Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 20

The partiality this worthy Grecian always manifested for smoking is well known. Whenever he dined he was always indulged with a pipe. Even His Majesty, when Dr. Parr was his guest at Carlton Palace, condescended to give him a smoking-room and the company of Colonel C----, in order that he might suffer no inconvenience. "I don't like to be smoked myself, doctor," said the royal wit, "but I am anxious that your pipe should not be put out." One day, Dr. Parr was to dine at the house of Mr. ----, who informed his lady of the circ.u.mstance, and of the doctor's pa.s.sion for the pipe. The lady was much mortified by this intimation, and with warmth said, "I tell you what, Mr. ----, I don't care a fig for Dr. P.'s Greek; he shan't smoke here." "My dear," replied the husband, "he must smoke; he is allowed to do so everywhere." "Excuse me, Mr. ----, he shall not smoke here; leave it to me, my dear, I'll manage it." The doctor came; a splendid dinner ensued; the Grecian was very brilliant. After dinner, the doctor called for his pipes. "Pipes!" screamed the lady. "Pipes! For what purpose?" "Why, to smoke, madam!" "Oh! my dear doctor, I can't have pipes here. You'll spoil my room; my curtains will smell of tobacco for a week." "Not smoke!" exclaimed the astonished and offended Grecian. "Why, madam, I have smoked in better houses." "Perhaps so, sir," replied the lady, with dignity; and she added with firmness, "I shall be most happy, doctor, to show you the rights (rites?) of hospitality; but you cannot be allowed to smoke." "Then, madam," said Dr. Parr, looking at her ample person; "then, madam,--I must say, madam,--" "Sir, sir, are you going to be rude?" "I must say, madam,"

he continued, "you are the greatest tobacco-stopper in all England."

Of the clergy, Whatley was one of the greatest in intellect, and, as a smoker was devotedly attached to tobacco; his pipes, when out, served him for a book-marker. In summer-time he might be seen, of an evening, sitting on the chains of Stephen's Green, thinking of "that," as the song says, and of much more, while he was "smoking tobacco." In winter he walked and smoked, vigorously in both cases, on the Donnybrook road; or he would be out with his dogs, climbing up the trees to hide amid the branches a key or a knife, which, after walking some distance, he would tell the dogs he had lost, and bid them look for it and bring it to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Theory against experience.]

Of many warriors, none have been more devoted to the plant than Napoleon, Frederick of Prussia and Blucher the Bold. The following anecdote of the latter is one of the best of its kind: "As is well-known, Field-Marshal Blucher, in addition to his brave young 'fellows' (as he called his hors.e.m.e.n), loved three things above all, namely, wine, gambling, and a pipe of Tobacco. With his pipe he would not dispense, and he always took two or three puffs, at least, before undertaking anything. 'Without Tobacco, I am not worth a farthing,' he often said. Though so pa.s.sionately fond of Tobacco, yet old 'Forwards'

was no friend of costly smoking apparatus; and he liked best to smoke long, Dutch clay pipes, which, as everybody knows, very readily break.

Therefore, from among his 'young fellows' he had chosen for himself a Pipe-master, who had charge of a chest well packed with clay pipes; and this chest was the most precious jewel in Blucher's field baggage.

If one of the pipes broke, it was, for our hero, an event of the greatest importance. On its occurrence, the 'wounded' pipe was narrowly examined, and if the stem was not broken off too near the head, it was sent to join the corps of Invalids, and was called 'Stummel' (Stump, or Stumpy). One of these Stumpies the Field-Marshal usually smoked when he was on horseback, and when the troops were marching along or engaged in a reconnoissance, and eye-witnesses record that many a Stumpy was shot from his mouth by the b.a.l.l.s of the enemy--nothing but a piece of the stem then remaining between his lips. Blucher's Pipe-master, at the time of the Liberation War, was Christian Hennemann, a Mecklenburg and Rostock man, like Blucher himself, and most devotedly attached to the Field-Marshal. He knew all the characteristic peculiarities of the old hero, even the smallest, and no one could so skillfully adapt himself to them as he.

His duties as Pipe-master, Hennemann discharged with great fidelity; yea, even with genuine fanatical zeal. The contents of the pipe-chest he thoroughly knew, for often he counted the pipes. Before every fierce fight, Prince Blucher usually ordered a long pipe to be filled.

After smoking for a short time, he gave back the lighted pipe to Hennemann, placed himself right in the saddle, drew his sabre, and with the vigorous cry, 'Forward, my lads!' he threw himself into the fierce onset on the foe.

