The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860

Climate, and the various influences affecting any race which has migrated after a stationary residence of generations to a new country extending under different parallels of latitude, have been reasonably accused of rendering us a nervous people. It is not so reasonable to charge one habit with being the sole cause of this, although we should be more prudent in not following it to excess. The larger consumption of tobacco here is due both to the cheapness of the product and to the wealth of the consumer. But it does not follow that we are more subjected to its narcotic influences because we use the best varieties of the weed. On the contrary, the poor and rank tobaccoes, grown under a northern sky, are the richest in nicotin.

But it will be better to continue the argument about its effects upon the nervous system in connection with the assertions of the reformers. The following is a list, by no means complete, of these asserted ill effects from its use.

Tobacco is said to cause softening of the brain,—dimness of vision,—("the Germans smoke; the Germans are a spectacled nation!" post hoc, ergo propter hoc? the laborious intellectual habits of this people, and their trying "text," are considered of no account,)—cancer of the stomach,—disease of the liver,—dyspepsia,—enfeebled nutrition, and consequent emaciation,—dryness of the mouth,—"the clergyman's sore-throat" and loss of voice,—irritability of the nervous system,—tremulousness,—palpitation and paralysis,—and, among the moral ills, loss of energy, idleness, drunkenness. A fearful catalogue, which would dedicate the tabatière to Pandora, were it true.

Hygienic reformers are usually unequalled in imaginary horrors, except by the charlatans who vend panaceas.

We have no reasons for believing that tobacco causes softening of the brain equal in plausibility to those which ascribe it to prolonged and excessive mental effort. The statistics of disease prove cancers of other organs to be twice as frequent, among females, as cancer of the stomach is among males; and an eminent etiologist places narcotics among the least proved causes of this disease. A hot climate, abuse of alcohol, a sedentary life, and sluggish digestion happen, rather curiously, to be very frequent concomitants, if not causes, of disease of the liver. Dyspepsia haunts both sexes, and, we venture to assert, though we cannot bring figures to prove it, is as frequent among those who do not use tobacco as among those who do. We are ready to concede that excessive chewing and smoking, particularly if accompanied by large expectoration, may impair nutrition and cause emaciation: that the mass of mankind eat and digest and live, as well as use "the weed," is proof that its moderate employment is not ordinarily followed by this result. Dryness of the mouth follows expectoration as a matter of course; but the salivation excited in an old smoker by tobacco is very moderate, and not succeeded by thirst, unless the smoke be inhaled too rapidly and at too high a temperature.

We come next to a very tender point with reformers, the laryngeal cough and failing voice of the reverend clergy. The later generations of ministers of this vicinity, as a body, have abandoned tobacco, and yet the evil has not diminished. An eminent divine of our acquaintance, who does not smoke daily, always finds a cigar relieve a trifling bronchitis, to which he is occasionally subject The curious will find in the "Medical Journal" of this city, for 1839, that quite as much can be said on one side as on the other of this subject.

The minor, rarely the graver affections of the nervous system, do follow the use of tobacco in excess. We admit this willingly; but we deny these effects to its moderate use by persons of ordinary health and of no peculiar idiosyncrasy. Numerous cases of paralysis among tobacco-takers in France were traced to the lead in which the preparation was enveloped.

We pass next to what we claim as the effects of moderate tobacco-using, and will take first the evidence of the toxicologists. Both Pereira and Christison agree that "no well-ascertained ill effects have been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking." Beck, a modern authority, says, "Common observation settles the question, that the moderate and daily use of tobacco does not prove injurious. This is a general rule": and he adds, that exceptions necessarily exist, etc.

The repugnance and nausea which greet the smoker, in his first attempts to use tobacco, are not a stronger argument against it than the fact that the system so soon becomes habituated to these effects is a proof of its essential innocuousness.

Certainly the love of tobacco is not an instinctive appetite, like that for nitrogen and carbon in the form of food. Man was not born with a cigar in his mouth, and it is not certain that the Nicotiana tabacum flourished in the Garden of Eden. But history proves the existence of an instinct among all races—call it depraved, if you will, the fact remains—leading them to employ narcotics. And narcotics all nations have sought and found. We venture to affirm that tobacco is harmless as any. The betel and the hop can alone compare with it in this respect; and the hop is not a narcotic which satisfies alone; others are used with it. Opium and Indian hemp are not to be mentioned in comparison; while coca, in excess, is much more hurtful.

