THE WEED AND ITS USERS

Evening Star, Issue 20020, 10 November 1928, Page 11

THE WEED AND ITS USERS

| SOMETHING ABOUT SMOKERS i i Every smoker knows in his own ; heart that tobacco is a filthy _ weed, \ It profanes his breath, it spoils his | clothes, it dirties his hands—but, how 1 he likes it (says a writer in the ‘ Ari gus ’). The more he hears against it | the better ho likes it. The Siamese | twins were not more attached than ; the smoker to his weed. Who does not remember his first smoke? Mine , will never lade from memory. About I ten years old, I had had the usual ! trainhlg on dock leaves, but it was in- | adequate for the event. My introduction to tobacco was through a farm j labourer’s very ripe pipe, filled with very rank, very cheap tobacco. After I the first whiff or two something went 1 radically amiss. My head seemed to 1 revolve violently and when, between a couple of shudders, I involuntarily achieved the *‘draw-hack,” my annihilation was complete. I went to bed that night without my tea for two very good reasons. Starvation was con- ’ sidered by my parents to be punishment meet for the case, and to have boon compelled to eat would have been punishment far greater. Enthusiasm for tobacco waned until the public school age was reached, and then one had to smoke, chiefly because it was forbidden. Behind the lives court was the favourite spot. On more than.one sad occasion the ending was in the Head’s study, whore ho himself, reeking of his favourites pipe, administered hadf a dozen of the best in his inimitable style. Later, as captain of the school, it was my own melancholy duty on various occasions to deal similarly with offenders, and, having had experiences from both sides, I was able to refute entirely the Head’s oft-re-peated statement that to give “ cuts ” was as painful to him as to the object of his attentions. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

THE PRINCE AND HIS CIGAR, In what form is tobacco the most pleasant? I like it any way, except as a “ chew.” Even my hardened stomach could never quite grow used to that form of " smoking.” Tho cigar is the aristocrat of the tobacco family, to he smoked at. leisure after a good meal. The most amazing cigar smoker 1 ever saw was the Prince of Wales. He seemed to put about half an inch of ash on with every draw. A few draws and the cigar was gone. He must have a tongue of leather. Then there is the American way of “ smoking ” a cigar, if we are- to believe the pictures. You simply poke tho weed in tho corner of your mouth, rotate it violently to the other corner, biting viciously tho while, and continue the process until the cigar has ceased to be. '

For solid contentment, however; the pipe is hard to beat. A good book before a good fire, a good tobacco, and a seasoned briar that is drawing well, and one’s happiness is almost complete. Of course, there are pipes and pipes. Once, when among .some Baluchistan! troops. I was misguided enough to try their smoking utensil—a kind of Indianised hookah. The tobacco—or whatever the mixture was—was placed in a huge bowl, and water was supposed to cool the smoke on the way along to the enormous moutnpiece. The idea was not to puff gently, but to place the lips to the mouthpiece and, taking a firm grip on as much of the stem as the hands could grasp, to draw back the breath as strongly as the lungs would permit. 1 followed instructions faithfully, and the smoke smote the back of my throat like a blast from a furnace, and continued its unholy way, so it seemed, right through my system almost to tiie soles of ray feet. The experiment was not repeated. A VENTURE IN -CIGARETTES, Why the cigarette should be so popular it is bard to say. Perhaps it is because it is so convenient; perhaps because the cigarette appears to be more elegant than its sturdier _ brethren. After a dainty tete-a-tete dinner with a fair companion one can hardly offer the lady an old pouch with a cordial invitation to “ have a fill.” It is much more effective to produce an elaborate gold case, snap it open with a flourish, and desire the fair one to “have a gasper, old thing." It was the cigarette that gave me the first indication that I had a business brain. That was fourteen years ago, and I have had no further indication since, but that is beside the pou t. When the New Zealand main body left for Egypt, cigarette smoking was prohibited on the troopships. This was a very sore blow to about 90 per cent, of the men. By some strange chance I found myself head salesmen in the canteen of my ship, though my knowledge of shops had been confined strictly to the public side of the counter. Although cigarettes wore prohibited, there was an almost unlimited supply of cigarette tobacco araong < the stock, which the troops were permitted to buy for pipe smoking. !t was the chief steward who gave me the idea. Ho mentioned casually one day that he had 20 gross of packets of cigarette papers. That set me thinking, and eventually I began to talk _ business. When I asked his price for the lot the old reprobate wanted 3d a packet. At that time the papers were only Id a packet retail, and he had got them for considerably loss. After much argument I beat him down • to 2d, and took the lot on a time-payment basis. Then I became a shameless war profiteer. The confirmed cigarette smoker will go to any lengths for a “ fag ” when he cannot get one on the usual toms, so that when I had the word passed round quietly that 1 had a limited number of papers available at 6cl a packet, I was overwhelmed by orders. Nine hundred troops made ■diort work of 20 gross, cheerfully paying my stiifish price. They were happy because they had what they wanted, ihe chief steward was happy in his bargain, and I, with 4d a packet clear profit on 2,850 packets, was supremely nappy. Cigarettes were usually at a premium on Gallipoli, where the allowance was six packets a week, if one was lucky. I was fortunate in having a friend who did not smoke. Acting on my advice, he always drew his issue and passed it on. Another mate was a teetotaller. He also acted on rny advice, and lined up for li;s rum issue. However, that is beside the question. One man in the platoon, a heavy cigarette smoker, was in private life a successful lawyer, yet he, who was so impressive in court, could bo seen every dav diligently searching round the officers' dug-out for “ butts,” which he subsequently rolled into cigarettes. is the fascination of the “coffin nail.” A COWBOY PERFORMANCE, I had often read with admiration how the dashing cowboy hero held ms brown rice paper in one hand, opened his bag of “ Bull Durham ” with his teeth, poured the tobacco into the paper, and dexterously rolled himself a cigarette with one hand, snapping his match alight with his thumb-nail, and inhaling deeply with intense satisfaction. The only man 1 ever saw do it, outside the “ movies,” was Mr Louis Bennison, in 'Johnny, Get Your Gun.’ I was fired with a desire to try this kind of smoke, but I fear that I fell far below the screen standard in my execution of it. Using both hands, it was with great difficulty that I rolled the powdery “ bull ” into the semblance of a cigarette. _ Then I forgot a very important detail—to close tho ends, Tho result was that half the contents fell out one end, tho other half went down my throat from the other end, and when 1 applied the

match what was left went up in a sudden flaro, to the discomfort of my nose. That was the only occasion on which I agreed with Ben Johnson’s opinion of tobacco: “It is good for nothing but choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers.”

Ono often hears sung the praises of tho seductive tobacco of Turkey, but there is one Turkish variety that is the reverse of seductive. Ido not know its brand, nor do 1 wish to, for it was the most devastating stuff X ever tasted. In the course of a slight argument about the possession of a trench during the Suvla Bay operations in August, 1915, a most unpleasant Turkish gentleman hit me a terrific bang on the bridge of the nose with the buttend of his rifle, thereby permanently impairing my beauty. At the same time my bayonet found a resting place in portion of his anatomy, whereupon he throw up the rifle, apparently pleased beyond measure at not having been gathered unto Allah. He handed rne a peace offering in the. form of a Turkish issue cigarette. Never have I tasted anything more appalling. The Baluchi pipe was not in it. The smoke cut into the lungs like a knife, and the acrid taste was beyond description. _ Had the Turk not been sent avvay immediately under escort I believe that our tally of prisoner* would have been one less*