On the ever-memorable morning of the battle of Belle-Alliance (Waterloo), Hennemann had just handed a pipe to his master, when a cannon-ball struck the ground near, so that earth and sand covered Blucher and his gray horse. The horse made a spring to one side, and the beautiful new pipe was broken before the old hero had taken a single puff. 'Fill another pipe for me,' said Blucher; 'keep it lighted, and wait for me here a moment, till I drive away the French rascals. Forwards, lads!' Thereupon there was a rush forwards; but the chase lasted not only 'a moment,' but a whole hot day. At the Belle-Alliance Inn, which was demolished by shot,--the battle having at last been gained,--the victorious friends, Blucher and Wellington, met and congratulated each other on the grand and n.o.bly achieved work, each praising the bravery of the other's troops. 'Your fellows slash in like the very devil himself!' cried Wellington. Blucher replied, 'Yes; you see, that is their business. But brave as they are, I know not whether one of them would stand as firmly and calmly in the midst of the shower of b.a.l.l.s and bullets as your English.' Then Wellington asked Blucher about his previous position on the field of battle, which had enabled him to execute an attack so fatal to the enemy.

Blucher, who could strike tremendous blows, but was by no means a consummate orator, and could not paint his deeds in words, conducted Wellington to the place itself. They found it completely deserted; but on the very spot where Blucher had that morning halted, and from which he had galloped away, stood a man with his head bound up, and with his arm wrapped in a handkerchief. He smoked a long, dazzling white clay pipe. 'Good G.o.d!' exclaimed Blucher, 'that is my servant, Christian Hennemann. What a strange look you have, man! What are you doing here?' 'Have you come at last?' answered Christian Hennemann, in a grumbling tone; 'here I have stood the whole day, waiting for you. One pipe after another have the cursed French shot away from my mouth.

Once even a blue bean (a bullet) made sad work with my head, and my fist has got a deuce of a smashing. That is the last whole pipe, and it is a good thing that the firing has ceased; otherwise, the French would have knocked this pipe to pieces, and you must have stood there with a dry mouth.' He then handed the lighted pipe to his master, who took it, and after a few eagerly-enjoyed whiffs, said to his faithful servant, 'It is true, I have kept you waiting a long time; but to-day the French fellows could not be forced to run all at once.' With astonishment, Wellington listened to the conversation. Amazed, he looked now at the Field-Marshal, now at the 'Pipe-master,' and now at the branches of trees and the b.a.l.l.s scattered all round, which made it only too evident what a dangerous post this spot must have been during the battle. The wound in Hennemann's head proved to be somewhat serious; his hand was completely shattered; and yet, in the midst of the tempest of shot, he had stood there waiting for his beloved master."[55]

[Footnote 55: During the conquest of Holland, Louvais paid more attention to furnishing tobacco than provisions; and even at this day, as well as in former times, more care is taken to procure tobacco than bread to the soldier. Every soldier was obliged to have his pipe and his matches.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The faithful attendant.]

Tobacco smoking, however, can boast of many patrons besides warriors, physicians and statesmen, some of the finest writers of the last three centuries have indulged in the weed. The following extract from the "Australasian" ent.i.tled, "Tobacco Smoking" refers to many literary smokers.

"Burke felt himself precluded from 'drawing an indictment against a whole community.' The critical moralist pauses before the formidable array of the entire social world, civilized and savage. The c.o.c.kney, leaving behind him the regalias and meerschaums of the Strand, finds the wax-tipped clay-pipe in the parlors of Yorkshire: finds dhudeen and cutty in the wilds of Galway and on the rugged sh.o.r.es of Skye and Mull. The Frenchman he finds enveloped in clouds of Virginia, and the Swede, Dane, and Norwegian, of every grade or cla.s.s, makes the pipe his travelling companion and his domestic solace. The Magyar, the Pole and the Russian rival the Englishman in gusto, perhaps excel him in refinement; the Dutch boor smokes finer Tobacco than many English gentlemen can command, and more of it than many of our hardened votaries could endure; but all must yield, or rather, all must acc.u.mulate, ere our conceptions can approach to the German. America and the British colonies round off the picture, adding Cherokees, Redmen and Mongolians _ad libitum_. The Jew whether in Hounds ditch, Paris Hamburgh, or Constantinople, ever inhales the choicest growths, and the Mussulman's 'keyf' is proverbial. India and Persia dispute with us the palm of refinement and intensity, but the philosopher of Australia is embarra.s.sed when he asks himself to whom shall I award that of zealous devotion?

