Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 17

Draughts are always honored there.

Gentle friend, whom troubles fret!

Smoke a soothing cigarette.

Preacher! take a pinch with me: Snuff is dust, and so are we.

Hence with moralizings musty!

I say life is "not so dusty."

Smoke in gladness; smoke in trouble; Soothe the last, the former double!

Teach the Fiji Indians, then, To chew their quids, instead of men.

Pain from heart and brain to wipe, Pa.s.s the weed, and fill your pipe!

Prince and peasant, lord and lackey, All in some form take their 'Baccy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord and lackey.]

The evil effects occasioned by man's indulging too frequently in tobacco have been the subject of many a fierce debate between the friends and foes of the "great plant." Many, however, are not aware of the fatality attending its use by the brute creation. A modern English poet on hearing of the result produced on a cow from chewing tobacco, penned the following sad lines which he ent.i.tles--"An elegy on somebody's Cow."

Weep! weep, ye chewers! Lowly bend, and bow; Here lieth what was once a happy cow.

No more her voice she'll raise, now low, now high, In amber fields, beneath an autumn sky; No more she'll wander to the milking-pail, While swine stand by to see her chew "pig-tail;"

No more round her the bees, a busy crew, Shall linger, eager after "honey-dew;"

No more for her shall smoking grains be spread: All bellowless remains her empty shed.

Sad was her fate. Reflect, all ye who read: Life's flower destroyed by the accursed weed.

When first the yellow juice streamed o'er her lip, One might have said, "This is a sad cow-slip."

To chew the peaceful cud by nature bid, Degraded man taught her to chew a quid.

Sad the effect on body and on mind: Her coat grew "s.h.a.ggy," her milk nicotined; Over her head shall naught but clover grow, While o'er her peaceful grave the clouds shall blow.

No invalid shall ask for her cow-heel, To heal his ailments with the simple meal; Her whiskful tail into no soup shall go; Mother of "weal" that would but bring us woe.

Her tripe shall honor not the festive meal, Where smoking onions all their joys reveal; Nor shall those s.h.i.+ns that oft lagged on the road, Be sold in cheap cook-shops as "_a la mode_,"

Her tongue must soon be sandwiched under ground, Nor at pic-nics with cheap champagne go round; Yea, even her poor bones are past all hope-- Not fit to be boiled down for scented soap.

Ah! hide her hide, poor beast. Her stomachs five Dyed with the chewing she could not survive; The very worms from her will turn away, To seek some anti-chewer for their prey.

Ye chewers! be ye pilgrims to her tomb; Lament with us o'er her untimely doom.

Awhile she stood the anti-chewer's b.u.t.t, Till scythe-arm'd Time gave her an "ugly cut."

She stagger'd to her death, and feebly cried, And sneezed, "Achew! achew!" and chewing died.

There are many parodies of popular poems written in praise of the weed; of which the following in imitation of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," ent.i.tled "The Charge of the Tobacco Jar Brigade," is one of the best.

"Epigrams, epigrams, Pour'd in, and numbered-- Good, bad, indifferent-- More than Six Hundred.

"Epigrams potters want,"

Quoth The Tobacco Plant: Write! you for fame who pant; Write! we'll three prizes grant."

Wrote for Tobacco-Jars, Over Six Hundred.

Postmen, ere morning's light; Postmen, whilst day was bright; Postmen, as closed in night, Ran--tan'd and thunder'd Loud at our office door; Brought letters, many score-- Contents of bags--to pour Table and desk all o'er: Handfuls and armfuls bore, Casting them on the floor.

Then through the town they tore, Hastening back for more-- More than Six Hundred.

Letters to right of us, Letters to left of us, Letters in front of us, Seeming unnumbered!

Envelopes every size Met our astonish'd eyes.

Writer with writer vies!

Which wins the chiefest prize Out of Six Hundred.

How did each writer strain After a happy vein!

Pegasus, spurning rein, s.h.i.+ed, jibb'd, and blunder'd.

Reverend writers, then Took up the winged pen; Suff'rers on beds of pain Sought the bright muse again; Lawyer and barrister Courted and hara.s.sed her; M. D.s and editors; Debtors and creditors; Artists and artisans, Nicotine's partisans; Nurses and gentle dames Call'd it endearing names; Poets, s.h.i.+p-masters, too; Ay! poetasters, too; Wooing fair Nicotine, Six hundred scribes were seen.

Anti-Tobacco cant, Bigoted, bilious rant, Bursting to vent their spleen, Joined the Six Hundred.

Flash'd many fancies rare; Flash'd like Aurora's glare; Quick jotted down with care; Some the reverse of fair; Some that we well could spare; Some that were made to bear Blunders unnumbered.

Plunging in metaphor, Not a bit better for-- Pardon the c.o.c.kney rhyme!-- Similies plunder'd.

Praising Tobacco smoke, Heeding not grammar's yoke, Prosody's rules they broke.

