Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1859-08-17
THE GAZETTE.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST II, 1859
TOBACCO-lTS HISTORY.
INDUSTRIOUS SMOKERS.


A new volume has just appeared III Lon
don, to be added to the numberless treat'Ses
devoted to the history Of tobacco ana W an
ecdotes connected with it. Mr.. fa'riioit' the
author Of the work. goes g"ssipping through
the story of tobacco and the three centuries
of possession which it has held since GER
tain Europeans first beheld lew Amer!can
sayases ..enioyinga pipe Her" is ii Whit
or two u,u MIR. Fairholt's well-flled pipe:
..Of literary men, Goethe hated tobacco, a
very extraordinary thing for IL German To do.
Heinrich IIeine had the same dislike. OF
French literateurs. Balzac, Victor Hugo aud
Dumas did not smoke: but the smokers are
Alfred de Musset, Eugene Sue. Merimee,
Paul de st. Victor, and Madame Dudevant
better known by her sobriguet Genrge Sand,
who often INDUCES in cigar between the
intervals of literary labor. AZ the ladies OF
Spain and Mexico delight in doing at all
other intervals. Charles Lamb, the gentle
Ella was once a great smoker In II letter
to Wordsworth he says: Tobacco has been
my evening comfort and my morning curse
for these five years / have had in my head
to write this poem for these two years Fare
we'll to Tobacco); but tobacco stood IN It's
own light, when it gave me headaches that
prevented my singing its praises; Lamp
once, i'm the height of his smoking days, was
putting coarsest weed from long clay pipe
in company with Parr, who was careful III OBJ
tanning finer sorts, aud the Dnctor, i'll as
constituent. asked him how he acquired
this .prodigious power' Lamb answered
by telling after, it, rs some men toll alter
virtue
.Ol other literary smokers in England We
may note Sir Walter Scott. who at one time
carried the habit very far. ST. did the Poet
Bloomfield. Campbell, Moore, and Byron,
delighted in its temperate ENJOYMENT rs
does our present laureate Tennyson. who has
echoed its praise with Byron in immortal
verse Robert Hall, when ut Cambridge,
acquired the habit OF smoking from being III
PARIS company; and being asked why he had
commenced Il AIN qualifying myself for the
society of Doctor of Divinity, and this
(holding up the pipe) is the test OF my adj
mission When presented with Clark 5
pamphlet on The Use and Abuse of Smok-
ing. he said Il can't refute his arguments,
and can't give up smoking The learned
in the law as we'll az the dignitaries Of the
Church have smoked. Lords Eldon and
Stowell, and Lord Brnugham in early life,
INDUCED thus. The late Duke of Sussex
and the Duke of Devonshire gave it aristo-
cratic sanction, and George Nv. royalty pa
tronsed it.
Thus. from the throne tn the ttage the
pipe has been Solace; it has aided soldier
and sailor in bearing many a hard prvation.
Many would rather go without their ratons
than their pipe, and endure any hardship
with it. Here is a modern instance from
the late Crimean war; A lady told me Il
story of man, NJ, in her division, which
shows how much some of them will venture
for smoke lie had just had one of his toes
taken Off under the influence of chlorofnrn
1t BLEED profusely; and the surgeon, after
binding it up, went away, giving his strict
iniunctions not to allow him TO move, and
ordered him some medicine, which he would
send presently. She was called away It
another patient for afew minutes, and went
leaving NJ with strict orders not tn pu
HE foot down. On her return to his bed
side, to her astonishment he was gone: ant
after some searching she discovered him, b,
the traces of blood on the stairs and corridor
sitting down in the yard smoking his pip'
with the greatest sang froid. She spoke t.
him seriously about disobeying orders anc
doing himself an injury; but he was perfect,
callous on the subject of his toe. She succeed
ed, however, in working on his feelings a
having disfgured the corridor, with blood
and he came back saying, Indeed, ma'an'
could not help going to have pipe, to-
that was the nastiest stuff | ever got drunk
on in my life'-alluding to the chloroform.
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