The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1912-05-29
Discovered by White Mari
400 Years Ago.
USED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
Some Interesting History Of
This Famous Product
Of the Earth.
OUTPUT Is NOW sTUPENDOUs

| Der 1.-THE white man first learn
ed to WOO my lady Nicotine.
| Four hundred years of tobacco
1t has had calumny heaped on 1t
it has enslaved the worlds great
est generals; it has inspired many
of the worlds greatest books; It
helped sustain Edison in his world
famous inventions. 1t has sinned
according to the purists, but 1t still
remains a beloved institution in ev-
cry part of the known world.
Christianity reaches but a part
of the people of the world. Mo-
manned failed to conquer Europe.
Wheat, bread, opium, potatoes, Ia
70, salt-all are used, but none is
used in every portion of the globe.
But tobacco is used everywhere.
Christian and Turk, Chinaman and
! Indian, Hindu and Solomon Island
or, every breed aud creed of man,
the whole earth round, smokes or
chews or snuffs the weed.
America can claim the one uni
versal custom. The American In
dian was the discoverer of the great
narcotic.
Strange are the variations OF
this strange habit that has become
worldwide in the last 400 years.
The Negritos of the Philippines are
cigar smokers and they are said to
hold the cigar with the lighted end
in their mouths. A nice, cool smoke
is not what they want. The Hot
tentot of Africa will sacrifice as
much as any man for his smoke. He
will sell his wife for tobacco. The
Patagonian of the Straits of Magel-
Ian has a system of smok-swallow-
ing by which he throws himself
down on his stomach and secures a
few moments Of drugged ecstacy.
Away across the oceans in the
Himalayas, the roof of the world,
the lost Aryans smoke through the
snow. They make a miniature tun-
mel in the drift. At one end they
burn the tobacco with a hot coal
and at the other opening of the
tunnel they lie on the snow and
smoke. The Moschans of Africa are
such ecstatic users that they cram
their noses so full of the weed it
hangs from the nostrils and has to
be dug out with a tiny silver spoon
made for the purpose. The Kaffirs
of South Africa mix their snuff
with ashes and pepper. in order to
make it bite more strongly.
The Dschesire in Africa mix their
tobacco with water and natron,
making a sort of pap" which they
roll in their mouths. In South
America some of the Indian tribes
far up the Amazon are said actual
ly to eat the tobacco in their Gag
erness for its effect.
All this has come from the dis
covery by Christopher Columbus.
The humble red man, who has CIV
en- the world scarcely anything else,
has given it this one habit, more |
general than any other. From a |
few thousand American Indians, its
only devotees, tobacco has claimed |
race after race, the world around, |
till now the number of its slaves is |
but little short of the population
OF the earth.
The first pipe smokers, 1t is
claimed, were the medicine men. |
Tobacco was used in the hrst place
as an incense to burn before the |
Great Spirit. The burning of to-
bacco was an expression of mans |
homage to him just as the burn
ing of spices, such as frankincense
and myrrh, has been in the Orient
since time began. Among the In
dams from Hudson's Bay to Cape
Horn the plant was regarded as
sacred, hence the present name,
divine" weed
Harlot, one of the first English
1T is of so precious estimation
among them that they think their
gods are marvelously delighted
herewith; wherefore they make
hallowed fire and cast some of their
powder therein for sacrifice"
The Indians of North America
welcomed Sir Francis Drake and
his sailors as gods and gave them
jars of their most choice tobacco.
The medicine men, as the represen-
tatives of the gods, were accustom-
ed to narcotic themselves like the
Delphic oracle by inhaling the
smoke from fire of tobacco leaves
From such frances they came to tell
of the god. The medicine men as
healers prescribed for their pa.
tients a course of smoke. and tho