MR. BODY PROTESTS
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: It is with a feeling of dismay—nay, I may even say terror—that I read in my morning paper the statement that during last year there were made and sold in the United States no less than 8,644,537,090 cigarettes! Nearly nine billion of these devil’s torches, or almost one hundred of them for every man, woman and child throughout the country. And not only that, but an increase of 150,000,000 cigars and 15,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco over the production of the preceding year.
To what, Sir, is this country coming, when such things are possible? Can it be that the whole nation is bent upon suicide? I have read that a single drop of the pure essense of nicotine dropped upon the back of a healthy and robust flea will cause the unfortunate beast tofall into convulsions, frequently terminating in a partial paralysis or total dissolution. Now, it is well known to all who make the slightest pretense to any knowledge of entomology that the flea, orPulex irritans, is one of the most hardy insects known to man and is extremely hard to kill. Indeed, it is a matter of record that the fleas of Mexico encountered the army of Bonaparte and Maximilian and gave such a good account of themselves that the French soldiers were more in awe of the fleas than of the natives. If nicotine, then, has such a disastrous effect upon such a hearty and well-protected beast as the flea, what must be the effect of its poison upon man, who is, perhaps, the most easily killed of all living creatures? It is too horrible to contemplate! I have, by most careful calculations, proved to my entire satisfaction that the American people have already been totally exterminated through their persistence in this evil habit of using tobacco; and if, as may be said, the facts do not seem to fit in with my figures, I can only say that I am convinced that their survival is innowise due either to their hardiness or to the innocuous character of the herb, but solely to the kindly interposition of Providence, who, unwilling to see so young and so promising a nation perish by reason of this folly, has deliberately set at naught the wiles of the Devil and robbed him of his prey by fortifying and strengthening the constitutions of this people to withstand the dread effects of this evil practise. But how long can people given over to this wicked practise look to Providence for patience and protection?
I have but now spoken of the American people as a promising nation, but I am not sure but that I should amend this to “a once promising nation.” I believe that this nation can never become truly great until it has become a nation of non-smokers. Did the Greeks smoke? No. Did the Romans smoke? No, again. Not in the history of any of the great nations of antiquity do I find a single reference to tobacco smoking. The Boers are reputed to be great smokers, and it is to this that I attribute their defeat at the hands of theEnglish. I have heard that the Boers even went into battle with their pipes alight, and I have no doubt that it was due to their distraction and lack of attention caused by their habit of scratching matches to keep their pipes burning, that they lost many important engagements. Do you imagine, Sir, that Troy could have withstood the assault of the Greeks for ten long years, had Hector and his fellow warriors lolled upon the battlements puffing on cigarettes? Can you fancy, Sir, the grave and dignified Cicero pausing in the midst of one of his philippics to expectorate tobacco juice? Yet I am told upon good authority that this may be witnessed among the learned justices of our own Supreme Court.
The almost total destruction of the American Indian, I attribute chiefly to the debilitating effects of this narcotic. Of all of the American Indians, the Peruvians attained the highest state of civilization. And why? Because, Sir, they alone used tobacco only as a medicine and in the form of snuff. Had they forborne the use of snuff, it might well havebeen that the Incas had conquered the Spanish and colonized the coast of Europe. Snuff, I consider the least harmful of all forms of tobacco; but only because it is the least frequently used. There is a lady of my acquaintance, in all other respects a most estimable woman, who so far forgets her duty as a mother as to permit her offspring to utilize as a plaything a handsome silver snuff-box which she inherited from her grandfather. I, Sir, should as soon think of giving my children a whisky-flask for a toy. I am well aware that many who have been termed “gentlemen” have been addicted to the use of snuff; nay, that it was even at one time a fashion among men and women of the mode to partake of it. But I think none the better of it for that. As much might be said for rum.
Lord Chesterfield said that he was enabled to get through the last five or six books of Virgil by having frequent recourse to his snuff-box; but I say, if the taking of snuff is necessary to the enjoyment of Virgil, why then, it were better never to read that poet. I hadrather fall asleep over Virgil than to inhale culture tainted with snuff. I had rather, indeed, snore over the classics, than sneeze at them.Trahit sua quemque voluptas—I suspect that his Lordship did not so much find snuff an aid to Virgil as Virgil an excuse for snuff.
Tobacco, Sir, won its way into Europe by a ruse—a pretense. It wormed its way into the confidence of the European peoples masquerading as a medicine—a panacea. Introduced by Francesco Fernandez, himself a renowned physician, and endorsed by many other men supposed to be learned inmateria medica, it was taken on faith and retained through weakness. At the very outset some of the wiser heads saw the danger of it. Burton sounded a note of warning in hisAnatomy of Melancholy: “Tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, is a sovereign remedy in all disease. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicallyused; but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health,—hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.”
