The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY,

" For the snuff-taker, the dried leaves are sprinkled
with water, laid heaps, are allowed to ferment. They
are then dried again, reduced to powder, and baked or
roasted, The dry snuffs, like the Scotch and Irish, are
usually prepared from the midribs—the rappees, or
moist snuffs, from the soft part of the leaves. The
latter are also variously scented, to suit the taste of the
customer."

Considering that the chemical ingredients of to-
bacco are some of them so deleterious, and even
poisonous, it must be allowed, by even the most
inveterate consumer, that it is remarkable the
use of the weed should be, in fact, as harm-
less as it is- enjoyable. Those chemical ingre-
dients, or active substances are—first, a volatile oil ;
secondly, a volatile alkali, so subtle a poison that it is
declared to be scarcely inferior to prussic acid ; and
thirdly, an empyreumatic oil, not ready formed in
the natural leaf, but "produced along with other
substances during the burning"—this latter sub-
stance being, according to conjecture, the " juice
of cursed hebenon," mentioned in Hamlet, by
Shakspere---an acrid narcotic, "so poisonous that
a single drop on the tongue of a eat, causes imme-
diate convulsions, and in two minutes death !"
Yet, notwithstanding this volatile oil, and this
volatile alkali, and this empyreumatic oil, it is
declared—hear it shade of Burton ! hear it ghost
of James Stuart ! hear it spiritual-entity of
Lamb !—it is declared by Dr. Christison,
of Edinburgh that " no well-ascertained ill effects
have been shown to result from the habitual practice
of smoking." Beyond which the contribution to
Maga remarks—" the practice of smoking is in
itself, we believe, neither a moral nor a social evil ;
it is merely the gratification of a natural and uni-
versal, as it is an innocent instinct." And so close
we our reference to this pleasant chapter on Nar-
cotics, with thanks to the writer of it, and a beni-
son to Dr. Christison of Edinburgh. Three attrac-
tive reviews follow the opening paper. One
suggested by MM. Weddell and Pavie, intro-
ducing us to certain particulars of " South Ame-
rican Travel and Adventure." Another, elicited
by the recent labours of Mr. Forsyth, brings
under notice simultaneously " Napoleon and
Sir Hudson Lowe"—Jupiter and a satyr—the
most illustrious and the most despicable of men—
the Alpha and the Omega of the last historic gene-
ration. Another of the criticisms in this month's
Blackwood groups together a variety of amusing
illustrations of what are now, like Falstaff's reasons,
as plentiful as blackberries, " New Readings of
Shakspere." A clever epitome is next given of most
of the facts yet known among Europeans in refer-
ence to " The Insurrection in China." Beyond all
which, there is a last instalment of " Lady
Lee's Widowhood," and a political article on
"France in 1853," suggested by the brochure, so
entitled, from the pen of the Marquis de Laroche
jaquelein.

Fraser.-4everal of the articles in the August
number of Fraser will wile away an otherwise
tedious hour satisfactorily, because fraught at once
with instruction and amusement. Perhaps the
most conspicuous portion of the magazine before us
is that which is devoted to a criticism on Forsyth's
History of the " Captivity of Napoleon at St.
Helena," compiled from the letters and journals of
the late Lieut.-General Sir Hudson Lowe. But in
this it is with Regina as with most of her periodi-
cal contemporaries. Naturally enough, and as
might be expected, the reviewer in Fraser adopts
the old Tory notion of right and wrong as regards
that most disgraceful chapter in the History of Mo-
dern Christendom. According to him—as according
to the majority of the good folk bred up in the preju-
dices of the last generation—SirHudson Lowe acted
from first to last in a manner the most exemplary.
According to him, Lord Bathurst's colonial admin-
istration revealed throughout a policy worthy of
being regarded as the guide of every future Go-
vernment. Dr. O'Meara of course comes in for a
copious discharge of vituperation. Las Casas is
spoken of as a despicable perverter of the truth.
Gourgaud is mentioned only in terms the most
contemptuous. It is the old, old story—the story
fraught with the most miserable hatreds, the
most paltry prevarications, and the most piti-
able absence of magnanimity. Turn we front.
a subject always to our mind fraught with
poignant remorse to every right-thinking and
unprejudiced Englishman— turn we from that
painful theme to the sweet and tender tale of
" Bertha's Love," which is this month brought to
too speedy a conclusion. It is written throughout
with truly exquisite delicacy of sentiment, re-
counting au old sorrow enough, that of unrequitted
love, but doing so in a manner rendered new
by its alluring tenderness. It reveals the freshness
of youthful energy from which we may hope to
welcome many more extended and elaborated
achievements. Fraser, this month, also is adorned
by a brief but graceful memoir of the once popular,
but now almost forgotten bass singer of the English
school, the noblest of all the interpreters of the
genius of Purcell—James Bartleman. A second
paper is given upon the resources of " The Navy of
France," and, as the leading review of the month,
we have a criticism on Burton's "History of Scot-
land" from 1689 to 1748, in other words, from the
Revolution to the extinction ot the last Jacobite
insurrection. Among the miscellaneous contribu-
tions not already mentioned, we observe a poetical
fragment of some merit from the well known hand
of R. li, Horne—entitled “Nero ; a Picture," and