"Dr. Adam Clarke, who could never reconcile himself to the practice, deemed it due to his piety to find a useful purpose in the creation of tobacco by all-seeing Wisdom, and as that discovered by the instincts of all the nations of the planet, and practiced by mankind for three centuries, is wrong, the benevolent Wesleyan of Heydon, applied himself diligently and generously to correct the world, and to vindicate its Author. 'In some rare cases of internal injury tobacco may be used but not in the customary way.' Be it known, then, that the Creator has not created it in vain.

Dr. Clarke must have been a very good-natured man. He tortured his brains to find a hope of pardon for Judas Iscariot, and held that the creature (Nachash) who tempted Eve was not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture of _patella_ and _podex_; therefore doomed to crawl! But I fear, if the present form of using tobacco be not the true one, we must despair of ever finding it, and people will go on smoking and 'hearing reason' as long as the world goes round. Robert Hall received a pamphlet denouncing the pipe.

He read it, and returned it. 'I cannot, sir, confute your arguments, and I cannot give up smoking,' was his comment.

It is loosely a.s.serted that smoking is more prevalent among scholars, intellectualists, and men who live by their brains, than among artisans and subduers of the soil. This is an error. Tobacco is less a fosterer of thought than a solace of mental vacuity. The thinker smokes in the intervals of work, impatient of _ennui_ as well as of la.s.situde, and the ploughman, the digger, the blacksmith or the teamster, lights his cutty for the same reason. No true worker, be he digger, or divine, blends real work with either smoking or drinking. Whenever you see a fellow drink or smoke during work, spot him for a gone c.o.o.n; he will come to grief, and that right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and sometimes a pipe will bring sleep, but trust it not of itself for either thought or strength. It combats _ennui_, la.s.situde, and intolerable vacuity, soothing the nerves and diverting attention from self. Sam Johnson came very near the mark: 'I wonder why a thing that costs so little trouble, yet has just sufficient semblance of doing something to break utter idleness, should go out of fashion.

To be sure, it is a horrible thing blowing smoke out; but every man needs something to quiet him--as, beating with his feet.'

"Life is really too short for moralists and medici who have read Don Quixote, to attack a verdict arrived at and acted upon by the combined nations of the entire world, during the experience of three centuries, and apparently deepened by their advancing civilization. Give us rules and modifications, give us guides and correctives, give us warnings against excess, precipitancy, and neglect of other enjoyments, or of important duties, if you will. The urbane aestheticism that regulates pleasure also limits it; and true refinement ever modifies the indulgence it pervades. But it is emulating Mrs. Partington and her mop to attempt to preach down a world. When they do agree, their unanimity is irresistible. Prohibition may give zest to enjoyment, and provocation to curiosity, but can never overcome the instincts of nature or cravings of nervous irritability, and he who rises in rebellion against her absolute decree will respect the limits and study the laws of a recognized and regulated enjoyment.

"Let, then, the moralist point out what social duties may be imperilled; let the physician apprise us of the disorders to be guarded against; and let the lover of elegance see that no neglect or slight awaits her. Of abstract arguments we have seen the futility, of moral and medical crusades even the most patient are weary, and we gladly turn to something real, in the suffrages of a by-gone great man of acknowledged fame--Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson loved the 'durne weed,' and describes its every accident with the gusto of a connoisseur. Hobbes smoked, after his early dinner, pipes innumerable. Milton never went to bed without a pipe and a gla.s.s of water, which I cannot help a.s.sociating with his:

'Adam waked, So custom'd, for his sleep was aery light, of pure digestion bred And temperate vapors bland!'

"Sir Isaac Newton was smoking in his garden at Woolsthorpe when the apple fell. Addison had a pipe in his mouth at all hours, at 'b.u.t.tons.' Fielding both smoked and chewed. About 1740 it became unfashionable, and was banished from St.

James' to the country squires and parsons. Squire Western, in _Tom Jones_, arriving in town, sends off Parson Supple to Basingstoke, where he had left his Tobacco-box! The snuff-box was subst.i.tuted. Lord Mark Kerr, a brave officer who affected the _pet.i.t maitre_ (_a la_ Pelham, in Lord Lytton's second novel), invented the invisible hinges, and it was this 'going out of fashion' that Jonson alluded to in 1774.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Newton and his pipe.]