King James, of blessed memory, was not deceived by the fictitious virtues of this plant, and he condemned it in his noble work,The Counterblaste. Would that more had been so blessed with wisdom!
The absurdity of the extravagant claims made for the curative powers of this herb is well illustrated in the words of Master Nicholas Culpepper, author ofThe English Physitian, published so late as 1671:
“It is a Martial plant (governed by Mars). It is found by good experience to be available to expectorate tough Flegm from the Stomach, Chest and Lungs.... The seed hereof is very effectual to expel the toothach, & the ashes of the burnt herb, to cleanse the Gums and make the Teeth white. The herb bruised andapplied to the place grieved by the Kings-Evil, helpeth it in nine or ten days effectually.Manardus, faith, it is a Counter-Poyson against the biting of any Venomous Creatures; the Herb also being outwardly applyd to the hurt place. The Distilled Water is often given with some Sugar before the fit of Ague to lessen it, and take it away in three or four times using.”
Such vaporings were, indeed, as little worthy of credence as the empty chatter of Ben Jonson’s Bobadil: “Signor, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies (where this herb grows), where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it can not be but ’tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florenceit should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak.... I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.”
Such were the absurd claims of those who held tobacco to be a medicine. But I contend, Sir, that tobacco has never been proven of any real medical value whatever; that it is a poison and not a blessing. I have been told, indeed, that it sometimes destroys the toothache; but for my own part I had rather taste the toothache than tobacco; and as for deadening the pain, so, for that matter, will opium or prussic acid.
I contend, Sir, that tobacco will eventually bring to grief every nation which makes use of it. Who can contemplate the present distressing state of Portugal without recalling that it was from Jean Nicot, a Portuguese, that the poison, nicotine, received its name?
Tobacco destroys all that is noble in man. There is no more noble sentiment than chivalry;and tobacco has destroyed the chivalry of man. How else could we applaud that English poet who sang,
“A thousand surplus Maggies are waiting to bear the yoke;And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke”?
“A thousand surplus Maggies are waiting to bear the yoke;And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke”?
“A thousand surplus Maggies are waiting to bear the yoke;And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke”?
“A thousand surplus Maggies are waiting to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke”?
Tobacco is offensive to all high-minded people of delicate sensibilities; it is offensive to me. Nay, the smoker himself sometimes involuntarily recoils from his slavery and feels disgust for the vile weed, as is shown by the cry of the modern poet, whose name for the moment escapes me, in thatline—
“Then, as you love me, take the stubs away!”
“Then, as you love me, take the stubs away!”
“Then, as you love me, take the stubs away!”
“Then, as you love me, take the stubs away!”
Oh, Sir, it is now high time for all men of sound judgment and unselfish nature to unite in stamping out this nefarious traffic! Let every state pass laws forbidding the manufacture, saleand useof tobacco in any form. Let the government suppress with stringent law and heavy penalty that wicked and seductivebook of J. M. Barrie’s calledMy Lady Nicotine; that work which has, without doubt, led many young men to contract this evil habit and confirmed many older men in it against their own better judgment. Let all books in praise of tobacco be destroyed publicly, as is befitting a public menace.
For my own part, having suffered all my life from a quinsy which I contracted early in youth, and which my family physician assured me would be greatly aggravated by the use of tobacco, I have been saved from the vile effects of even the slightest contact with that noxious plant. But, Sir, being a man of tender sensibilities and imbued with an almost paternal love of humanity, it has grieved me to the heart to see my fellow men falling ever deeper and deeper into the clutches of this sinful practise. Owing to the distress I suffer from the fumes of tobacco, I have often been compelled practically to abstain from the company of men, otherwise estimable citizens, who have contracted this habit. Everywhere I go I see young and old blowing out their brains withevery puff of smoke, until I am sometimes tempted to blow out my own in sheer despair of ever making them see the evil of their ways. And they smoke, Sir, with such an air of innocent enjoyment as is enough to fair madden one whose counsel they scorn and at whose warnings they scoff.
I have been told, Sir, that you are, yourself, a victim of this evil habit of tobacco using, and I have been warned that you will refuse, with the infatuation of a confirmed smoker, to grant me space in your publication for these honest and unprejudiced expressions of opinion upon this subject. I have refused, however, to credit these scandalous reflections upon your character, and I hope that you will refute them and cause the utter confusion of your calumniators, as well as help enlighten an ignorant and misguided people, by printing this communication in full.
I am, Sir, very truly yours,B. Z. Body.