The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-16
From the Honey Jar.

From the Honey Jar.
 @ HERE is an old tradition to the (CE effect that when American was first discovered by people pro- fessing Christianity the devil was trou- bled at the prospect of losing his hold upon the people through the introduction of the true faith but he soon hit upon an expedient. He confidentially informed some Indians of his acquaintance that he had found out a way to be revenged on the Christians for daring to invade his quarters. He would teach them to take tobacco and they would thencefor- ward be enslaved to 1t. How well his satanic majestic succeeded in this re- spect the modern readers is left to de- eide.
 James the First considered tobacco the invention of satan and thus concludes his review of tobacco:
 Have you not reason to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so bad ly grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use there of? In your abuse thereof shining against God, harming yourself both in persons and goods, and taking also thereby Qook to it, ye that take snuff in profu- sionD the marks and notes of vanity upon you; by the custom thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come upon you. to be scorned and con- temned: custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that Is bottomless." In those days peo- pie smoked and snuffed even in the churches. It is said that ecclesiastics were addicted to the habit, and there is a story told of an old divine who cut up the bell rope and smoked 1t whenever he was out of tobacco
 Robert Burton, who has something good and bad to say on almost all subjects, thus unbosoms himself in regard to to- bacco, in that entertaining old book of his. 'The Anatomy of Melancholy" To- bacco! Divine, rare superexcellent tobac- co. which goes far beyond all their pana- ceas, potable gold, and philosopher s stones, a sovereign remedy to all dis eases! A good vomit I confess; virtuo1s herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken and incidentally used; but as 1t IS commonly used by most men which take 1t as tinkers do ale. 'tis q plague, a mis- chief, a violent burger of goods. lands, health: hellish. devlish and damned tobac- co. the ruin and overthrow of body and soul"
 Another writer of about the same period severely denounces tobacco in verse. Let 1t be damnd to hell and called from thence,
 Proserpne's wine, the Furies' franklin cense
 The devils addle eggs. or else to these A sacrifice grim Plato to appease,
 A deadly weed, which its beginning had From the foam of Cerberus when the cur was mad
 In Rome during the fifteenth century, all snuff-takers were forbidden the use of the dust while in church, under the penalty of being accommodated by the pope; whle in Russia, all victims of the habit were condemned to have their nos trils split
 Lord Stanhope estimated that in forty years of a snuff-taker's life. two entire years would be spent in ticking his nose. and two more in blowing 1t. and conclud-