Tobacco may more properly be called a sedative than a narcotic. Opium, the type of the latter class, is in its primary action excitant, but secondarily narcotic. The opium-eaters are familiar with this, and learn by experience to regulate the dose so as to prolong the first and shorten the second effects, as much as possible.

Tobacco, on the other hand, is primarily sedative and relaxing. A high authority says of its physiological action:—

"First, That its greater and first effect is to assuage and allay and soothe the system in general.

"Second, That its lesser and second, or after effect, is to excite and invigorate, and at the same time give steadiness and fixity to the powers of thought."

Either of these effects will predominate, we conceive, according to the intellectual state and capacity of the individual, as well as in accordance with the amount used.

The dreamy Oriental is sunk into deeper reverie under the influence of tobacco, and his happiness while smoking seems to consist in thinking of nothing. The studious German, on the contrary, "thinks and dreams, and dreams and thinks, alternately; but while his body is soothed and stilled, his mind is ever awake."

This latter description resembles, to compare small things with great, the effects of opium, as detailed by De Quincey.

"In habitual smokers," says Pereira, "the practice, when moderately indulged, produces that remarkably soothing and tranquillizing effect on the mind which has caused it to be so much admired and adopted by all classes of society."

The pleasure derived from tobacco is very hard to define, since it is negative rather than positive, and to be estimated more by what it prevents than by what it produces. It relieves the little vexations and cares of life, soothes the harassed mind, and promotes quiet reflection. This it does most of all when used sparingly and after labor. But if incessantly consumed, it keeps up a constant, but mild cerebral exhilaration. The mind acts more promptly and more continuously under its use. We think any tobacco-consumer will bear us out in this definition of its varying effects.

After a full meal, if it does not help, it at least hides digestion. "It settles one's dinner," as the saying is, and gives that feeling of quiet, luxurious bien-aise which would probably exist naturally in a state of primeval health. It promotes, with most persons, the peristaltic movements of the alimentary passages by its relaxing properties.

Smoking is eminently social, and favors domestic habits. And in this way, we contend, it prevents drinking, rather than leads to it. Many still associate the cigar with the bar-room. This notion should have become obsolete ere this, for it has an extremely limited foundation in fact. Bachelors and would-be-manly boys are not the only consumers of tobacco, though they are the best patrons of the bar. The poor man's pipe retains him by his own fireside, as well as softens his domestic asperities.

Excess in tobacco, like excess in any other material good meant for moderate use, is followed by evil effects, more or less quickly, according to the constitution and temperament of the abuser. The lymphatic and obese can smoke more than the sanguine and nervous, with impunity. How much constitutes excess varies with each individual. Manufacturers of tobacco do not appear to suffer. Christison states, as the result of the researches of MM. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet among four thousand workmen in the tobacco-manufactories of France, that they found no evidence of its being unwholesome. Moderate tobacco-users attain longevity equal to that of any other class in the community.

We will cite only the following brief statistics from an old physician of a neighboring town. In looking over the list of the oldest men, dead or alive, within his circle of acquaintance, he finds a total of 67 men, from 73 to 93 years of age. Their average age is 78 and a fraction. Of these 67, 54 were smokers or chewers; 9 only, non-consumers of tobacco; and 4 were doubtful, or not ascertained. About nine-elevenths smoked or chewed. The compiler quaintly adds, "How much longer these men might have lived without tobacco, it is impossible to determine."

The tobacco-leaf is consumed by man usually in three ways: by smoking, snuffing, or chewing. The first is the most common; the last is the most disagreeable.

Tobacco is smoked in the East Indies, China, and Siam; in Turkey and Persia; over Europe generally; and in North and South America. Cigars are preferred in the East and West Indies, Spain, England, and America. China, Turkey, Persia, and Germany worship the pipe. In Europe the pipe is patronized on account of its cheapness. Turks and Persians use the mildest forms of pipe-smoking, choosing pipes with long, flexible stems, and having the smoke cooled and purified by passing through water. The Germans prefer the porous meerschaum,—the Canadians, the common clay. Women smoke habitually in China, the East and West Indies, and to a less extent in South America, Spain, and France.

We have no fears that any reasoning of ours would induce the other sex to use tobacco. The ladies set too just a value on the precious commodity of their charms for that. There is little danger that they would do anything which might render them disagreeable. The practice of snuff-taking is about the only form they patronize, and that to a slight extent.

