The record-union., 1894-11-24
SMOKING AND SMOKERS
Sublime Tobacco and Some of 1t
Numerous Famous DeYotees.

IoOaCcO'> ana some OF lCS
Numerous Famous Devotees.
The Mormons having recently con-
demned their head patriarch for using to-
bacco, the long standing questions of the
wisdom or unwisdom, the helpfulness or
hurtfulness, the goodness or badness of
smoking are again on their travels as
topics OF general discussion. We do not
propose TO try and settle them, because.
after all, 1t is very much matter Of in
dlvldual taste, temperament and opinion
or conscience, If you prefer that word
but merely to contribute d few interest,"
ing historical data to the debate.
Sir Isaac Newton was in the habit of
taking nothing but stale bread and
drinking nothing but water while at
work upon his great scientific expert
ments, so that he might keep his mind
clear, but he always supplemented this
meager diet with a pipe OF tobacco. We
know this from the testimony of the
lady who thought he was about to pro-
pose to her one day when he took her
hand in his, whereas he simply proceed
ed in sheer absent miudedness to use her
forehnger as a stopper to press down
the tobacco in his pipe. Lord Brougham,
the reiormer of England's savage old
penal code, the founder of the Lyceum
and the friend of all the humanities,
loved common clay pipe, and smoke ed
1t regularly until he was past ninety
years of age. Sir Walter Scott not only
smoked himself, but advised his son, who
was an officer in the army, as TO the kind
of pipe he would find most ENJOYABLE.
George Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred
Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Thomas
Carlyle, Charles II. Darwin and Willie
Collins were all lovers of the weed
Englands greatest preacher, the late
Charles Hadden Spurgeon, declared from
his pulpit that he enjoyed good cigars
and smoked them ITO the glory of
Cod" One of our greatest preachers. the
late Bishop Brooks OF massachusetts,
also found comfort in a fragrant Havana.
Addison and Steele found great comfort
in their pipes. Ben Johnson loved his
long clay, commonly called the church.
warden" Beaumont and Fletcher were
partners in smoke as we'll as in author
ship. The famous DR.. Isaac Barrow
called his pipe his panpharmacon cure
for everything. The celebrated Mr.. Con-
greve found great solace in tobacco
Wilkie Collins has left us his testimony
that tobacco was the best friend his irri-
table nerves ever had, and that whenever
he read learned attacks upon it be
turned to his next cigar with new rel
ISM" NJ. Taine, the witty Frenchman,
declared that he found a smoke useful
between two ideaS-when he had the
first and had not arrived at the Sec
ond.n
Let us be fair, however. Eminent au-
thorities have declared that tobacco
smoking is provocative OF bronchitis and
catarrh, and is deadly poison to the
very young; that it tends to stupefy the
brain and weaken the nerves. and is an
enemy 10 concentration of thought upon
work in hand. The poets Shelly, Moore
and our own Poe were all anti-smokers.
Not so Byron, however, VINO writes:
Sublime tobacco! which from East to West
Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest.
Allibone, the famous compiler, Endorses
tobacco as an after-dinner aid to diges-
ton. Robert Buchanan pronounces it to
be an invaluable comfort. Our own Mark
Twain is on record to the effect that he
writes with much greater ease with the
aid of about three hundred cigars month
With few eminent exceptions, among
whom Mr.. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury and
the late Lord Beaconsfield, England's
three latest Prime Ministers, are all to be
counted, hard brain-workers have quite
generally used tobacco. 1t must be as
sumed that they have found some good
in it, or they would not do SO. Bulwer, the
celebrated author, declares that "a man
who smokes thinks like a sage and acts
like Samaritanu That cannot be main
tanned, though, without qualification.
There are smokers and other smokers,
almost as many brands as there are of
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