TOBACCO. 
from the sty, and with just as little apparent 
consciousness of the disgust and pain occasioned 
by his presence ; or he may neglect all the pro- 
prieties and many of the highest moral obliga- 
tions of the domestic circle, and feel utter in- 
difference respecting them, simply that he may 
squander all the time and money which are due 
to them upon his own abominable propensity. 
The quid is the next form in which tobacco is 
used as a luxury; and this is put into the mouth 
between the jaw and the cheek, and there rolled 
and sucked and turned and chewed. The kind 
of tobacco used for the quid is the strong leaf, 
prepared in the manner formerly described, and 
made first into cords and then into rolls, and 
popularly called pigtail. The quid in the mouth, 
like the smoke of tobacco, excites the salivary 
glands; and the mucus thereby secreted, mixes 
with the principle of the plant and forms a strong 
infusion of tobacco. Though this be discharged 
from the mouth, and little or none of it go into 
the stomach, the intoxicating and narcotic prin- 
ciple of the tobacco acts upon the brain, and 
causes the most dreadful intoxication in those 
unused to it. Like that of smoking, the habit 
of chewing tobacco is gradually acquired in the 
same manner as the taking of opium, and the 
madness of the intoxication gradually ceases; 
though most chewers of tobacco, unless actively 
employed, or enduring pain, are always in a state 
of semi-intoxication, not a few of them display- 
ing an eye which very little would rouse into a 
glare of ferocious insanity ; for it is the intoxi- 
cation of tobacco that leads to the most cruel 
acts committed by the idle and the lawless. It 
is said, and it may be true, that men exposed, as 
sailors are, to be covered with wet clothes morn- 
ing, noon, and night, require such a narcotic 
stimulus as tobacco, to secure them as well 
against intermittent fever and other distressing 
and dangerous complaints arising from their pur- 
suits and necessary habits of life, as to keep up 
their strength and courage during the excessive 
muscular labour and trying hardships they have 
to endure. The same kind of stimulus may also 
be requisite in a low, damp country like Holland, 
and in climates such as those of the south-eastern 
coast of Madagascar and of Batavia. But of this 
we are certain, that, with very few exceptions, 
men exposed, from these causes or from any 
other, to the necessity of constantly using to- 
bacco, run out more rapidly than others the 
thread of their existence,—and that the invete- 
rate tobacco-chewer is as old in constitution at 
fifty years of age, as he would be at seventy, did 
he not use this seductive and dangerous plant. 
The third form in which tobacco is used as a 
luxury is snuff. The practice of reducing this 
plant to a powder and preparing it for intro- 
duction into the nostrils, is general throughout 
Europe. It is said to have originated with the 
- French; and indeed, it is very probable that no 
other nation in the world would have imagined 
so singular a mode of using the tobacco plant. 
As a remedial pretence is often assigned for 
smoking or chewing tobacco, so also is a similar 
excuse offered for snuff-taking. Persons who 
have sore eyes or bad sight are often recommend- 
ed the use of this tobacco-powder; and it may 
have happened that inflamed eyes have been 
cured by such use; from which the takers have 
inferred that they must ever afterwards continue 
the practice, or the ophthalmia would return. 
But the snuff, in effecting such cure, had no pe- 
culiar specific virtue; its action was only that of 
a counter-irritant. The cephalic snuff, Grim- 
stone’s eye-snuff, or any other of the quack snuffs, 
sold as secret remedies for headaches and sore 
eyes, would have produced the same precise ef- 
fect, and by the same precise means, but without 
the same injury to the constitution; for these 
contain no tobacco; they are composed princi- 
pally of dried and pulverized sternutatory herbs, 
such as the leaves of the asarum, those of 
marjorum, and the flowers of the lily of the val- 
ley, combined. These, like the snuff of the to- 
bacco plant, excite and irritate the mucous mem- 
brane of the nostrils, and cause an additional 
secretion of mucus, which accounts for the fre- 
quent use of the pocket-handkerchief by snuff- 
takers, But the tobacco snuff does more; it 
acts upon the brain, causing intoxication and 
sickness ; and besides this, a large quantity of the 
powder taken into the nostrils enters the stomach, 
and there creates a truly distressing disturbance. 
Almost all snuffs, too, contain other matters 
besides tobacco; and though some contain no- 
thing deleterious, and are only mixed with sub- 
stances which improve their flavour, many are 
said to contain muriate of ammonia, pounded 
glass, carbonate of potash, and other matters 
intended to communicate pungency to the pow- 
der. To produce a certain ammoniacal flavour 
peculiar to many strong kinds of snuff, it is af- 
firmed that human urine is sometimes employed ; 
and from the odour of more than one variety, 
we cannot help thinking this affirmation correct. 
Pearlash, an impure carbonate of potash, is very 
frequently made use of by unprincipled dealers, 
to impart the pungency and flavour obtained in 
the best snuffs by more costly ingredients. “I 
was,’ says Dr. Ure, “employed some years ago by 
the excise to analyse a quantity of snuff, seized 
on suspicion of having been adulterated by the 
manufacturer. I found it to be largely drugged 
with pearlashes, and to be thereby rendered very 
pungent and absorbent of moisture,—an econo-- 
mical method of rendering an effete article at 
the same time active and aqueous.” All the 
damaged or spoiled tobacco is converted into 
snuff, which, by the aid of adulterating ingre- 
dients and sonorous names, is sold at a high price. 
Thus, in spite of legislative enactments, a snuff- 
taker receives into his nostrils, and thence into 
his stomach, matters which, if he were but con- 
scious that they formed component parts of his 
