Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860




Hygienic reformers are usually unequalled in imaginary horrors, except
by the charlatans who vend panaceas.

We have no reasons for believing that tobacco causes softening of the
brain equal in plausibility to those which ascribe it to prolonged and
excessive mental effort. The statistics of disease prove cancers of
other organs to be twice as frequent, among females, as cancer of the
stomach is among males; and an eminent etiologist places narcotics
among the least proved causes of this disease. A hot climate, abuse
of alcohol, a sedentary life, and sluggish digestion happen, rather
curiously, to be very frequent concomitants, if not causes, of disease
of the liver. Dyspepsia haunts both sexes, and, we venture to assert,
though we cannot bring figures to prove it, is as frequent among those
who do not use tobacco as among those who do. We are ready to concede
that excessive chewing and smoking, particularly if accompanied by large
expectoration, may impair nutrition and cause emaciation: that the mass
of mankind eat and digest and live, as well as use "the weed," is proof
that its moderate employment is not ordinarily followed by this result.
Dryness of the mouth follows expectoration as a matter of course; but
the salivation excited in an old smoker by tobacco is very moderate, and
not succeeded by thirst, unless the smoke be inhaled too rapidly and at
too high a temperature.

We come next to a very tender point with reformers, the laryngeal cough
and failing voice of the reverend clergy. The later generations of
ministers of this vicinity, as a body, have abandoned tobacco, and yet
the evil has not diminished. An eminent divine of our acquaintance,
who does not smoke daily, always finds a cigar relieve a trifling
bronchitis, to which he is occasionally subject The curious will find in
the "Medical Journal" of this city, for 1839, that quite as much can be
said on one side as on the other of this subject.

The minor, rarely the graver affections of the nervous system, do follow
the use of tobacco in excess. We admit this willingly; but we deny these
effects to its moderate use by persons of ordinary health and of no
peculiar idiosyncrasy. Numerous cases of paralysis among tobacco-takers
in France were traced to the lead in which the preparation was
enveloped.

We pass next to what we claim as the effects of _moderate_
tobacco-using, and will take first the evidence of the toxicologists.
Both Pereira and Christison agree that "no well-ascertained ill effects
have been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking." Beck,
a modern authority, says, "Common observation settles the question, that
the moderate and daily use of tobacco _does not_ prove injurious. This
is a general rule": and he adds, that exceptions necessarily exist, etc.

The repugnance and nausea which greet the smoker, in his first attempts
to use tobacco, are not a stronger argument against it than the fact
that the system so soon becomes habituated to these effects is a proof
of its essential innocuousness.

Certainly the love of tobacco is not an instinctive appetite, like that
for nitrogen and carbon in the form of food. Man was not born with a
cigar in his mouth, and it is not certain that the _Nicotiana tabacum_
flourished in the Garden of Eden. But history proves the existence of
an instinct among all races--call it depraved, if you will, the fact
remains--leading them to employ narcotics. And narcotics all nations
have sought and found. We venture to affirm that tobacco is harmless as
any. The betel and the hop can alone compare with it in this respect;
and the hop is not a narcotic which satisfies alone; others are used
with it. Opium and Indian hemp are not to be mentioned in comparison;
while coca, in excess, is much more hurtful.

Tobacco may more properly be called a sedative than a narcotic. Opium,
the type of the latter class, is in its primary action excitant, but
secondarily narcotic. The opium-eaters are familiar with this, and
learn by experience to regulate the dose so as to prolong the first and
shorten the second effects, as much as possible.

Tobacco, on the other hand, is primarily sedative and relaxing. A high
authority says of its physiological action:--

"First, That its greater and first effect is to assuage and allay and
soothe the system in general.

"Second, That its lesser and second, or after effect, is to excite and
invigorate, and at the same time give steadiness and fixity to the
powers of thought."

Either of these effects will predominate, we conceive, according to
the intellectual state and capacity of the individual, as well as in
accordance with the amount used.

The dreamy Oriental is sunk into deeper reverie under the influence of
tobacco, and his happiness while smoking seems to consist in thinking of
nothing. The studious German, on the contrary, "thinks and dreams,
and dreams and thinks, alternately; but while his body is soothed and
stilled, his mind is ever awake."

This latter description resembles, to compare small things with great,
the effects of opium, as detailed by De Quincey.

"In habitual smokers," says Pereira, "the practice, when moderately
indulged, produces that remarkably soothing and tranquillizing effect on
the mind which has caused it to be so much admired and adopted by all
classes of society."