"We next find Tobacco rearing its head under the auspices of Paley and Parr. Paley had one of the most orderly minds ever given to man. A vein of shrewd and humorous sarcasm, together with an under-current of quiet selfishness, made him a very pleasant companion. 'I cannot afford to keep a conscience any more than a carriage,' was worthy of Erasmus, perhaps of Robelais. 'Our delight was,' said an old Jonsonian to the writer, 'to get old Paley, on a cold winter's night, to put up his legs, wrap them well up, stir the fire, and fill him a long Dutch pipe; he would talk away, sir, like a being of a higher sphere. He declined any punch, but drank it up as fast as we replenished his gla.s.s. He would smoke any given quant.i.ty of Tobacco, and drink any _given_ quant.i.ty of punch.'

"Parr smoked ostentatiously and vainly, as he did everything. He used only the finest Tobacco, half-filling his pipe with salt. He wrote and read, and smoked and wrote, rising early, and talking fustian. He was a sort of miniature Brummagem Johnson. Except his preface to _b.e.l.l.e.n.denus_, you might burn all he has written. His 'Life of Fox' is beneath contempt. His letters are simply laughable, especially his characters of contemporaries. He, however, was an amiable and good-natured man, and had sufficient humanity to regard dissent as an impediment to his recognition of intellectual or moral worth. Parr was an arrogant old c.o.xcomb, who abused the respectful kindness he received, and took his pipe into drawing-rooms. I pa.s.s over the Duke of Bridgewater, because he was early crossed in love by a most beautiful girl, could not bear the sight of a flower even growing, and pa.s.sed life in a pot-house with a pipe, listening to Brindley, whose intellect and dialect must have been alike incomprehensible to him.

"The cigar appeared about 1812; it received the countenance of the Regent, who had hitherto confined himself to macobau snuff, scented with lavender and the tonquin bean. Porson smoked many bundles of cheroots, which nabobs began to import. After 1815 the continental visits were resumed, and the practice of smoking began steadily to increase. The German china bowl with globular receiver of the essential oil, the absorbent meerschaum, the red Turkish bell-shaped clay, the elaborate hookah,--a really elegant ornament, and perhaps the most healthful and rational form of smoking,--pipes of all shapes, began to fill the shops of London. Coleridge, when cured of opium, took to snuff. Byron wrote dashingly about 'sublime Tobacco,' but I do not think he carried the practice to excess. Sh.e.l.ley never smoked, nor Wordsworth, nor Keats. Campbell loved a pipe. John Gibson Lockhart was seldom without a cigar. Sir Walter Scott smoked in his carriage, and regularly after dinner, loving both pipes and cigars. Professor Wilson smoked steadily, as did Charles Lamb. Carlyle, now somewhat past seventy, has been a st.u.r.dy smoker for years. Goethe did not smoke, neither did Shakespeare. I cannot recall a single allusion to Tobacco in all his plays; even Sir Toby Belch does not add the pipe to his burnt sack. But Shakespeare hated every form of debauchery. The penitence of Ca.s.sio is more prominent than was his fun. 'What! drunk? and talk fustian and speak parrot, and discourse with one's shadow?' Shakespeare held drunkenness in disgust. Even Falstaff is more an intellectual man than a sot. What actor could play Falstaff after riding forty miles and being well thrashed? Yet, when Falstaff sustains the evening at the Boar's Head, he has ridden to Gadshill and back, forty-four miles! No palsied sot, he. Hamlet's disgust at his countrymen is well known.

'Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!' is the comment on the drunken Kit Sly. In short, when you look at the smooth, happy, half-feminine face of Shakespeare, you see one to whom all forms of debauchery were ungenial. A courtier certainly, and a lover of money. The king had written against Tobacco, and Will Shakespeare set his watch to the time. Raleigh and Coliban Jonson might smoke at the Mermaid--Will kept his head clear and his doublet sweet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tennyson, smoking.]

"Alfred Tennyson is a persistent smoker of some forty years.

d.i.c.kens, Jerrold and Thackeray all puffed. Lord Lytton loves a long pipe at night and cigars by day. Lord Houghton smokes moderately. The late J. M. Kemble, author of 'The Seasons in England,' was a tremendous smoker. Moore cared not for it; indeed, I think that Irish gentlemen smoke much less than English. Wellington shunned it; so did Peel. D'Israeli loved the long pipe in his youth, but in middle age p.r.o.nounced it 'the tomb of love.' While I am writing, it is not too much to aver that 99 persons out of 100, taken at random, under forty years of age, smoke habitually every day of their lives. How many in Melbourne injure wealth and brain, I leave to more skilled and morose critics. But my mind misgives me. Paralysis is becoming very frequent.