France is the home of snuff. A large proportion of all the tobacco consumed there is used in this form. The practice prevails to a large extent also in Iceland and Scotland. The Icelander uses a small horn, like a powder-horn, to hold his snuff. Inserting the smaller end into the nostril, he elevates the other, and thus conveys the pungent powder directly to the part. The more delicate Highlander carries the snuff to his nose on a little shovel. This can be surpassed only by the habit of "dipping," peculiar to some women of the United States, and whose details will not bear description.

Chewing prevails par excellence in our own country, and among the sailors of most nations,—to some extent also in Switzerland, Iceland, and among the Northern races. It is the safest and most convenient form at sea.

By smoking, each of the three active ingredients of tobacco is rendered capable of absorption. The empyreumatic oil is produced by combustion. The pipe retains this and a portion of the nicotin in its pores. The cigar, alone, conveys all the essential elements into the system.

Liebig once asserted that cigar-smoking was prejudicial from the amount of gaseous carbon inhaled. We cannot believe this. The heat of cigar-smoke may have some influence on the teeth; and, on the whole, the long pipe, with a porous bowl, is probably the best way of using tobacco in a state of ignition.

By repeated fermentations in preparing snuff, much of the nicotin is evaporated and lost. Yet snuff-takers impair the sense of smell, and ruin the voice, by clogging up the passages with the finer particles of the powder. The functions of the labyrinthine caverns of the nose and forehead, and of the delicate osseous laminae which constitute the sounding-boards of vocalization, are thus destroyed.

Chewing is the most constant, as it is the nastiest habit. The old chewer, safe in the blunted irritability of the salivary glands, can continue his practice all night, if he be so infatuated, without inconvenience. In masticating tobacco, nicotin and nicotianin are rolled about in the mouth with the quid, but are not probably so quickly absorbed as when in the gaseous state. Yet chewers are the greatest spitters, and have a characteristic drooping of the angle of the lower lip, which points to loss of power in the leavator muscles.

Latakia, Shiraz, Manila, Cuba, Virginia, and Maryland produce the most valuable tobaccoes. Though peculiar soils and dressings may impart a greater aroma and richness to the plant, by the variations in the quantity of nicotianin, as compared with the other organic elements, yet we are inclined to think that the diminished proportion of nicotin in the best varieties in the cause of their superior flavor to the rank Northern tobaccoes, and that it is mainly because they are milder that they are most esteemed. So, too, the cigar improves with age, because a certain amount of nicotin evaporates and escapes. Taste in cigars varies, however, from the Austrian government article, a very rank "long-nine," with a straw running through the centre to improve its suction, to the Cuban cigarrito, whose ethereal proportions three whiffs will exhaust.

The manufacture of smoking-tobaccoes is as much and art in Germany as getting up a fancy brand of cigars is here; and the medical philosopher of that country will gravely debate whether "Kanaster" or "Varinas" be best suited for certain forms of convalescence; tobacco being almost as indispensable as gruel, in returning health. We think the light pipe-smoker will find a combination of German and Turkish smoking-tobaccoes a happy thought. The old smoker may secure the best union of delicacy and strength in the Virginia "natural leaf."

Among the eight or ten species of the tobacco-plant now recognized by botanists, the Nicotiana tabacum and the Nicotiana rustica hold the chief place. Numerous varieties of each of these, however, are named and exist.

We condense from De Bow's "Industrial Resources of the South and West" a brief account of tobacco-culture in this country. "The tobacco is best sown from the 10th to the 20th of March, and a rich loam is the most favorable soil. The plants are dressed with a mixture of ashes, plaster, soot, salt, sulphur, soil, and manure." After they are transplanted, we are told that "the soil best adapted to the growth of tobacco is a light, friable one, or what is commonly called a sandy loam; not too flat, but rolling, undulating land." Long processes of hand-weeding must be gone through, and equal parts of plaster and ashes are put on each plant. "Worms are the worst enemy," and can be effectually destroyed only by hand. "When the plant begins to yellow, it is time to put it away; and it is cut off close to the ground." After wilting a little on the ground, it is dried on sticks, by one of the three processes called "pegging, spearing, and splitting." "When dry, the leaves are stripped off and tied in bundles of one fifth or sixth of a pound each. It is sorted into three or four qualities, as Yellow, Bright, Dull, etc." Next it is "bulked," or put into bundles, and these again dried, and afterwards "conditioned," and packed in hogsheads weighing from six hundred to a thousand pounds each.