The pleasure derived from tobacco is very hard to define, since it is
negative rather than positive, and to be estimated more by what it
prevents than by what it produces. It relieves the little vexations and
cares of life, soothes the harassed mind, and promotes quiet reflection.
This it does most of all when used sparingly and after labor. But
if incessantly consumed, it keeps up a constant, but mild cerebral
exhilaration. The mind acts more promptly and more continuously under
its use. We think any tobacco-consumer will bear us out in this
definition of its varying effects.

After a full meal, if it does not help, it at least hides digestion.
"It settles one's dinner," as the saying is, and gives that feeling of
quiet, luxurious _bien-aise_ which would probably exist naturally in
a state of primeval health. It promotes, with most persons, the
peristaltic movements of the alimentary passages by its relaxing
properties.

Smoking is eminently social, and favors domestic habits. And in this
way, we contend, it prevents drinking, rather than leads to it. Many
still associate the cigar with the bar-room. This notion should have
become obsolete ere this, for it has an extremely limited foundation in
fact. Bachelors and would-be-manly boys are not the only consumers of
tobacco, though they are the best patrons of the bar. The poor man's
pipe retains him by his own fireside, as well as softens his domestic
asperities.

Excess in tobacco, like excess in any other material good meant for
moderate use, is followed by evil effects, more or less quickly,
according to the constitution and temperament of the abuser. The
lymphatic and obese can smoke more than the sanguine and nervous, with
impunity. How much constitutes excess varies with each individual.
Manufacturers of tobacco do not appear to suffer. Christison states, as
the result of the researches of MM. Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet among
four thousand workmen in the tobacco-manufactories of France, that they
found no evidence of its being unwholesome. Moderate tobacco-users
attain longevity equal to that of any other class in the community.

We will cite only the following brief statistics from an old physician
of a neighboring town. In looking over the list of the oldest men, dead
or alive, within his circle of acquaintance, he finds a total of 67 men,
from 73 to 93 years of age. Their average age is 78 and a fraction. Of
these 67, 54 were smokers or chewers; 9 only, non-consumers of tobacco;
and 4 were doubtful, or not ascertained. About nine-elevenths smoked or
chewed. The compiler quaintly adds, "How much longer these men might
have lived without tobacco, it is impossible to determine."

The tobacco-leaf is consumed by man usually in three ways: by smoking,
snuffing, or chewing. The first is the most common; the last is the most
disagreeable.

Tobacco is smoked in the East Indies, China, and Siam; in Turkey and
Persia; over Europe generally; and in North and South America. Cigars
are preferred in the East and West Indies, Spain, England, and America.
China, Turkey, Persia, and Germany worship the pipe. In Europe the pipe
is patronized on account of its cheapness. Turks and Persians use the
mildest forms of pipe-smoking, choosing pipes with long, flexible stems,
and having the smoke cooled and purified by passing through water. The
Germans prefer the porous meerschaum,--the Canadians, the common clay.
Women smoke habitually in China, the East and West Indies, and to a less
extent in South America, Spain, and France.

We have no fears that any reasoning of ours would induce the other
sex to use tobacco. The ladies set too just a value on the precious
commodity of their charms for that. There is little danger that they
would do anything which might render them disagreeable. The practice of
snuff-taking is about the only form they patronize, and that to a slight
extent.

France is the home of snuff. A large proportion of all the tobacco
consumed there is used in this form. The practice prevails to a large
extent also in Iceland and Scotland. The Icelander uses a small horn,
like a powder-horn, to hold his snuff. Inserting the smaller end into
the nostril, he elevates the other, and thus conveys the pungent powder
directly to the part. The more delicate Highlander carries the snuff to
his nose on a little shovel. This can be surpassed only by the habit
of "dipping," peculiar to some women of the United States, and whose
details will not bear description.

Chewing prevails _par excellence_ in our own country, and among the
sailors of most nations,--to some extent also in Switzerland, Iceland,
and among the Northern races. It is the safest and most convenient form
at sea.

By smoking, each of the three active ingredients of tobacco is rendered
capable of absorption. The empyreumatic oil is produced by combustion.
The pipe retains this and a portion of the nicotin in its pores. The
cigar, alone, conveys all the essential elements into the system.

Liebig once asserted that cigar-smoking was prejudicial from the
amount of gaseous carbon inhaled. We cannot believe this. The heat of
cigar-smoke may have some influence on the teeth; and, on the whole, the
long pipe, with a porous bowl, is probably the best way of using tobacco
in a state of ignition.

