The Funny Side of Physic Part 85

"How could that be possible? Do tell me," she exclaimed, impatiently.

"Well, you see,"--spitting on the floor,--"when he came to die, he couldn't do it. He was too lazy to draw his last breath, and they had to get a corkscrew to draw it for him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHALL I a.s.sIST YOU TO ALIGHT?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WORK FOR TONGUES AND FINGERS.]

"You think it smart and cunning, John, To use the nauseous weed; To make your mouth so filthy then, It were a shame indeed.

To smoke and chew tobacco, John, Till your teeth are coated brown, Making a chimney of your nose, And of yourself a clown,--

"Yes, that would be so cunning, John,-- The girls will love you so; Your breath will smell so sweet, They'll want you for a beau.

Because you use tobacco, John, You think yourself a man; But the girls will find it out, John, Disguise it all you can."

"Shall I a.s.sist you to alight?" asked one of those nice young men who loaf about country hotel doors, smoking a villanous cigar, of a buxom country la.s.s, on arrival of the stage.

"Thank you, sir," said the girl, with irony, and a jump, "but I never smoke."

BLACK EYES AND FINGERS.

An American traveller visiting the greatest cigar manufactory in Seville, Spain, says, amongst other things,--

"Here were five thousand young girls, all in one room,--and Sevillians, too,--in the factory. They are all old enough to be mischievous, and 'put on airs.' I doubt if as many black eyes can be seen in any one place as in this factory. Their fingers move rapidly, and their tongues a little faster. The manufactories consume ten thousand pounds of tobacco per day.

"I have often heard that a woman's weapon is her tongue, and that the s.e.x were notorious for using it; but, like many other unkind statements against Heaven's best, last gift to man, I doubted it until I peeped into the Fabrico de Tabacos of Seville. What must be the weight of mischief manufactured each day along with the cigars, I don't know, but I feel safe in stating that it is at least equal with the tobacco. This factory was erected in 1750, is six hundred and sixty feet long by five hundred and twenty-five wide, and is surrounded by a mole. It is the princ.i.p.al factory in the kingdom, as every one uses tobacco in some shape in Andalusia, not excepting the ladies; but it is when they are on the shady side of forty that they puff and cogitate. Snuff, cigars, and cigarettes are all manufactured here. The best workers among the girls earn about forty cents per day, the poorest about half that amount. Every night they are all searched."

DISEASE AND INSANITY.

Tobacco helps to fill our insane asylums. Dr. Butler, of Hartford, and others, have a.s.sured me of the fact. "I am personally acquainted with several individuals, now at lunatic asylums, whose minds first became impaired by the use of tobacco."

"In France, the increase in cases of lunacy and paralysis keeps pace, almost in exact ratio, with the increase of the revenue from tobacco. From 1812 to 1832, the tobacco tax yielded 28,000,000f., and there were 8000 lunatic patients. Now the tobacco revenue is 180,000,000f., and there are 44,000 paralytic and lunatic patients in French asylums. Napoleon and Eugenie, a.s.sisted by their subjects, smoked out five million pounds of tobacco the year before they went on their travels. Take notice. As ye sow, so also reap."

Sir Benjamin Brodie, before quoted, says, "Occasionally tobacco produces a general nervous excitability, which in a degree partakes of the nature of _delirium tremens_."

THE MEERSCHAUM. A SONNET.

"The gorgeous glories of autumnal dyes; The golden glow that haloes rare old wine; The dying hectic of the day's decline; The rainbow radiance of auroral skies; The blush of Beauty, smit with Love's surprise; The unimagined hues in gems that shine,-- All these, O Nicotina, _may_ be thine!

But what of thy bewildered votaries?

How fares it with the more precious human clay?

Keeps the _lip_ pure, while wood and ivory stains?

Stays the _sight_ clear, while smoke obscures the day?

Works the _brain_ true, while poison fills the veins?

Shines the _soul_ fair where Tophet-blackness reigns?

Let shattered nerves declare! Let palsied manhood say!"

J. IVES PEASE.

USES AND ABUSES OF TOBACCO.

In our opening remarks on tobacco, we stated some of the uses of tobacco, such as killing bugs and lice on plants, vermin on cattle, etc. It prevents cannibals from eating up our poor sailors; and, in the Mexican war, it was ascertained that the turkey buzzards would not eat our dead soldiers who were impregnated with tobacco!

Dean Swift published a pamphlet, in his day, showing how the superfluity of poor children could be made an article of diet for landlords who had already consumed the parents' substance. All may not admit that there _is_ a superfluity of children and youth in the larger towns and cities of our country. A New York paper says that "five thousand young men might leave New York city without being missed." Now for our argument. "Like begets like." The lamb feeds upon pure hay or sweet gra.s.s. It is the emblem of purity; it represented Christ. The lion and tiger have _only_ tearing teeth, and subsist upon animal food, and they are of a wild, ferocious nature. Man stuffs himself with tobacco poison. It becomes a part of him,--muscle, blood, bone! Like begets like, and behold the tobacco-user's children, puny, yellow, pale, scrofulous, rickety, and consumptive. Many years ago it was estimated that twenty thousand persons died annually in the United States from the use of tobacco. Nine tenths begin with tobacco catarrh, go on to consumption, and death.