It would be too long to detail the processes of cigar- and snuff-making, the latter of which is quite complicated.

We were happy to learn from the fearful work of Hassall on "Food and its Adulterations," that tobacco was one of the articles least tampered with; and particularly that there was no opium in cheroots, but nothing more harmful than hay and paper. He ascribes this immunity mainly to the vigilance of the excisemen. But we have recently seen a work on the adulteration of tobacco, whose microscopic plates brought back our former misgivings. Molasses is a very common agent used to give color and render it toothsome. Various vegetable leaves, as the rhubarb, beech, walnut, and mullein, as well as the less delectable bran, yellow ochre, and hellebore, in snuff, are also sometimes used to defraud. Saltpetre is often sprinkled on, in making cigars, to improve their burning.

The Indians mixed tobacco in their pipes with fragrant herbs. Cascarilla bark is a favorite with some smokers; it is a simple aromatic and tonic, but, when smoked, is said sometimes to occasion vertigo and intoxication.

We have before observed that tobacco is a very exhausting crop to the soil. The worn-out tobacco-plantations of the South are sufficient practical proof of this, while it is also readily explained by chemistry. The leaves of tobacco are among the richest in incombustible ash, yielding, when burned, from 19 to 28 per cent. of inorganic substance. This forms the abundant ashes of tobacco-pipes and of cigars. All this has been derived from the soil where it was raised, and it is of a nature very necessary to vegetation, and not very abundant in the most fertile lands. "Every ton of dried tobacco-leaves carries off from four to five hundred-weight of this mineral matter,—as much as is contained in fourteen tons of the grain of wheat." It follows that scientific agriculture can alone restore this waste to the tobacco-plantation.

There is one other aspect of this great subject, which is almost peculiar to New England, the home of reform. Certain Puritanical pessimists have argued that the use of tobacco is immoral. There are few, except our own sober people, who would admit this question at all. We would treat this prejudice with the respect due to all sincere reforms. And we have attempted to show, that, since all races have used and will use narcotics, we had better yield a little, lest more be taken, and concede them tobacco, which is more harmless than many that are largely consumed. We have proved to our own satisfaction, and we hope to theirs, that tobacco in moderation neither affects the health nor shortens life; that it does not create an appetite for stimulants, but rather supplies their place; and that it favors sociality and domestic habits more than the reverse.

If the formation of any habit be objected to, we reply, that this is a natural tendency of man, that things become less prejudicial by repetition, and that a high hygienic authority advises us "to be regular even in our vices."

As we began in a light, we close in a more sober vein, apologists for tobacco, rather than strongly advocating either side. On one point we are sure that we shall agree with the ladies, and that is in a sincere denunciation of the habit of smoking at a tender age. And although, in accordance with the tendency of the times, the school-boy whom we caught attached to a "long-nine" would consistently reply, "Civis Americanus sum!" we shall persist in claiming the censorship of age over those on whose chins the callow down of adolescence is yet ungrown.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE DONE INTO FRENCH

In the first place, it really was an immense success, and Shylock, or Sheeloque, as they dubbed him, was called before the curtain seven times, and in most appropriate humility nearly laid his nose on his insteps as he bowed, and quite showed his spine.

It certainly was like Shakspeare in this, that it had five acts; but when I have made that concession, and admitted that Sheeloque was Le Juif de Venise, I think I have named all the cardinal points of similarity in the "Merchant of Venice" and "Le Juif" of that same unwholesome place. To be sure, there is a suspicion of le devin Williams, as they will call him, continually cropping out; but a conscientious man would not swear to one line of it, and I do not think Shakspeare would be justified in suing the French author for compensation under the National Copyright-Act. I speak of Shakspeare as existing, because it is my belief he does, in a manner so to speak.

I have intimated that "Le Juif" has five acts; but I have not yet committed myself to the assertion that he was in seven tableaux, and possessed a prologue.

It is now my pleasing duty to force you through the five acts, and the one prologue, and the seven tableaux,—every one of them.

This prologue is divided as to the theatre into two parts: to left, Sheeloque's domestic interior,—to right, a practicable canal. In the very first line out crops Shylock's love of good bargains; and I give the reader my word, the little Frenchmen saw that this was characteristic, and applauded vehemently. "Bon," said I,—"if they applaud the first line, what will they do with the last act?"

