into 

 a spindle. When cut straight, or truncated at each end, as is the 

 custom at Manilla, they are distinguished as cheroots. 



For the snuff-takerj the dried leaves are sprinkled with water 

 laid in heaps, and allowed to ferment. They are then dried again, 

 reduced to powder, and baked or roasted. The dry snuffs, like 

 the Scotch and Irish, are usually prepared from the midribs — 

 the rappees, or moist snuffs, from the soft part of the leaves. The 

 latter are also variously scented, to suit the taste of the customer. 



Extensively as it is used, it is surprising how very few can 

 state distinctly the effects which tobacco produces — can explain 

 the kind of pleasure the use of it gives them — why they began, 

 and for what reason they continue the indulgence. In truth, few 

 have thought of these points — have cared to analyse their sensa- 

 tions when under the narcotic influence of tobacco — or, if they 

 have analysed them, would care to tell truly what kind of relief 

 it is which they seek in the use of it. " In habitual smokers," 

 says Dr. Pereira, " the practice, when employed moderately, pro- 

 vokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva, and produces a re- 

 markably soothing and tranquilising effect on the mind, which 

 has made it so much admired and adopted by all classes of socie- 

 ty, and by all nations, civilised and barbarous." Taken in ex- 

 cess in any form, and especially by persons unaccustomed to it, 

 it produces nausea, vomiting, in some cases purging, universal 

 trembling, staggering, convulsive movements, paralysis, torpor, 

 and death. Cases are on record of persons killing themselves by 

 smoking seventeen or eighteen pipes at a sitting. With some 

 constitutions it never agrees; but both our author and Dr. Chris- 

 tison of Edinburgh agree that " no well-ascertained ill effects have 

 been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking." 

 The effects of chewing are of a similar kind. Those of snuffing 

 are only less in degree ; and the influence which tobacco exercises 

 in the mouth, in promoting the flow of saliva, &c, manifests it- 

 self when used as snufi in producing sneezing, and in increasing 

 the discharge of mucus from the nose. The excessive use of snuflj 

 however, blunts the sense of smell, alters the tone of voice, and 

 occasionally produces dyspepsia and loss of appetite. In rarer 

 cases it ultimately induces apoplexy and delirium. 



But it is the soothing and tranquilising effect it has on the 

 mind for which tobacco is chiefly indulged in. And amid the 

 teasing paltry cares, as well as the more poignant griefs of life, 

 what a blessing that a mere material soother and tranquiliser can 

 be found, accessible alike to all — to the desolate and the outcast, 



