The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-02-04
EVERYBODY SMOKES A TOBY.
Speaker Reed Very Tardy Convert to
Its Use.

In Wheeling, w. Va. They scornto speak
of 1t Except as Stogie and Tell an An
cient Tale to Bear Them Out, but Pitts
burg Loves 1t for '.Uncle Tobys" Sake.
New York SUM-
| Pittsburg, Pa, Jan. 29-lt takes the
visitor from the East long time to under
stand the Pittsburg toby, otherwise known
as the stogie. The man who thinks no gen.
tleman should, and in fact that no gen
tleman can smoke anything but an I'M
ported Havana cigar is surprised at the
righteousness in this city of the plebeian,
cheap-looking stogie. To see we'll
dressed. well .groomed man, who from
| all appearances should be an emulator of
those who want the best in the smoking
line, putting with apparent pleasure a
long. ragged-looking apology for cigar,
is at first sight a shock to the nerves Of
the average smoker from other cities. He
might he tempted to believe that this
rough looking cigar is a truer index to
the social standing of the smoker than
his clothes and language and bearing,
but brief acquaintance with the man
would dispel this belief, and to sample
his rugged looking "smoke'' might re-
cuce the critic to the condition of enjoy :
| ing one himself There are cases on
record of New Workers who once smoked
! two-b cigars, but who came to Pittsburg
saw, sTOked, and were conquered by the
stogie, became deyotees to its use, and
looked back with wonder and regret to
the period in their existence when only
an imported Havana wss worthy to be
placed between their lips.
When Pittsburgers read in The Sun the
| other day that Speaker Reed had been
seen in the House lobby at Washington
smoking stogie they were not bit sur
prised; it vas rather a proof to them
that the Speaker knew a good smoke, and
| they had feeling of cOmIniserAtlon for
| the hardness with which he had become
acquainted with the stogie's qualities.
Once the toby, or stogie, was known only
in Pittsburg and Wheeling, W. Va. by
degrees it's fame and use spread to near
herent good qualities carried it far and
wide, though nowhere is it smoked with
the assiduity that is practiced in the two
cities named. High and low. rich and
poor, smoke stogies in Pittsburg and
| Wheeling. or course, those who can
duOTu, USe llupOfUou cigars, Dut even ulo
lover OF the finest perfecto is glad to vary
his favorite indulgence with an occasional
Whit from mild stogie.
| The words stogie and toby are synony-
nous, but the latter term Is applied ex-
clusively in Pittsburg. However, the
dealers even here are now using the word
stogie, as being the more correct and
wider known appellation. The smokers
themselves in the two centres of the stog:e
trade cling tenaciously TO the term used
in their respective cities. In Wheeling a
toby is known as q stogie, in Plttsburg
the stogie is known as toby. No Pitts
burger would Ego back on his town SO
far as to say stogie, and the Wheeilngite
is just as.particular not to say toby. Toby
and stogie look alike, smoke alike, and
are alike, but they bear different names
according to the place of manufactures.
Wheeling folks justify the use of the
word .stogie by an ancient tradition. The
story goes that away back before the
canals and the railroads were built, in
the days when long lines Of wagons car
ried freight from the seaboard to the West
the term stugie originated. In those
days the carriers, rs the teamsters were
called, gathered their smoking tobacco
| from the farmers farns; in fact, many
of them took part of their freight bills in
tobacco. With nothing to do the greater
part of the day but to chirrup to their
| nOThSS, Ul0S6 Ititu5 W AlAA bllu63 IOilCti
their tobact in the sembiance of crude
cigar. TheN made many more cigars
than they needed for their own use, and
with the Iiberality for which these old
carriers were famed they lavishly dis
tributed their tobacco rolls to the hang
ers on about the freight station at Wheel
inc. Now, the huge. canvas-covered
vehicles that the carriers drove were known
first as Conestoga wagons, then as cones
togas. 10 call the rough cigar conestogas
| was, of course, an appropriate step; the
American love of abbreviation then short
ened the name to stoga, and as the pleas
ant quality of Its fumes endeared it to
those who smoked it the fond diminutive
''stogie" became its name.
| Lately clique of sUicklers for arpro-
priateness of language has reared its head
in the home OF the stoRie, and has argued
| that as stogie stands for CopestOga, which
WINS wagon, then the word stogie is ut
terly indefensible as a name for some
thing which is rot wagon, but is a
cylindrical roll of tobacco. These logi-
clans, however, belong to the same set OF
dull pedants who assert that because toast
is toast and cheese is cheese, therefore a
dish composed of both cannot be welsh
or any other kind of rabbit but must be a
rarebit-consequently nobody pays any
attention to them, and the name stogies
intren ohed in the hearts of the people
| Is Sdl6 lIOlll UuclK aSSouAtos
Pittsburgers have also a story Justif1ca-
tory of the name toby. 1t has not the
practical aspecJ of the Wheeling tradition,
but seems rather fanciful, though pretty
enough in it's way. When Pittsburg was
but village. SO goes the legend, there
was burgess whose temper WAS qnick
and whose profanity often shocked the
staid Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who
formed the bulk of the population. When
taken to task for his oaths. the burgess
always maintained that he swore only
when righteously angered and to prove
that oaths uttered at such momen is
should he viewed without censure, he was
wont to flash on his critics that passage
in Laurence Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy"
where Uncle Toby, angered at the per-
sistence with which the Corporal pre-
diets the speedy death of the sick French
man, Uncle Toby's friend, blurts out his
famous protest. The burgess knew the
succeeding sentence by heart, and the
manner in which he rolled out the story
of the ministering angels speedy flight
| to heaven with the oath and the record
ing angels tear that ''blotted it out for
ever" always drove the critic away.
| Like every body else, the cholertc old
burge 81. loved Uncle Toby, and every time
he read the we'll -thumbed book his temper
| ,o,o,xx 4riad Inv tho 7p11Dicin ref0rnlprc