ON SMOKING.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2928, 25 July 1911, Page 7

ON SMOKING.

ITS INFLUENCE ON MEN OF FAME.

| Smoking is as conducive to good government as sound logic. James I. transmitted his hatred of tobacco to his descendants. Neither of the Jameses nor the Charleses knew the wisdom-giving practice of smoking. Under the tobaccolcss tyranny England was ill at ease, beheading Charles I. and flinging out James 11. William 111., an honest smoker, was the one who set the country to rights again. Cromwell, the typical Englishman, knew the virtues of tobacco, espe'cially in the consideration of weighty matter;--. When he was offered the king>-hip, and dallied a nd played with the attractive offer, he frequently discussed the question for three or four hours. "He commonly," says a contemporary biography, "called for tobacco, pip»\s, and a candle, and

would now and then tak« tobacco himself." If Cromwell had not | smoked, and had accepted the Crown, j to-day we might be ruled by tho Ho'Jse of Cromwell. | What an in- j fluence that pipe may have exerted • upon old Noll and all history ! j Swinbourne absolutely abhors to- ! bacco. On one occasion, at the Arts ! Club, he could not find a room free j from smoke. With poetic fury he , burst forth—"James the First was j a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a liar, a coward ; but I love him, I worship : him, because he split the throat of ; that filthy blackguard Raleigh, who ■

invented this filthy smoking !" I There is a story of a clergyman who, mounting the pulpit for the sermon, refreshed himself with several • pinches of snuff before announcing his ;,text. This, aptly enough was, "My €oul cleaveth unto the dust."

Huxley's conversation to the use of tobacco, as related by himself to a sectional meeting of the British Association, forms an amusing story—"For forty years tobacco had been a deadly poison to me. (Applause.) As a medical student I tried to smoke, but at every attempt tobacco stretched me upon the floor. On entering the Navy I again tried to smo'te.and again met with defeat. I hated tobacco. I could have almost lent my support to any institution that had for its object the execution of smo'cers. (Vociferous applause from all the anti-smokers.) A few years ago I was in Brittany with some friends. It was a miserable drenching day, and they looked so happy and comfortable with their pipes that I thought. I would try a cigar. (Great expectation and anxiety.) I did so. 1 smoked that cigar; it was delicious. (Groans). From that moment I was a changed

man, and now I feel that smoking in moderation is a comforting and laud-

• able practice, and productive of good. I There is no more harm in a pipe j than there is in a cup of tea." I (Dismay and anger from anti-tobac-jconists; laughter from smokers.) i Tennyson's passion for a long clay ;is well known. He smoked Milos, and afterward Dublin clays ; mild birds-eye was his favourite tobacco. The story that he never smoked the same pipe twice is absurd, for, like all smokers, he detested new pipes. , He entertained the liveliest hatred of Florence, because he could not get any decent tobacco there, and on this account promptly returned home. Carlyle, describing Tennyson, said—"Smokes infinite tobacco." His devotion to the herb became so intense that literally he could not exist without it. On one occasion, at a soiree of the Royal Society, he declared he must have a pipe. A friend said he should smoke up the chimney of the library or on the roof. Tennyson chose the latter, and, with his body thrust half-way through the skylight, puffed away in peace, descending in a quarter of an hour : greatly refreshed. Wherever he went he must be allowed to smoke. Ac- j cepting an invitation to visit Mr. j Gladstone in 1876, bg wrote—

"As you are good enough to say you will manage anything rather than lose my visit, will you manage that I can have my pipe in my room whenever I like ?" —W. A. Penn, in "The Sorrane Herb."