By repeated fermentations in preparing snuff, much of the nicotin is
evaporated and lost. Yet snuff-takers impair the sense of smell, and
ruin the voice, by clogging up the passages with the finer particles of
the powder. The functions of the labyrinthine caverns of the nose and
forehead, and of the delicate osseous laminae which constitute the
sounding-boards of vocalization, are thus destroyed.

Chewing is the most constant, as it is the nastiest habit. The old
chewer, safe in the blunted irritability of the salivary glands, can
continue his practice all night, if he be so infatuated, without
inconvenience. In masticating tobacco, nicotin and nicotianin are rolled
about in the mouth with the quid, but are not probably so quickly
absorbed as when in the gaseous state. Yet chewers are the greatest
spitters, and have a characteristic drooping of the angle of the lower
lip, which points to loss of power in the _leavator_ muscles.

Latakia, Shiraz, Manila, Cuba, Virginia, and Maryland produce the most
valuable tobaccoes. Though peculiar soils and dressings may impart
a greater aroma and richness to the plant, by the variations in the
quantity of nicotianin, as compared with the other organic elements, yet
we are inclined to think that the diminished proportion of nicotin in
the best varieties in the cause of their superior flavor to the rank
Northern tobaccoes, and that it is mainly because they are milder that
they are most esteemed. So, too, the cigar improves with age, because
a certain amount of nicotin evaporates and escapes. Taste in cigars
varies, however, from the Austrian government article, a very rank
"long-nine," with a straw running through the centre to improve its
suction, to the Cuban _cigarrito_, whose ethereal proportions three
whiffs will exhaust.

The manufacture of smoking-tobaccoes is as much and art in Germany as
getting up a fancy brand of cigars is here; and the medical philosopher
of that country will gravely debate whether "Kanaster" or "Varinas" be
best suited for certain forms of convalescence; tobacco being almost
as indispensable as gruel, in returning health. We think the
light pipe-smoker will find a combination of German and Turkish
smoking-tobaccoes a happy thought. The old smoker may secure the best
union of delicacy and strength in the Virginia "natural leaf."

Among the eight or ten species of the tobacco-plant now recognized by
botanists, the _Nicotiana tabacum_ and the _Nicotiana rustica_ hold the
chief place. Numerous varieties of each of these, however, are named and
exist.

We condense from De Bow's "Industrial Resources of the South and West" a
brief account of tobacco-culture in this country. "The tobacco is best
sown from the 10th to the 20th of March, and a rich loam is the most
favorable soil. The plants are dressed with a mixture of ashes, plaster,
soot, salt, sulphur, soil, and manure." After they are transplanted,
we are told that "the soil best adapted to the growth of tobacco is a
light, friable one, or what is commonly called a sandy loam; not too
flat, but rolling, undulating land." Long processes of hand-weeding must
be gone through, and equal parts of plaster and ashes are put on each
plant. "Worms are the worst enemy," and can be effectually destroyed
only by hand. "When the plant begins to yellow, it is time to put it
away; and it is cut off close to the ground." After wilting a little on
the ground, it is dried on sticks, by one of the three processes called
"pegging, spearing, and splitting." "When dry, the leaves are stripped
off and tied in bundles of one fifth or sixth of a pound each. It is
sorted into three or four qualities, as Yellow, Bright, Dull, etc."
Next it is "bulked," or put into bundles, and these again dried, and
afterwards "conditioned," and packed in hogsheads weighing from six
hundred to a thousand pounds each.

It would be too long to detail the processes of cigar- and snuff-making,
the latter of which is quite complicated.

We were happy to learn from the fearful work of Hassall on "Food and
its Adulterations," that tobacco was one of the articles least tampered
with; and particularly that there was no opium in cheroots, but nothing
more harmful than hay and paper. He ascribes this immunity mainly to
the vigilance of the excisemen. But we have recently seen a work on
the adulteration of tobacco, whose microscopic plates brought back our
former misgivings. Molasses is a very common agent used to give color
and render it toothsome. Various vegetable leaves, as the rhubarb,
beech, walnut, and mullein, as well as the less delectable bran, yellow
ochre, and hellebore, in snuff, are also sometimes used to defraud.
Saltpetre is often sprinkled on, in making cigars, to improve their
burning.

The Indians mixed tobacco in their pipes with fragrant herbs. Cascarilla
bark is a favorite with some smokers; it is a simple aromatic and
tonic, but, when smoked, is said sometimes to occasion vertigo and
intoxication.

