This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. http://books.google.com Tobacco FrederickWilliamFairholt 383 649 ^ SEP 1 G 1974 f ; / * / 1 ?5 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS. TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY & ASSOCIATIONS. INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PLANT AND ITS MANUFACTURE ; WITH ITS MODES OF USE IN ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES. By F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. WITH IOO ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. EonHon s CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1876. r- - ■ \ ! A';'.' .'3 HARVARD LOTAIUCAL MUSEUM 11 Sublime tobacco, which, from east to west, Cheers the Tar's labour, and the Turkman's rest." Byron. "The Old World was sure forlorn, Wanting thee ! " C. Lamb. \ T 7tS>t TO CHARLES ROACH SMITH, Esq. My Dear Friend, It was a custom with the old English authors to dedicate their works to persons for whom they felt esteem ; and to make such dedications serve as familiar prefaces. I desire, in this instance, to revive the practice ; and I inscribe your name on this page. You, who know my early history, will. feel no surprise at my choice of subject. Born in London, and never having been out of sight of St. Paul's until I had reached my twenty-second year, the tobacco-warehouse, where my father worked, became my play-ground ; and my first remembrances are, of rolling in the tobacco-leaf, as country children would roll in a hay-field, and playing at " hide-and-seek " in the empty barrels. In after years, when I helped my father to manufacture many hundred pounds of tobacco-leaf, I little thought that my pen and pencil would be called into use over a book like this. I am willing to think, however, tha the peculiarities of my early training have here been of use. Disliking my father's trade, and, through many difficulties, happily emancipating myself, tobacco had not that charm VI DEDICATION. for me that you and others find in it. But I hope these pages will show that I have no narrow notions on a pleasure • in which I cannot participate ; but rather a honest detest ation of that want of Christian tolerance which has induced some persons to denounce a harmless indulgence as if it were a moral evil. I should be untrue to my father's memory — "an honest man and a good smoker" — if I did not contradict such gratuitous imputations. If I am proud of anything, it is of my father and his seventy-two years of industry and integrity. That you are " a good smoker " also, I have had experi ence, at home and abroad, when I have examined in your society many of the finest relics of antiquity, the study of which has been the solace of our lives. In you I shall find a gentle critic : you will estimate, by your own experience, that which few who read consider, the time and trouble requisite to gather into one volume the results of reading many a score ; and I have been embarrassed in my task of condensation by the abundance rather than the paucity of my materials. I will not offer you any laudation here ; friendship is too sacred a thing for public display. I only wish that, while one copy of this little book remains, it should exist to record the sincere esteem I feel for you. F. W. FAIRHOLT. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PACE THE TOBACCO PLANT I CHAPTER II. TOBACCO IN AMERICA 13 CHAPTER III. TOBACCO IN EUROPE, AND ITS LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS . 43 CHAPTER IV. TOBACCO-PIPES, CIGARS, AND THE SMOKER'S PARAPHERNALIA 152 CHAPTER V. SNUFF AND SNUFF-BOXES 239 CHAPTER VI. THE CULTURE, MANUFACTURE, AND CONSUMPTION OF TOBACCO 296 TOBACCO: ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS. CHAPTER I. THE TOBACCO PLANT. Tobacco is a hardy flowering perennial plant, growing freely in a rich moist soil, which is very necessary to its healthy development ; but which it is said to exhaust in a remarkable degree. It varies in height according to species and locality ; in some instances growing to the altitude of fifteen feet, in others not reaching more than three feet from the ground. There is also a dwarf kind discovered by Houston at Vera Cruz, the leaves of which grow in tufts near the ground, the flowers rising from a central stem to the height of eighteen inches. As many as forty varieties of the Tobacco plant have been noted by botanists, who class them all among the Solanacece, and narcotic poisons. The Atropa Belladonna, or deadly night shade, is a member of this family ; but it may be of use to the nervous to know that the common potato is in the same category ; and that, though tobacco will 2 THE TOBACCO PLANT. produce a virulent poison — Nicotine — by the chemical condensation of a large quantity,* in a similar manner the Potato fruit and leaves give us Solanine, " an acrid narcotic poison, two grains of which given to a rabbit, produced paralysis of the posterior extremities, and death in two hours. Traces of this are also found in the healthy tubers."