The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-12-31
Tobacco Using---Its History and Effects.

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The tobacco plant is native of Amer
lea. 1t was introduced into Europe after
the discovery of the New World by Co.
lumbus. 1t was first used in Spain and
Portugal, and afterward introduced into
England by Sir Walter Raleigh. 1t was
soon afterward carried into France,
Germany, Russia, and Italy.
In Russia the use of tobacco was pro-
hlbited under penalty of the bastinado
for the first offense, loss of the nose for
the second, and deprivation of life for
the third. In Italy all who used tobacco
or snuff in church were exeommuni-
Gated. In Switzerland all users of to-
bacco were punished by the magistrates
as criminals. In Constantinople Turk
was led through the street with his nose
transfxed by pipestem, as a warming
to all smokers. The Shah of Persia
treated tobacco-using as a capital crime.
James L. made earnest efforts to suppress
the traffic in tobacco, placing heavy i'm
ports upon it.
A brief glance at few statistics will
show how enormous is the amount of
tobacco raising and using at the present
time.
In 1858 tobacco cost England more
than $40,000,O00.
In the year 1860 it cost France the
same sum. Last year it was estimated
that tobacco cost the English people
more than bread.
The United States annually exhaustS
in the culture of tobacco 400, 900 acres of
women, boys, and girls in its manu-
faeture. In 1912 the amount of tobacco
used in this country amounted to seven
pounds for each admit narsO0
Holland has 1000, 600 sallow, cadaver-
ous-looking people engaged in the man.
ufacture ofthe various forms Of tobacco.
The present annual production of the
weed is estimated by reliable authori-
ties at 100000, 900 pounds, which must
cost the consumers at least $500, 900, 900.
A SCIENTISTS EXPERIENCE.
A distinguished French savant, the
Able Moigno, contributes to the discus
sion of the tobacco question some inter-
esting observations on the influence of
the weed on his own mental powers.
For many years he had been addicted
to the habit of snuff-taking, though
conscious of injurious results flowing
from the practice. He renounced it
again and again, but a relapse always
followed. In 1861 his daily allowance
of snuff was over twenty grammes, and
he observed rapid decay of the faculty
of memory. He had learned some fif-
teen hundred root words in each of sew
eral languages, but found these gradu-
ally dropping out of his mind, so as to
necessitate frequent recurrence to die
tiOnaries. At last he summoned resolu-
tiOn to break finally with the use of to-
bacco in any form, and after six years of
abstinence, writes as follows:
lit was for US the commencement of
a veritable resurrection of health, mind,
and memory; our ideas have become
more lucid, our Imagination more vivid,
our work easier, our pen quicker, and
we have seen gradually return that
army of words which had run away
Our memory, in word, has recovered
all its riches, all its sensibility. That
tobacco, especially in the form of snuff,
is personal enemy of memory, which
has destroyed. little by little, and some
times very promptly, cannot Oe doubted.
Many persons with whom we are ac-
quainted-M. Dubrunfunt, the cele-
brated chemist, for example-have run
the same dangers and escaped them in
the same fashion, by renouncing to-
bacco, which we do not hesitate to say
harms the greatest part Of those who
employ it."
Yet sensible people persist in using it
many, indeed, who have hard work to
get bread. Tobacco costs New York
city far more than is paid for bread by
the inhabitants of the whole State.