It need not be said that Shylock dabbles in those bills which Venetian swells of the fifteenth century, in common with those of a later age and more western land, will manipulate, in spite of all the political economy from Confucius down to Mr. Mill; and in this particular instance and prologue the names of the improvidents are Leone and Ubaldo, neither of which, if my memory serve me, is Shakspearian. These gentlemen considerably shake my traditional respect for sixteenth-century Venetian Aristos, for they insult that Jew till I wonder where a count and a duke have learnt such language: but they serve a purpose; they trot Shylock out, so to speak, and give our author an opportunity of doing his best with A 1. Shylock's great speech. Here is the apostrophe:—

"But yesterday—no later past than yesterday—thou didst bid thy mistress call at me from her balcony; thy servants by thy will did cast mud on me, and thy hounds sped snapping after me,'"—whereby we may infer they went hunting in Venice, in the fifteenth century. It must have been rather dangerous running. Nor could the Venetian nobles of that good old time have been very proper; for Leone and Ubaldo justify themselves by saying they were drunk.

It is after this pretty excuse that Shylock has a soliloquy as long as his beard,—and I hear really loud opposition to this didacticism in the pit; but, however, this slow work soon meets compensation in violent action. Shylock won't renew, and the nobles get indignant; so they propose to pay Shylock with more kicks than halfpence. Here the action begins; for Shylock protests he will bite a bit out of them; and though one of these long-sleeved swells warns him that all threats by Jews against Christians are an imprisonment manner, Shylock rashly prepares for a defence. Away fly the lords after Shylock, over go the chairs, down goes the table, and I suppose Shylock does hit "one of them"; for the two lords go off quite triumphantly, with the intimation that he will be in prison in one hour from that.

Then the Jew calls for—Sarah; and this same comes in on tiptoe, for fear of waking the baby. This Shylock fils Sarah proceeds to describe as equally beautiful with Abel and Moses, which seems to give Shylock père great comfort,—though I am bound to admit the lowly whispered doubt on the part of a pit-neighbor of mine as to Sarah's capability of judging in the matter.

Shylock is preparing for prison, it seems, and one little necessity is a prayer for said son. Sarah comes in with a response, Shylock leaves off praying "immediate," to tell Sarah she is no vulgar servant, which assurance is received in the tearful manner. And here it comes a little faint whiff of the real play. In leaving home, Shylock's French plagiarizes the Jew's speech to Jessica, even down to the doubt the Jew has about leaving his house at all.

There has been no necessity for stating that Sara supposes herself the widow of a libel on his sex, a man unspeakable; and the moment I hear he is, or was, a man of crime unspeakable, I know he will turn up. Shylock having gone away,—I do not know where,—up comes a gondola to the front-door, and, of course, in walks Sarah's husband. "Good evening, Ma'am," says he. "God of Israel!" says she. And then such an explanation as this infamous husband gives! He puts in, that he is a pirate; that his captain, whom he describes as a Vénus en corsaire, has lost a son, and wants another; hence speaker, name Arnheim, wants that little Israelite who is so much like Abel and Moses at one and the same moment: though how Arnheim should know of that little creation, or how he should know him to be also like the lost infantile pirate as well as Abel and Moses, does not sufficiently appear,—as, indeed, my neighbor, who is suggestive of a Greek Chorus in a blue blouse, discovers in half a dozen disparaging syllables.

Of course, when the supposed widow hears this, her cries ought to wake up all hearing Venice, but not one Venetian comes to her aid; and though she uses her two hands enough for twenty, she has not got her way when thoroughly breathed.

"Sarah," says that energetic woman's husband, "Sarah, don't be a fool!"

Then I know the baby is coming: there never yet was a French prologue without a baby,—it seems a French unity; sometimes there are two babies, who always get mixed up. But to our business.

Out comes the baby, (they never scream,) and—alas that for effect he should thus commit himself!—Arnheim rips Sarah up, and down she goes as dead as the Queen of Sheba.

Then comes a really fine scene. Shylock enters, learns all; in come soldiers for Shylock, and, of course, accuse him of the murder; whereupon Shylock shows on the blade a cross. "Doth a Jew wear a knife with a cross on it?" says he. "Go to!—'tis a Christian murder."

To this the soldier-head has nothing to say; so he hurries Shylock off to prison, and down comes the curtain.

"Hum!" says the Greek Chorus,—"it might be worse."