"I have seen stone pipes from Gambia, shaped like the letter U consisting each of one solid flint, hollowed through, also hookahs made by sailors with cocoanut sh.e.l.ls. All, however, now agree that it is impossible to have either comfortable, cool, or safe smoking, unless through a substance like clay, porous and absorbent, especially as portable pipes are the mode. Those of black charcoal are not handsome; indeed, I always feel like a mute at a funeral while smoking one, but they are delightfully cool, absorbing more essential oil of nicotine, and more quickly than any meerschaum. I caution the smoker to have an old glove on; as these pipes 'sweat,' the oil comes through, and nothing is more pertinacious than oil of tobacco when it sinks into your pores, or floats about hair or clothes. My own taste inclines to the German receiver, long cherry tube and amber, and to my own garden, for all street smoking is unaesthetic, and the traveller by coach, boat, or rail has the tastes of others to consult. Surely it is not urbane to throw on another the burden of saying that he likes not the smell or the inhaling of burning tobacco. Better postpone your solace to more fitting time and place--the close of day and your own veranda. Indoor smoking is detestable. Life has few direr disenchanters than the morning smells of obsolete tobacco, relics though they be of hesternal beat.i.tude. Give me, in robe or jacket, a hookah, or German arrangement, Chinese rec.u.mbency in matted and moistened veranda, and the odors of fresh growing beds of flowers wafted by the southern breeze. Nor be wanting the fragrant perfume of coffee. 'Meat without salt,' says Hafiz, 'is even as tobacco without coffee.' The tannin of the coffee corrects the nicotine. And it may not be amiss to learn that a plate of watercress, salt, and a large gla.s.s of cold water should be at hand to the smoker by day; the watercress corrects any excess, and is at hand in a garden. Smoke not before breakfast, nor till an hour has elapsed after a good meal.

Smoke not with or before wine, you destroy the wine-palate.

If you love tea, postpone pipe till after it; no man can enjoy fine tea who has smoked. In short, smoke not till the day is done, with all its tasks and duties.

"I have seen men of pretension and position treat carpets most contumeliously, trampling on the pride of Plato with a recklessness that would bring a blush to the cheek of Diogenes himself. Can they forget the absorbent powers of carpet tissues, and the horrors of next morning to non-smokers, perhaps to ladies? Surely this is unaesthetic and illiberal: it is in an old man most pitiable, in a young one intolerable, in a scholar inexcusable, from an uncleanness that seems willful. Let the young philosopher avoid such practice, and give a wide berth to those who follow them. Take the following rules, tyro, _meo periculo_:--

1. Never smoke when the pores are open: they absorb, and you are unfit for decent society. Be it your study ever to escape the noses of strangers. First impressions are sometimes permanent, and you may lose a useful acquaintance.

2. Learn to smoke slowly. Cultivate 'calm and intermittent puffs.'--_Walter Scott._

3. On the first symptom of expectoration lay down the pipe, or throw away the cigar; long-continued expectoration is destructive to yourself and revolting to every spectator.

4. Let an interval elapse between the filling of succeeding pipes.

5. Clean your tube regularly, and your amber mouthpiece with a feather dipped in spirits of lavender. Never suffer the conduit to remain discolored or stuffed.

6. A German receiver can be washed out like a teacup, and the oil collected is of value, but a meerschaum should never be wetted. A small sponge at the end of a wire dipped in sweet oil should be used carefully and persistently round and round, coaxing out any hard concretions, till the inside be smooth in its dark polished grain, of a rich mahogany tint. The outside, also, well polished with sweet oil and stale milk, then enveloped in chamois leather. The rich dark coloring is the pledge of your safety--better there than darkening your own brains.

"The pale gold c'noster and Turkey have now given way to the splendid varieties of America, and my knowledge halts behind the age. The black sticks resembling lollipops are said to be compounds of rum, bullocks' blood and tobacco lees. A taste for them, when once contracted, is abiding. Fine volatile tobacco, with aromatic delicacy, requires a long tube; used in a short pipe of modern fashion, they parch and shrivel the tongue. In short, what is true of all other pleasures is also true of tobacco-smoking. Fruition is sometimes too rapid for enjoyment, as the dram-drinker is less wise than the calm imbiber of the fragrant vintage of the Garonne. With Burke's common sense I began, and with it I end. Depurate vice of all her offensiveness, and you prune her of half her evil. Let not your love of indulgence be so inordinate as to purchase short pleasure by impairing health, neglecting duty, or, while promoting your own self-complacency, allow yourself to become permanently revolting to society, by offending more senses as well as more principles than one.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Modern smokers.]