Many a rhyming moke, Sense from rhyme sundered: Many wrote well, but not-- Not the Six Hundred.

Honour Tobacco! roll'd, Cut, press'd, however sold.

Alpha and Beta, bold, Ye shall be tipp'd with gold.

Omega shall be sold, Others in type behold Nearly Six Hundred."

The following poem ent.i.tled "Weedless," after Byron's "Darkness,"

gives a vivid description of the world without tobacco.

"I had a dream, and it was all a dream: Tobacco was abolish'd, and cigars Were flung by "Antis" fearsome s.p.a.ce-- The foreign and the British fared alike-- And the blue smoke was blown beyond the moon.

Night came and went and came, and brought no "weed,"

And men forgot their suppers, in the dread Of the dire desolation; and all tongues Were tingling with the taste of empty pipes; And they did live all wretched; old hay bands, And street-door mats, and clover brown and dry; Carpets, rope-yarn, and such things as men sell, Were burnt for 'bacca; haystacks were consumed, And men were gathered round each blazing ma.s.s, To have another makes.h.i.+ft sniff.

Happy were those who smoked, with smould'ring logs, The harmless Yarmouth bloater after death-- Another pipe not all the world contain'd; The furze was set on fire, but, hour by hour, The stock diminish'd; all the p.r.i.c.kly points Quivered to death, and soon it all was gone.

The lips of men by the expiring stuff Drew in and out, and all the world had fits.

The cinders fell upon them; some sprang up, And blew their noses loud, and some did stand Upon their heads, and sway'd despairing feet; And others madly up and down the world With "two-pence" hurried, shouting out for "s.h.a.g;"

And wink'd and blink'd at th' unclouded sky, The "Anti's" smokeless banner--then again Flung all their halfpence down into the dust, And chewed their tainted pockets; snuffers wept, And, flatt'ning noses on the dreary ground, Inhaled the useless dust; the biggest "rough"

Came mild, tobacco-begging; p'licement came, And mix'd themselves among the mult.i.tude, "Run in" forgotten; uniforms were chew'd, And teeth which for a moment had had rest, Did move themselves again; old beaver hats Fetch'd little fortunes; they were torn in bits, And smok'd or chew'd at will; no bits were left.

All earth was but one thought, and that was smoke, Immediate and glorious; and a pang Of horror came at intervals, and men Cried; and the boys were restless as themselves, Till by degrees their stockings were devour'd; E'en pipes were dropp'd despairing--all, save one, One man was faithful to his pipe, and kept Despair and deeper misery at bay, By seeking ever for a "topper," dropped From some spurned pipe, but that he could not find; So, with a piteous and perpetual glare, And a quick dissolute word, sucking the pipe, Which answer'd never with a whiff, he slept; The crowd dispersed by slow degrees, but two Of all the dreary company remain'd, And they kept 'bacca shops; they sat upon The scanted lid of a tobacco tub, Wherein was heap'd a ma.s.s of coined bronze-- Profits of 'bacca, sold--they were sold out; They, grinning, sc.r.a.ped with their warm, eager hands The little halfpence and the bigger pence, Counted a little time, and cried "Haw! haw!"

Like a whole rookery; then lifted up The tub as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's profits; saw, and smiled, and winked, Uncaring that the world was poor indeed, So they were rich in pence. The world was mad, The populace and peerage both alike Birds--Eyeless, s.h.a.gless, and returnless, too-- Oh! day of death, oh! chaos of hard times!-- And princes, dukes, and lords, they all stood still, Feeling within their pockets' silent depths; And sailors went a-moaning out to sea, And chew'd their cables piecemeal: then they wept, And slept on the abyss without a quid.

All quids were gone, cigars were in their graves; The plant, their mother, had been rooted up; p.a.w.nbrokers had a ton of pipes apiece, And "Antis" triumph'd. Then they had no need To keep a "Sec.," so Reynolds got the "sack."

One of the best of all parodies is one in imitation of Longfellow's "Excelsior," ent.i.tled "Tobacco." It is from "Copis' Tobacco Plant."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The strange youth.]

"The summer blight was falling fast, When straight through dirty London pa.s.sed A youth, who bore, through road and street, A packet, thereon written neat; "Tobacco!"

His brow was glad, his laughing eye Flashed like a gooseberry in a pie; And like a penny whistle rung The piping notes of that strange tongue-- "Tobacco!"

In dusty homes he saw the light Of supper fires gleam warm and bright; Above, the ruddy chimneys smoked: He from his lips the word evoked-- "Tobacco!"

"Try not the weed," good Reynolds said; "I've smoked it 'till I'm nearly dead: Take not the juice in thy inside;"

But loud the jovial voice replied-- "Tobacco!"

"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest; I have got on my Sunday best:"

A wink stood in his bright blue eye, And answered he, without a sigh-- "Tobacco!"