The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1860-01-25

to prove that coarse tobacco, on the whole
makes the poor drink more than they other
wise would? All inhabitants of cold eli
mates are prone to indulge in alcohol, if the,
can get it. Where the climate is in favo
of ebriety, we know that tobacco does no
produce inebriety. How are to say tina
the drunkenness in a cold tobacco. smoking
country is greater than it would have beer
il there were no tobacco smoked? Drink
ing produces wish to drink-why should
We say that smoking increases this wish
In the classes from which we can speak by
experience, we know the exact opposite is
the fact; and we also know that in every
class tobacco has one effect which must
have tendency to diminish drinking. 1t
fills up time. At any rate, while man is
putting he cannot imbibe. Let us suppose
that, at contested election for town coun-
| cillor, there is open beer at pot-house, and
that two electors 60 in at nine and stay till
they are turned out ut eleven. As there is
no saint, they will both drink as much as
they please but, if during the two hours,
one has been smoking and the other not, it
is obvious that time at least is in favor of
the non-smoker getting through most pots.
An omnibus-driver, in conversation with
a passenger, was describing his mode of
life, and said that he was unable to get home
in the middle of the day, and did not like to
60 to public-house; so he carried in the
boot bottle of cold tea. The passenger
asked if he likedit; he said he liked itbecause
it was something to look forward to. ''Ev.
cry one must have something to look for
ward to; and his fancy was to look forward
to cold tea This remark went deep into
the philosophy of life. Every one must
have something to look forward to, and the
great service Of tobacco is, that it is more
looked forward to by persons in monotonous
occupations than anything else The reason
is partly on account of its effects on the
nerves, and partly because of the time
which smoking consumes. The charm of
the smokers cold tea is, that it takes him so
long to get it down. A little reflection will
show us why this is so attractive. We
must not speak as if pot-house loungcrs were
the only poor people who smoked Let us
take the case of respectable agricultural
iaborer. After several hours work he gets,
If very lucky piece of Dutch cheese, a
bit OF bacon fat, and mug of muddy beer.
This would be all the cold tea to which he
could have been looking forward for four
hours of ploughing or turnip-hoeing, were
itnot the simple repast is followed by twenty
minutes of delicious clay pipe. He thus
gets twenty-five minutes of physical enjoy
ment in the middle of the day, instead of
the two minutes his dinner would take him !;
or, perhaps, to state the question quite fair
ly, We may say the three minutes, if we al
low for his having to clean his clasp knife
on the seat Of his trowsers, between his
courses. Surely this protraction of pleas
ure is an enormous gain on the dull, weari-
some existence of the British clodhopper.-
And all persons who have gone through
long, solitary, disheartening exertion in the
open air, know the soothing and sustaining
power of tobacco. We wish the Dean Of
Carlisle would ask the next African travel
er whom he may happen to meet, whether
he considers tobacco a "gorging fiend ~
Kane, the Arctic explorer, told an English
man, very shortly before he died, that it was
tobacco that had enabled him to keep up
the spirits of his men under their dreadful
sufferlngs. lie was opposed to their hay
ing much alcohol, and he found that they
would 60 willingly without stimulants, and
preserve their equanimity and elasticity of
spirits, if he did but supply them with a
moderate quantity Of tobacco.
The language used by Dean Close makes
us feel how thick is the wall of separation
that divides large portion of the English
clergy from the poor. That the poor man
should want amusement is quite inconceiv-
able to this kind of parson. With the very
best Of motives, and acting on the highest
principles, the clergyman is apt to view life
in very one-sided way. He comes to a
parish and sets about turning kind of re-
ligious engine. Heis the engineer the rich
supply the coal and oil, and the poor are the
raw material. The article he engages to
turn out is an industrious, contented, saving
church-going man. With the process Of
manufacturing this article, beer and tobacco
are utterly unconnected. 1t is nothing that
the poor man likes them. His likes and dis
likes are irrevelent. 1t is his business to be
O great parson product, and smoking inter-
feres with his attaining this end. But the
poor man very naturally does not entertain
this view of himself lie, like the rest of
the human race, is willing or unwilling, as
the case may be, to do his duty. But he has
no notion OF excluding himself from inno-
cent enjoyments. They are to his mind the
daily counterbalance Of daily hardship. In
dustry to him is not so much virtue as a
compulsory and habitual exercise Of his
muscular force. His beer and baccy is not
so much temptation as the thing he ar
rlves at after muscular exercise. Unless
moral reformers will take into consideration
the deep-rooted desire of the human heart
for something Ito look forward to- during
hard work, and the fact that, to the vast
mass OF men-educated and uneducated.
good and bad, rich and poor-any enjoy.
ment which is to be constantly welcome
must, in some shape or degree, be physi-
cal enjoyment, no scheme of moral reform
can have any wide hold or any long dura-
ton. Not many years ago, an Oxford tutor
of some notoriety, went down to manage a
country parish. On entering on his paro-
chlal duties he announced that he was going
to put down tobacco in the parish. An
older and wiser man told him it was impos-
sible, to which the enthusiastic tutor replied,
that impossible" was not word in his die
tionary. He little knew the agricultural
poor. They did not find it necessary to
erase the word tobacco" from their diction-
airy, and the moral reformer had to retire
and leave his parishioners to smoke like a
house on fire. No amount of religious big
headednesss will enable clergyman to tri-
umph over the desire of his flock for a
pleasure which they think innocent, and
know to be constant, and Of which they are
aware he has no experience. So far from
thinking tobacco an enemy to the parson,
we believe it to be his friend; and If he &C.
knowledged its claims little more heartily
he might profit even more than he does by
the friendship. Tobacco is some thing to
look forward to. Itanswers that important
end in life. To a great extent tobacco NAV
be made to supersede fermented liquors. An
ange! from heaven could not persuade an
English laborer to give up the something
to look forward to-" which cheers his weary
hours. But q very human sort Of rafnrrn or