Black,tvood.—lt is delightful, we all know, to
hear some Old Salt spinning a yarn about matters
nautical. Scarceless less delightful is it to listen to
some Old Smoker discoursing about tobacco—
" rare, devilish, and damned tobacco," as it was
once apostrophised by Burton, the Anatomist of
Melancholy. How we should have rejoiced to
hearken to a gossip about the divine weed from the
lips of Sir Francis Drake, its earliest English im-
porter ! How we should have exulted in giving
ear to comments on the virtues of its consumption
from the tongue of Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the
earliest of its British consumers ! A fig for that
abominable " Counterblast° to Tobacco," penned
by his Majesty King James I. of England ! A
straw for Charles Lamb's " Farewell !" Whoever
really enjoys the solace of the inestimable plant,
loves it in spite of the scorn of Elia, and in defi-
ance of the extravagant wrath expressed against it
by the Royal " Dad " of " Baby Charles" and the
" Dog Steenie." Nay—more than this—in spite
of all the abominable adulterations mentioned by
Dr. Jonathan Pereira in his " Elements of Materia
Medica and Therapeutics." According to which
eminent authority it appears that tobacco some-
times undergoes adulteration in the process
of manufacture from the use of the most
motley ingredients, such as molasses, sugar,
honey, rhubarb - leaves beech - leaves, mosses,
bran, sprouting-malt, beet-root dregs, liquorice,
terra-japonica, rosin, yellow-ochre, fuller's-earth,
sand, saltpetre, common-salt, and sal-ammoniac !
If there be any doubt as to the reality of this hor-
rible kind of wholesale and miscellaneous adultera-
tion, it is only necessary to examine at page 1,427
the aforesaid work, by Pereira, on "Materia Medica
and Therapeutics." After examining which cata-
logue of abominations, we still assert that the de-
lights of tobacco are still appreciated by its onlytrue
lover—the habitual consumer of the weed, whether
by smoking, by chewing, or by snuffing. We are
led to this reflection by a consideration of the open-
ing paper in the August number of Blackwood—a
chapter dedicated to a description of " The Nar-
cotics we indulge in." Within the limits of
this interesting contribution are compressed an
abundance of curious particulars in reference
to the HOP and to TOBACCO, but especially,
as will be observed, in reference to tobacco.
It is remarked by the writer that the use
of the plant has become "not less universal
than civilization"—a strange way of expressing the
fact, seeing that the use of it, according to his own
acknowledgment, was originally traceable to the
savage races in the ages of barbarism. The man-
ner in which it is employed now, as he intimates
in another part, is scarcely less various than the
varieties of its flavour in its natural state, and
after being duly manufactured. Many of the
readers of Maga will be interested, we doubt not,
scanningin the different morsels of information
relating to tobacco here given for their instruction,
and to some of them at least, we may add, for
their delectation. It is startling to learn, for ex-
ample, that the total produce of tobacco grown on
the face of the globe annually amounts to the
enormous sum of-2,000,000 of tons ! "So that,"
says the writer in Ebony, " the tobacco yearly
raised for the gratification of this one form of the
narcotic appetite weighs as much as the wheat
consumed by ten millions of Englishmen ! He
having already remarked that " the wheat con-
sumed by the inhabitants of Great Britain (estima-
ting it at a quarter a head, or in round numbers at
20,000,000 of quarters) weighs only 4,330,000
tons," or thereabouts. As comprising little clusters
of elementary information on the subject, the fol-
lowing paragraphs may be found sufficiently inter-
esting for quotation :
" For the smoker and chewer it is prepared in various
forms, and sold under different names. The dried
leaves, coarsely broken, are sold as canaster or knaster.
When moistened, compressed, and cut into fine threads,
they form cut or shag tobacco. Moistened with mo-
lasses or with syrup, and pressed into cakes, they are
called cavendish and negrohead, and are u4ed indiffe-
rently either for chewing or smoking. Moistened in the
same way, and beaten until they are soft, and then
twisted into a thick string, they form the pigtail or
twist of the chewer. Cigars are formed of the dried
leaves, deprived of their midribs, and rolled up into a
short spindle. When cut straight, or truncated at each
end, as is the custom at Manilla, they are distinguished
as cheroots.