Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1893-03-24
ENDING In SMOKE.

ENDING In SMOKE.
i have only one thing against Brit
tany, which is that il grows all the
vile tobacco used by France. / Iundcr-
stand that the government of France
supplements the Brittany supply by
buying up refuse lots of tobacco i'm
Amcric;l-stutf that the lowest down
gamin in New York would refuse to
smoke. doubt this, however, be-
cause j: any tobacco were bought in
America one would sometimes come
upon Il French packet less bad than
the rest. When IL smoker accustomed
to the American article first comes
In contact with the French brand he
wants to crawl into Il corner and die.
The worst about the French stuff is
that Il man may smoke it and still
live.
Providence never intended Brit
tany, the most northern portion of
France, to raise tobacco. 1t has
neither the soil nor the climate. Then
the peasantry of Brittany are about
the most ignorant and supcrstitious
people now i'm Europe. OF course a
man may lie superstitious and yet
grow gOd tobacco or even wheat, but
the Brittany people are IL stitf-ncckctl
generation, whose faces are set against
learning anything and if IL man puts
all his energies against the acquire
mcnt of knowledge he can count with
reasonable certainty upon remaining
ignorant. The other day when took
journey Though rural Brittany
saw tons Of tobacco freshly cut hang
ing 10y the heels from apple trees, get
ting alternately soaked by the rain
and boiled by the sun. and this is the
material that the enlightened gov
crnmcnt of France insists VIC shall
smoke.
Perhaps you think that if you pay
high price you can get good tobacco
in France and that it is merely IL
question of settling enormous and cX-
orbitant duties. This is not tho case.
With the exception of three govern
mcnt dcpDts in Paris and few in the
Riviera, American tobacco cannot he
obtained i'm France. \ tobacconist
in France isa government official,
who has also the right of sell ny post
age stamps. and the government will
not allow him to order American :u-
lacco from the depots in Paris with
out a special permit which it refuses
to grant except i'm places where SO
many English and Americans reside
that a special pressure is brought to
bear upon it, as is the case in Nice,
Cannes and Il few other Anglicised
towns.
are many pictures Iuc spots which the
English make their own during the
summer months. There is Etratat:
Trouvilic, Grenvlllc, Parame, Din
ard, Mount st. Michel on the Nor.
mandy and Brittany coast. which are
very popular in summer, while in
Avranchcs, Cacn, Dinan and other
inland towns English families livcall
the year round because living is sup.
posed to be cheap and educational
facilities good. The second reason
for residence stills holds, but the first
is merely Il legend. The double sys-
TEN of protection which France
adopts, tfrst charging great duties on
everything that comes into France,
and secondly. the octroi duties which
are charged on articles brought from
the country into any town, has made
living exceedingly expensive every.
where. The English rcidents of the
Northern towns Of France have tried
to get the privilege of buying the
kind of tobacco they want, hut with
out success. France, however, seeing
that it was losing residents by this
unenlightened poIlcy,a as people moved
to the channel islands or to Swftzer-
land, in the first of which there is no
duty on tobacco and in the second
scarcely any, made grudging conces-
sion in the law of English residents.
The law is this: You are allowed
to import twenty pounds of tobacco a
year, paying duty of seven francs
fifty centimcs u pound, which impost
is more than the original price of to-
baccOs, even in England. The Of
ficials take care that in getting this
tobacco you arc put to the greatest
Inconvenience and expense, but then,
Of course, that Is what custom of
flcials are for, all over the world and
especially in the United States. The
twenty pounds thus imported you
must swear in for your own use solely,
and you must enter into an agreement
not to sell or even give away q scrap
Of 1t. All this exposition Of tho law
brings me to the story ! have to tell
and which was told to me in St
Ma!o.
In the first place may say that
twenty pounds Of tobacco a year is
utterly inadequate for one able-bodfed
man. smoke tifty pounds myself
without half-trying, and no doubt q
man like the late Gen. Grant smoked
much more. ! am we'll awarc--read
1T in iastrack. thlnk-that II / put
the money thus expended in savings
hank at compound interest for 500
tears Or 50 ! would at the end Of that