Tobacco's World Triumph 43 



is never out of the mouth of the true-born Neder- 

 lander,' declared Washington Irving. Many Dutch- 

 men go to sleep with a pipe in their mouth, relight it 

 when they wake in the night, and again in the 

 morning before they turn out. Boys of six may be 

 seen smoking big black cigars, and whatever the task, 

 workmen are perpetually smoking. The Dutch, 

 indeed, are the greatest smokers in the world, though 

 Germans are popularly regarded as the foremost 

 smokers, a fact doubtless due to the huge pipes of the 

 Fatherland. The Dutch annually consume seven 

 pounds of tobacco per head of the population, or half 

 a pound per week for each smoker. The German 

 average per head is only three pounds per annum. 

 The Hollanders assert that the dampness of their 

 climate makes smoking a necessity, while the moderate 

 cost of tobacco renders its consumption inexpensive. 

 Certainly smoking has not wrought that havoc in the 

 material prosperity and moral character of the Dutch 

 which anti-tobacconists assert is the inevitable effect 

 of smoking. Dutch tobacco is chiefly home-grown 

 and very mild and hay-like. 



From Holland tobacco and smoking spread into 

 Germany, with what result all know. Smoking is 

 incessant, as also in Austria, tobacco being culti- 

 vated in both countries. The pipe reigns supreme in 

 Germany, and only to a less extent in Austria, 

 where the smoking qualities of meerschaum were 

 discovered. Snuff has never been popular in these 

 countries, tobacco being enjoyed in its original and 

 best form, in a pipe. 



The Latin races prefer tobacco in its lighter and 