"The diseased, enfeebled, impaired, and rotten const.i.tution of the parent is transmitted to the child, which comes into the world an invalid, and then, being exposed more directly to the poisonous effects of this pernicious habit of the parent, its struggle for life is exceedingly short, and in less than twelve months from its birth it sickens, droops, and dies, and the milkman's adulterated milk, especially in cities, is often made the scape-goat for this uncleanly, if not sinful habit of the parent."

If it is true that the wicked mostly make up the tobacco-consumers, you perceive by this, that like the prisons and gallows, tobacco catches and kills off the superfluous wicked population and their offspring. The sins of the parents are visited upon their children, and what a host of puny, wretched, and wicked little children tobacco helps to rid the world of.

Selah!

TOBACCO WORSE THAN RUM.

Tobacco is worse than rum because, by its begetting a dryness of the throat and fauces, it creates an appet.i.te for strong drink. It is too evident to need corroboration. 1. "Rum intoxicates." So does tobacco.

"Intoxication" is from the Greek _en_ (in) and _toxicon_ (poison).

Therefore, when any perceptible poison is in the person, he is intoxicated. 2. "Alcohol blunts the senses, and ruins many a fair intellect." So does tobacco. But since the ruined drunkard used tobacco, how do you know it was not tobacco which ruined him? Come, tell me! 3.

"Rum makes a man miserable." So does tobacco. The user is in Tophet the day he is out of the weed. 4. "Whiskey makes paupers." So does tobacco. I knew a whole family who went to the Brooklyn, Me., pauper house one winter, when, if the father and mother had not used tobacco, they could have been in health and prosperity. 5. "Rum makes thieves." So does tobacco. Men have been known to steal tobacco when they would not have stolen bread. 6. "It makes murderers." Where is the murderer of the nineteenth century who was not a tobacco-user, and an excessive user at that, from George Dennison, who on the drop asked the sheriff for a chew of tobacco, to Stokes, in his New York cell, surrounded by a cloud of tobacco smoke, awaiting the decision of the jury to ascertain if it was really he who shot the "Prince of Erie"?

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHAT KILLED THE DOG?]

You can't always tell just what kills a man, or a dog, as the following story proves:--

"An old farmer was out one fine day looking over his broad acres, with an axe on his shoulder, and a small dog at his heels. They espied a woodchuck. The dog gave chase, and drove him into a stone wall, where action immediately commenced. The dog would draw the woodchuck partly out from the wall, and the woodchuck would take the dog back. The old farmer's sympathy getting high on the side of the dog, he thought he must help him.

So, putting himself in position, with the axe above the dog, he waited the extraction of the woodchuck, when he would cut him down. Soon an opportunity offered, and the old man struck; but the woodchuck gathered up at the same time, took the dog in far enough to receive the blow, and the dog's head was chopped off on the spot. Forty years after, the old man, in relating the story, would always add, with a chuckle of satisfaction, 'And that dog don't know, to this day, but what the woodchuck killed him!'"

We regret our want of s.p.a.ce to ventilate tobacco more thoroughly.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XXVI.

DRESS AND ADDRESS OF PHYSICIANS.

The fish called the Flounder, perhaps you may know, Has one side for use, and another for show; One side for the public, a delicate brown, And one that is white, which he always keeps down.

Then said an old Sculpin--"My freedom excuse, But you're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; Your brown side is up,--but just wait till you're _fried_, And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side."

DR. O. W. HOLMES. 1844.

GOSSIP IS INTERESTING.--COMPARATIVE SIGNS OF GREATNESS.--THE GREAT SURGEONS OF THE WORLD.--ADDRESS NECESSARY.--"THIS IS A BONE."--DRESS _not_ NECESSARY.--COUNTRY DOCTORS' DRESS.--HOW THE DEACON SWEARS.--A GOOD MANY SHIRTS.--ONLY WASHED WHEN FOUND DRUNK.--LITTLE TOMMY MISTAKEN FOR A GREEN CABBAGE BY THE COW.--AN INSULTED LADY.--DOCTORS'

WIGS.--"AIN'T SHE LOVELY?"--HARVEY AND HIS HABITS.--THE DOCTOR AND THE VALET.--A BIG WIG.--BEN FRANKLIN.--JENNER'S DRESS.--AN ANIMATED WIG; A LAUGHABLE STORY.--A CHARACTER.--"DASH, DASH."