326 CULTURE, MANUFACTURE, ETC., OF TOBACCO. 



value, at two-pence per pound, will amount to nearly 

 thirty six and a half millions sterling (36,462,500). 



From these different statements a tolerably approxi- 

 mate calculation may be obtained, of the progress 

 of the tobacco trade, from the earliest introduction of 

 the plant into Europe. It is certainly one of the most 

 curious that commerce presents. That a plant originally 

 smoked by a few savages, should succeed in spite of 

 the most stringent opposition in Church and state, to be 

 the cherished luxury of the whole civilised world : to 

 increase with the increase of time, and to end in 

 causing so vast a trade, and so large an outlay of money ; 

 is a statistical fact, without an equal parallel. 



In the course of this little volume, it has been 

 attempted to give such a general history of the custom 

 of tobacco-taking, in all its forms, as would interest 

 ordinary readers; divesting it of the character of a 

 mere dry history; adding as much discursive infor- 

 mation as the subject would allow, and incidentally 

 displaying the opinions pro and con pronounced upon 

 a habit, second only in its universality to that of 

 taking salt. Many from its first introduction have 

 condemned it, many have as strongly extolled it; 

 many still condemn, but more than many laud and 

 patronise it. The historian and the chronicler have 

 to act impartially ; and to do this,, as far as possible 

 they should be free from prejudice. The author has 

 studied this subject without having acquired a taste for 

 the use of tobacco. Had he been a smoker, he might 

 have written with greater enthusiasm, as a fisherman 



