The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-11-11

district, but it is as nothing compared with the
dark picture he presents us of the ultimate ruin
that will overtake its inhabitants. Mount Hol-
yoke Seminary he tells us, 'may annually furnish
ga class of noble wives, but seven million pounds
''of Connecticut leaf, saturatng the bodies of
"hundred thousand husbands, may place in the
grave ten times as many of equal loneliness"
This is more terrifying than comprehensive; for
whether these saturated" husbands are to poison
their "noble wives,' or whether Mr.. TRAsK is
absurd enough to suppose that the latter will die
of grief when the dreaded narcotic has sent their
spouses TO their final SAUNDERS, we are at loss to
know. But as if this fearful vision was not suffi-
Gent to divorce cautious Yankees from their guilds,
the writer proceeds to admonish them in a strain
that is by turns abusive, poetical and pathet-
ic. He says to his correspondent, Gas the
"mountains are round about jerusalem so
"are tobacco crops round about you," and
'Christian gentlemen travelling through your
'nobe valley, see temples of God and to-
'bacco-felds, all mingled in the landscape, and cry
shame y His heart is smitten with anguish when
he considers the number of "ten-acre LOTS that
are "desecrated by this abomination' and such
is his anxious desire to root out the growing evil
for ever, that he has forsaken everything for this
cause. 1t is not because we think Mr.. TRAsK
likely to succeed in his endeavOr that we have
mentioned him, for "the sinful business of raising
tobacco" pays in the Connecticut valley and as
long as that is the case, its people will furnish
neither recruits nor Sharpes rifles for the desruc-
ton of the wicked crop in Virginia and Maryland.
But he is a fair specimen of Il class of reformers
who abound and are still increasing in the North
and as such is worth moments consideration
All the mischievous movements which have been
set ON foot in that part of the country have been
the work of sectaries, whose mental characters
tics are precisely like his, and when we under
stand him we can form a pretty clear conception
of the individuals who are always holding those
queer conventions, at whose vagaries we laugh or
wonder. Mr.. TRAsK probably grew to be a
fanatic in this wise. No sooner did he conclude
that the use of tobacco was hurtfuI than he felt
1t to be his duty TO convert every one else to his
way of thinking. Having found this to be a
more difficult matter than he supposed, he grew
heated by the opposition he experienced and
became satisfied that no one could differ with him
on point about which he was so clear, unless
such person was bad obstinate and foolish When
he got thus far he took another step, and persuaded
himself not only that he ought to snatch these
brands from the burning, but that he was spe-
claily commissioned by Heaven to do so. His
dissatisfaction was then complete and apparently
continues So orhe decides Dramatically about the
moral guilt of the smokers and growers of tobacco
and sends them TO limbo as remorsely as though
he was inspired with higher wisdom than ours,
and had the gift of prophecy. Indeed, he does not
scrupc TO compare himself to an Apostle, and he
apologies for his vehemence by telling us that
1.-THE old prophets were rather noisy among the
"hils Of Palestine" and that "Paul was rather
noisy-Agrippa thought him mad and he made
quite an uproar on Mars Hil.' Ludicrous as
all this is it is as likely any thing else to make
a platform for a small party in Massachusetts,
The anti-slavery platform is now so large that
those who like notoriety are lost in the great
crowd that occupy it. All the other topics over
which men and women can get excited together,
have become stale and fat, as well as improbable.
We may look, therefore, at no distant day, for the
assembling of an Anti-Tobacco Convention, and
split in some Northern Church upon this question.
Meanwhile, let us smoke our pipes in peace, and
hope always for the best