PIPES FOR PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1937, Page 8

PIPES FOR PEACE.

SMOKING OUT TROUBLE

When I was a boy, back in the horse and buggy days, cigarettes were called "coffin nails" and somewhere in my suliconscious mind there still lingers the preposterous suspicion that over indulgence in cigarettes impairs efficiency, attacks virility, jangles the nerves, dulls the intellect and may even lead to an early breakdown and a lingering and rather unnecessarily horrible death, writes Stanley Walker in the New York "Herald Tribune."

As a pipe smoker I feel I have nothing to apologise for, although the habit may eventually exclude me from polite, society. There's no denying that cigarettes, 'ever since they first became popular during the Crimean War, have climbed steadily in the affections of all people. But the pipe smokers are a tenacious lot; pipes and pipe tobaccos are setting well; we'll be puffing away for a long time.

Pipe smokers have violent prejudices. No use denying it. And yet it seems'to me that pipe smokers, taking them by and large, are calm, broad-visioned, tolerant and not ordinarily given to snap judgments. For example, I have always had the highest regard for the prowess of Napoleon Bonaparte, though I believe some of his most costly errors of judgment might have been avoided if he had learned to smoke a pipe. He might thus have become more contemplative and surer of himself. Xapoleon, however, tried a pipe only once. That was in Egypt, when th* plague was ragipg. With the help of his mamelukes he loaded up a highly ornate narghile, or water pipe, and went at it. The smoke apparently went the wrong way, and sent him into a coughing fit. He cried out: "Take it away! How foul! You pigs! It makes me sick!" But Napoleon, with rank inconsistency, took snuff, no less than seven pounds a "month. Little wonder he wound up at St. Helena. However, Wellington didn't smoke, either, though Blucher did. Most of Napoleon's better generals were pipe smokers. John Bull's Pipe.

The British, of course, since the grand days of Sir Walter Raleigh himself (lie once persuaded Queon Elizabeth to take a drag at a pipe) have been great pipe smokers. Everyone is familiar with the fine figure of Stanley Baldwin, the image of John Bull, puffing away 'quietly and surely at his pipe while he holds the Empire together. Ramsay Mac Donald has told friends that, when some soul-scaring decision had to be made or some tangled problem thought out to the end, he resorted to his pipe. And Sir James Matthew Barrie is on record many times as praising the jovs and rewards of pipe smoking. Maybe a fine" image can _ come out of the smoke of a cigarette or a cigar, but the best ones, it m#st be, are to be found somewhere in the haze of blue that hangs around a mellow pipe, especially late in the night.

Bismarck was one of the greatest friends tobacco ever had, and tobacco, since it wu first discovered among the North American Indians, has needed friends. Although Bismarck was a cigar smoker, what he said about smoking is true, particularly of pipe smokers. When Jules Favre visited Bismarck at the latter's headquarters before Paris to discuss terms of peace, the Iron Chancellor asked the Frenchman if he smoked, and offered him a cigar. Favre said he did not smoke. Then Bismarck made his deathless defence of smoking: "Then you are wrong! When a man begins a discussion whicrf may easily lead to heated argument, or even a show of temper, it is always better to smoke while one is talking. You see, a cigar held in the hand and nursed with care serves, in a measure, to keep our gestures under control. Besides, it acts as a mild sedative without in any way impairing our mental faculties. A cigar is a sort of diversion; as the blue emoke curls upward the eye involuntarily follows it; the effect is soothing, one feels better tempered, and more inclined to make concessions—and to be continually making mutual concessions is what we diplomats live on. It is true that you, as a non-smoker, have one advantage over me you are more watchful and observant: on the other hand, you are more ant to be guided by the impulse of the moment," The Busy Bigots. The botanical name of tobacco, Xiootiana, comes from .Tean Xioot, the eminent Frenchman who did much to popularise the weed on the Continent. It used to lie a favourite theme among European thinkers that America had sent two important things, tobacco and the potato, but that whereas tobacco became popular immediately, the cultivation of the potato had to bo made compulsory. King James I. of England, who was full of prejudices, fought a losing battle against the use of tobacco. However, despite the rapid spread of smoking, the seventeenth century was a tough time for serious smokers. Some exports called tobacco "hell dust," and argued that its use would make a man's brain as sooty as an old chimney. One Pope issued a bull against smoking, but it was repealed by the next Pope.

Everywhere the bigots were busy. The worst of all was Murad IV. known as Murad the Cruel, as hard a man as ever ruled the Ottoman Empire. He was a great snooper, often disguising himself, visiting the coffee houses to spot smokers, and then having the poor devils shot next day.

Notwithstanding all this trotible, the friends of smoking won. Peter the Great was a help. Always interested in new ideas, lie took up smoking, much to the disgust of the clergy. It irked tliem especially to see him smoking on the street, but old Peter went right ahead. Tobacco came to be regarded as somewhat of a necessity—a thought which was expressed during the World War by General Pershing. who once cabled Washington: "Tobacco is as indispensable as the daily ration. We must have thousands of tons at once."

Your true pipe smoker, tlie one wlio lias pride in his pipe, fine taste in his tobacco, and who understands the spiritual and mental boons to be obtained from the habit, is essentially a tolerant and far-seeing' man. He is, at heart, tolerant of cijrarette smokers, even though he may not understand their tastes; tolerant, if nmst be. of snuff-takers, and tolerant of the desire of women to take a draw at a pipe. P