^ It is therefore evident that in a moderate manner we may equally smoke our tobacco or eat our potato as regardless of the horrors that chemistry would seem at first to disclose, as when enjoying the flavour of the bitter almond, which we know to be owing to the presence of Prussic acid. The three principal varieties of the plant most com monly grown are, the Virginian tobacco {Nicotiana tabacum — Linnaeus), which is that which was first brought to Europe by Sir Francis Drake (fig. i of Frontispiece) ; it sometimes reaches the height of seven feet, and is of a strong coarse growth, the leaves sometimes two feet long, clasp the stem as shown at A, and are covered with glandular hairs, which burst on the smallest pressure, and impart a glutinous character to the leaf, and an unpleasant odour to the hand. The flowers grow in a bunch on the summit of the plant, they are of a pink colour, the segments of the corolla * Johnston, in his Chemistry of Common Life, tells us that Melseus extracted three-quarters of a grain of nicotine from one hundred grains of Virginian tobacco, so that the proportions are as I to 125. In 1851, the Comte de Bocarme was executed at Mons for poisoning a brother-in-law by means of nicotine, in order to obtain the reversion of his property. f Prescott (on the authority of Pereira), in his Tobacco, and its Adulterations. ITS VARIETIES. 3 being pointed, as shown at A 2. Shag, Returns, and the ordinary cut tobaccos are prepared from this kind ; of which there are many varieties, giving name to different qualities of tobacco, and chiefly adopted from the places of their growth. The Syrian Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) differs from this in many essential particulars, as may be seen in our engraving (fig. 2), the principal being the branched stem, each offshoot bearing flowers ; the leaves do not clasp the stem, but are attached by a long stalk, and they are not lanceo late, but ovate in form ; the flowers are not pink, but green, and the segments of the corolla are rounded. It does not grow so high as the American plant by about two feet ; it is milder than that in flavour, and is used for the more delicate cut tobaccos and cigars. The Latakia tobacco, and that known as Turkish and Syrian, are both manufactured from this plant. It is a native of America, but grows wild in other coun tries, and is a hardy annual in English gardens, flowering from Midsummer to Michaelmas, so that by some botanists it has been termed " common, or English tobacco." The Shiraz Tobacco {Nicotiana persica — Lindley) differs from both in the form of the leaves, and the colour of the flowers, which are white, and the segments of the corolla unequal. It is a native of Persia, and used for the manufacture of their most, delicate kinds for smoking, but Lindley informs us that it is not fitted to form cigars, as it does not readily ignite. It is also never used medicinally as other tobaccos are, or have been. 4 THE TOBACCO PLANT. The tobacco plant would grow freely in Great Britain, if government would allow its cultivation ; it is now the policy to prohibit it, for the benefit of our colonies, whose trade with the mother country would be seriously damaged but for these restrictions. It was at one time extensively cultivated in the North- riding of Yorkshire ; but in the early part of the reign of George III., penalties were inflicted on the growers, to the amount of £ 30,000, and the tobacco publicly burned. In Scotland it was also grown when our colonial trade was interrupted by the American war. About Kelso and Jedburgh a considerable tract of land was devoted to this purpose, the Act of Charles II. which made the growth illegal in England, of course not affecting Scotland ; to meet which emergency the Act of the 19th of George III. was passed, which pro hibits the cultivation of more than will occupy half a rod of ground ; and which is to be used for medicinal purposes, or the destruction of insects.* In Ireland it was successfully grown, particularly in the county of Wexford, some years after the restrictive law just named was passed for England, and which, curiously enough, repealed the similar laws for Ire land.