The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-06-15
EARLY OPPONENTS oFToBAcco.
How the Nicotian Weed Was Denounced
Upon Its Introduction Into England.


Upon Its Introduction Into England.
In England tobacco quickly estab-
lshed itself, and in the first enthusiasm
for the new habit of drinking tobacco,
IS they styled it, our ancestors often
went to considerable excess. One rev.
erend gentleman, a Buckinghamshire
vicar, was so bent upon smoking that
when his supply of tobacco ran short
he would cut up the bell ropes and
smoke the shredded fiber. If tobacco
was enthusiastically welcomed it was
as warmly denounced. Very early in
its English history an enemy elegantly
wrote:
Let it be damn'd to hell, and called from thence
Proserpinos S wine, the furies frankincense,
The devils add,e eggs.
Joshua Sylvester, the translator of
Du Bartas, in 1915 published a work
whose title is sufficiently violent-"To-
bacco Bait cred, and the Pipes Shattered
about their Ears, that idely Idolize so
base and bar barous Weed, or at least
overlove SO loathsome a Vanity, by a
Volley of Holy Shot Thundered from
Mount Helicon."
One Of its ca rliest opponents was Ben
Jonson. The dramatist was fond of
tavern life, and was devoted to the
Lyric feasts'' described by Herrick-
Where we such clusters had
As made Us no5ly wild, not mad.
But for smoking he had no liking. In
his earlier plays he frequently intro
| duces a lover of tobacco, but always
makes him figure somewhat contempti-
| bly, as Enave or fool. Another enc
my of tobacco was worthy John Stow,
who styled it that sinking weed SO
much abused to Gods dishonor."
Nashe calls the devil great tabacco-
taler,'' but, on the other hand, he
speaks genially of the divine drugge," !"
and from various other illusions would
seem to have been follower of the
the new fashion.
| A more determined and unequivocal
opponent of tobacco soon appeared in
the field in the person of King James l.
In his famous ''Counter-blast'' he de-
nOunced the Indian weed, lock, stock
and barrel" There was nothing good
to be said for it. It's effects were bad,
physically and morally. Moreover
and here his argument became decid-
w
full for Christians to borrow anything
from barbarous heathens. In conclu-
sion, smoking was denounced as "a
custom loathsome to the eye, hateful
to the nose, harmful to the brain, dan
| gerous to the lungs; and, in the black,
sinking fume thereof, nearest re-
sembling the horrible Stygian smoke
of the pit that is bottombless." And
yet, notwithstanding this tremendous
diatriba, his majesty somew hat incon-
sistently permitted the planters in the
| American colonies to send their tocacco
to England, while he cannily forbade
the impo rtation of the pernicious drug
from the dominions of Spain. 1t must
be added, however, that he tried hard
to induce the Virginian colonists to
| abandon the cultivation of tobacco and
to take up that of silk, which he rec
! commended as a rich and solid COM
| modify preferable to the noxious weed.
In 1921 it was solemnly attacked in
| the house of commons, and member
| moved that he would have tobacco
| banished wholly out of the kingdom,
and that it may not be brought in from
|
other member said that if tobacco were
net banished it would overthrow one
hundred thousand men in Engladd, for
it was now so common that he had seen
! ploWmen take it as they were working
at plow. But both the house of COM
mons and the country refused to be
| frightened by the plowman's pipe, or
by terrible predictions ofnational ruin,
and the use of tobacco continued to
spread.
The Merry Monarch had fling at it
when he sent letter to the University
of Cambridge forbidding the members
to wear periwigs, to smoke tobacco, or
to read their sermons. But the royal
mandate had little effect. The friends
of tobacco even began to turn the
tables, and to act on the offensive. 1t
was said that in the great plague OF
London none of those who kept tobac-
conists' shops suffered from it, and sc
smoking came to be regarded as an eX.
cellent preservative from contagion in
such pestilences. Curiously enough il
is said to be fact that during the chol
era epidemics of 1881, 1849 and 1866 not
| ONE 1LOuCOu UODdCCOIlloG IIcu Iud
disease. When the plague was abroad
even children were compelled to smoke
and at the time of the dreadful vista
tion of 1865 all the boys at Eton were
obliged to smoke every morning. One
of these juvenile smokers declared years
afterward to Hearne, the an tiquary
that he never was whipped SO much il
his life as he was one morning for not
smoking. Times have changed at Etor
since this anti-tobacconist martyr re
ceived his whipping.-Chicag Times
The Welcome Guest.
The ''good-dinner woman is on,
who aims to listen well, and avoids tn,
mistake of being smart. She must b.
endowed with that quality which in it
highest form amounts to genius
namely, tact. This is, probably, tn,
hardest grace to cultivate in the cata
logue of virtues, for it embraces all tn,
others. 1t is really the spirit and tn
letter of the golden rule, and its corner
e