We have before observed that tobacco is a very exhausting crop to the
soil. The worn-out tobacco-plantations of the South are sufficient
practical proof of this, while it is also readily explained by
chemistry. The leaves of tobacco are among the richest in incombustible
ash, yielding, when burned, from 19 to 28 _per cent_. of inorganic
substance. This forms the abundant ashes of tobacco-pipes and of cigars.
All this has been derived from the soil where it was raised, and it is
of a nature very necessary to vegetation, and not very abundant in the
most fertile lands. "Every ton of dried tobacco-leaves carries off from
four to five hundred-weight of this mineral matter,--as much as is
contained in fourteen tons of the grain of wheat." It follows
that scientific agriculture can alone restore this waste to the
tobacco-plantation.

There is one other aspect of this great subject, which is almost
peculiar to New England, the home of reform. Certain Puritanical
pessimists have argued that the use of tobacco is immoral. There are
few, except our own sober people, who would admit this question at
all. We would treat this prejudice with the respect due to all sincere
reforms. And we have attempted to show, that, since all races have used
and will use narcotics, we had better yield a little, lest more be
taken, and concede them tobacco, which is more harmless than many that
are largely consumed. We have proved to our own satisfaction, and we
hope to theirs, that tobacco _in moderation_ neither affects the health
nor shortens life; that it does not create an appetite for stimulants,
but rather supplies their place; and that it favors sociality and
domestic habits more than the reverse.

If the formation of any habit be objected to, we reply, that this is
a natural tendency of man, that things become less prejudicial by
repetition, and that a high hygienic authority advises us "to be regular
even in our vices."

As we began in a light, we close in a more sober vein, apologists for
tobacco, rather than strongly advocating either side. On one point we
are sure that we shall agree with the ladies, and that is in a sincere
denunciation of the habit of smoking at a tender age. And although, in
accordance with the tendency of the times, the school-boy whom we caught
attached to a "long-nine" would consistently reply, _"Civis Americanus
sum_!" we shall persist in claiming the censorship of age over those on
whose chins the callow down of adolescence is yet ungrown.

* * * * *



SHAKSPEARE DONE INTO FRENCH.


In the first place, it really was an immense success, and Shylock, or
Sheeloque, as they dubbed him, was called before the curtain seven
times, and in most appropriate humility nearly laid his nose on his
insteps as he bowed, and quite showed his spine.

It certainly was like Shakspeare in this, that it had five acts; but
when I have made that concession, and admitted that Sheeloque was
_Le Juif de Venise_, I think I have named all the cardinal points of
similarity in the "Merchant of Venice" and "Le Juif" of that same
unwholesome place. To be sure, there is a suspicion of _le devin
Williams_, as they will call him, continually cropping out; but a
conscientious man would not swear to one line of it, and I do not
think Shakspeare would be justified in suing the French author for
compensation under the National Copyright-Act. I speak of Shakspeare as
existing, because it is my belief he does, in a manner so to speak.

I have intimated that "Le Juif" has five acts; but I have not yet
committed myself to the assertion that he was in seven _tableaux_, and
possessed a prologue.

It is now my pleasing duty to force you through the five acts, and the
one prologue, and the seven _tableaux_,--every one of them.

This prologue is divided as to the theatre into two parts: to left,
Sheeloque's domestic interior,--to right, a practicable canal. In the
very first line out crops Shylock's love of good bargains; and I
give the reader my word, the little Frenchmen saw that this was
characteristic, and applauded vehemently. _"Bon_," said I,--"if they
applaud the first line, what will they do with the last act?"

It need not be said that Shylock dabbles in those bills which Venetian
swells of the fifteenth century, in common with those of a later age
and more western land, will manipulate, in spite of all the political
economy from Confucius down to Mr. Mill; and in this particular instance
and prologue the names of the improvidents are Leone and Ubaldo, neither
of which, if my memory serve me, is Shakspearian. These gentlemen
considerably shake my traditional respect for sixteenth-century
Venetian _Aristos_, for they insult that Jew till I wonder where a count
and a duke have learnt such language: but they serve a purpose; they
trot Shylock out, so to speak, and give our author an opportunity
of doing his best with A 1. Shylock's great speech. Here is the
apostrophe:--

"But yesterday--no later past than yesterday--thou didst bid thy
mistress call at me from her balcony; thy servants by thy will did cast
mud on me, and thy hounds sped snapping after me,'"--whereby we may infer
they went hunting in Venice, in the fifteenth century. It must have been
rather dangerous running. Nor could the Venetian nobles of that good old
time have been very proper; for Leone and Ubaldo justify themselves by
saying they were drunk.