Mantegazza, one of the most brilliant of all writers on tobacco, in alluding to the enchantment of the "weed," says:--

"If a winged inhabitant of some remote world felt the impulse to traverse s.p.a.ce, and, with an astronomical map, to fly round our planetary system, he would at once recognize the earth by the odor of tobacco which it exhales, forasmuch as all known nations smoke the nicotian herb. And thousands and thousands of men, if compelled to limit themselves to a single nervous aliment, would relinquish wine and coffee, opium and brandy, and cling fondly to the precious narcotic leaf. Before Columbus, tobacco was not smoked except in America; and now, after a lapse of a few centuries in the furthest part of China and in j.a.pan, in the island of Oceanica as in Lapland and Siberia, rises from the hut of the savage and from the palace of the prince, along with the smoke of the fireplace, where man bakes his bread and warms his heart, another odorous smoke, which man inhales and breathes forth again to soothe his pain and to vanquish fatigue and anxiety.

"In the early times of the introduction of tobacco, smokers in many countries were condemned to infamous and cruel punishments; had their noses and their lips cut off, and with blackened faces and mounted on an a.s.s, exposed to the coa.r.s.e jests of the vilest vagabonds and the insults of the mult.i.tude. But now the hangman smokes, and the criminal condemned to death smokes before being hanged. The king in his gilt coach smokes; and the a.s.sa.s.sin smokes who lies in wait to throw down before the feet of the horses the murderous bomb. The human family spends every year two thousand six hundred and seventy millions of francs (about a hundred millions in English money) on tobacco, which is not food, which is not drink, and without which it contrived to live for a long succession of ages.

"In the discomfitures and disasters which befell the Army of Lavalle, in the civil wars of the Argentine Republic, the poor fugitives had to suffer the most horrible privations, which can be imagined. By degrees the tobacco came to an end, and the Argentines smoked dry leaves. One man, more fortunate than his comrades, continued to use with much economy the most precious of all his stores--tobacco. A fellow soldier begged to be allowed to put the economist's pipe in his own mouth, and thus to inhale at second-hand the adored smoke, paying two dollars for the privilege. What is more striking still, when, in 1843, the convicts in the prison of Epinal, France, who had for some time been deprived of tobacco, rose in revolt, their cry was 'tobacco or death!' When Col. Seybourg was marching in the interior of Surinam against negro rebels, and the soldiers had to bear the most awful hardships, they smoked paper, they chewed leaves and leather, and found the lack of tobacco the greatest of all their trials and torments."

Elsewhere, inquiring what nervous aliments harmonize the one with the other, he says:--

"The only, the true, the legitimate companion of coffee is the nicotian plant; and wisely and well the Turkish epicures declare that for coffee--the drink of Heaven--tobacco is the salt. The smoke of a puro, of a manilla, or of real Turkish tobacco, which pa.s.ses amorously through the voluptuous tip of amber, blends magnificently with the austere aroma of the coffee, and the inebriated palate is agitated between a caress and a rebuke."

From a Southern paper we extract these whimsical lines.

"On the Great Fall in the Price of Tobacco in 1801," by Hugh Montgomery, Lynchburgh, Va.,

"Lately a planter chanced to pop His head into a barber's shop-- Begged to be shaved; it soon was done, When Strap (inclined oft-times to fun,) Doubling the price he'd asked before, Instead of two pence made it four.

The planter said, 'You sure must grant, Your charge is most exhorbitant.'

'Not so,' quoth Strap, 'I'm right and you are wrong, For since tobacco fell, your face is twice as long.'"

Another quaint whim in the form of an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a lost meerschaum is from an Australian paper:

"To Honest men and others,--Driving from Hale Town to Bridgetown, on Sunday, last, the advertiser lost a cigar holder with the face of a pretty girl on it. The intrinsic value of the missing article is small, but as the owner has been for the last few months converting the young lady from a blonde into a brunette, he would be glad to get it back again. If it was picked up by a gentleman, on reading this notice, he will, of course, send it to the address below. If it was picked up by a poor man, who could get a few shillings by selling it, on his bringing it to the address below, he shall be paid the full amount of its intrinsic value. If it was picked up by a thief, let him deliver it, and he shall be paid a like amount, and thus for once can do an honest action, without being a penny the worse for it."