It is after this pretty excuse that Shylock has a soliloquy as long as
his beard,--and I hear really loud opposition to this didacticism in the
pit; but, however, this slow work soon meets compensation in violent
action. Shylock won't renew, and the nobles get indignant; so they
propose to pay Shylock with more kicks than halfpence. Here the action
begins; for Shylock protests he will bite a bit out of them; and though
one of these long-sleeved swells warns him that all threats by Jews
against Christians are an imprisonment manner, Shylock rashly prepares
for a defence. Away fly the lords after Shylock, over go the chairs,
down goes the table, and I suppose Shylock _does_ hit "one of them"; for
the two lords go off quite triumphantly, with the intimation that he
will be in prison in one hour from that.

Then the Jew calls for--Sarah; and this same comes in on tiptoe, for
fear of waking the baby. This Shylock _fils_ Sarah proceeds to describe
as equally beautiful with Abel and Moses, which seems to give Shylock
_pere_ great comfort,--though I am bound to admit the lowly whispered
doubt on the part of a pit-neighbor of mine as to Sarah's capability of
judging in the matter.

Shylock is preparing for prison, it seems, and one little necessity is a
prayer for said son. Sarah comes in with a response, Shylock leaves
off praying "immediate," to tell Sarah she is no vulgar servant, which
assurance is received in the tearful manner. And here it comes a
little faint whiff of the real play. In leaving home, Shylock's French
plagiarizes the Jew's speech to Jessica, even down to the doubt the Jew
has about leaving his house at all.

There has been no necessity for stating that Sara supposes herself the
widow of a libel on his sex, a man unspeakable; and the moment I hear he
is, or was, a man of crime unspeakable, I know he will turn up. Shylock
having gone away,--I do not know where,--up comes a gondola to the
front-door, and, of course, in walks Sarah's husband. "Good evening,
Ma'am," says he. "God of Israel!" says she. And then such an explanation
as this infamous husband gives! He puts in, that he is a pirate; that
his captain, whom he describes as a _Venus en corsaire_, has lost a
son, and wants another; hence speaker, name Arnheim, wants that little
Israelite who is so much like Abel and Moses at one and the same moment:
though how Arnheim should know of that little creation, or how he should
know him to be also like the lost infantile pirate as well as Abel and
Moses, does not sufficiently appear,--as, indeed, my neighbor, who is
suggestive of a Greek Chorus in a blue blouse, discovers in half a dozen
disparaging syllables.

Of course, when the supposed widow hears this, her cries ought to wake
up all hearing Venice, but not one Venetian comes to her aid; and though
she uses her two hands enough for twenty, she has not got her way when
thoroughly breathed.

"Sarah," says that energetic woman's husband, "Sarah, don't be a fool!"

Then I know the baby is coming: there never yet was a French prologue
without a baby,--it seems a French unity; sometimes there are two
babies, who always get mixed up. But to our business.

Out comes the baby, (they never scream,) and--alas that for effect he
should thus commit himself!--Arnheim rips Sarah up, and down she goes as
dead as the Queen of Sheba.

Then comes a really fine scene. Shylock enters, learns all; in come
soldiers for Shylock, and, of course, accuse him of the murder;
whereupon Shylock shows on the blade a cross. "Doth a Jew wear a knife
with a cross on it?" says he. "Go to!--'tis a Christian murder."

To this the soldier-head has nothing to say; so he hurries Shylock off
to prison, and down comes the curtain.

"Hum!" says the Greek Chorus,--"it might be worse."


ACT I.


It is clear there must be lady characters, or I am quite sure the Greek
Chorus would find fault wofully,--and the only one we have had, Sarah,
to wit, can't decently appear again, except in the spiritual form. Well,
there is the original Portia,--alas for that clever, virtuous, and
noble lady!--how is she fallen in the French!--she is noble-looking and
clever,--but the third quality, oh, dear me! This disreputable is named
Imperia, and the real Bassanio becomes one Honorius, who is, as he
should be, the bosom friend of one Andronic, which is Antonio, I would
have you know. I have thought over it two minutes, and have come to the
conclusion that the less I say about Imperia the better, and I know the
Anglo-Saxon would not agree with Imperia,--but, as the Frenchman does,
I offer you one, or part of one of Imperia's songs, as bought by me for
two disgraceful _sous_.

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