USE OF TOBACCO WORLD WIDE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10598, 29 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

USE OF TOBACCO WORLD WIDE.

Tobacco is an annual herbaceous plant, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from R. to 9 its foliage being fine and handsome. When full grown the stalk, near to the root, frequently attains a thickness greater than an inch in diameter, and it is surrounded by a hairy, clammy substance of a greenish-yellow color. Popes, czars, and kings have thundered anathemas against tobacco, but all the denunciations have ended in smoke

have helped hot to suppress but to extend and augment the fumes of the weed, and all princely power and'policy havo ended -in capitulation,, and -by turning tobacco into one of the most prolific and profitable sources ,of revenues.

Its yearly consumption in Great Britain exceeds' 33,000,0U0 .pounds avoiclupois, and gives to the Imperial revenue moio than" £2,200,000. Considerably more than a pound per head is annually used by the ISuropean subjects of tho king; and remembering tnat there are many, and these more populous, countries in which the employment of tobacco is more common than in England, it may be calculated that the English do not consumo more than one-twentieth part of the produce of the world. . The tobacco generally considered superior to all others is Syrian. It is called Latakia, from tho city of that name, the ancient and most renowned port of Laodicea, which to tho present day has a not inconsiderable 'trade; 'i'he city lies at tho foot of Mfc. .Lebanon, not far from the spot' where the remnants of the pntriachal cedars still

grow. Tho quantity of tobacco produced- in the Philippines is ''enormous.' .That which is exported represents tho value of more than £].,000,000, and it>, believed the consumption in tho island" considerably exceeds that which is sent away. Tho Spanish government had a monoply both for the purchase of the leal* and tho sale of the manufactured cigar. But tho native cultivator, naturally enough, kept for his own use'or for 'that of his friends- or for clandestine sale the best product of his 'gardens. -.''".'

In the remoter districts authority was too weak to enforce tho monopoly, and the native enjoyed unmolested' the' hints of his laboi In them nine v u--ticip.itid moio laigeh th.ui til- in.us who, nommallj the spiritual woo iealh the paramount mlui .>n o 1; tho natives. The convents were uhra,.s supplied wth the choicest specimen > 01 j tho eigauo and cigainto I A cheat) tobacco, called ava grass, is vci\ mucli smoked b\ the Malays, which they put in a dued leaf called a ioc-co, idling tho tobacco up in it like a ug.'i* ette The Malj-\s ol <ertain distnets keep the tobacco of then cultivation foi a long time in pieces ol bamboo, but it is badb piepaied and nevei^e\poitcd A nnticublc. pccuhaiitv ol the cigar tiade in Cuba is that each man knows how to make but one kind of cigai. The workman who makes a concha cannot make a icgalia, not is he leqmrcd to do so; noi can an espanola be 1 oiled by a man whose specialtj is the paitaga Among the European smckeis the mce:shaum and the porcelain bowl find tavoi with the German, and the nvalry between their icspective ments aftoids a constant topic of controversy among the burners 01 ■youths of the universities Tlie possession and becoming use of the pipe mark the tiansition from :\oiith to .manhood, and the rauchen ijnk being assumed, the pipe, which is its recognised emblem and representative, is seldom out of tho hand of its ownci The smoking habit is perhaps more looted in Holland than in any pa it of the European woild. The old King Vilham—know n in Ins countn as Vader "Willcm—had a great dislike to tobacco smoke, while tho couit painter, Kuh, declared he never succeeded in tfakivg -i likeness unless he 'had a pipe in his hand, and found no inspnation except in its fiagiant fumes. He ie-fus-d to paint the portiait/il h's rova-1 master ualess the King gave way to his foible,' which, notwithstanding his premdices, his Majesty v ery good humoredly consented to do The King Had not been long seated m Ins chair when, o'. ercoine by tlic smoke, he fell asleep.. The "aitist continued his woik for a, Irctle time, unwilling to interrupt his Sovereign's repose, when he followed the ro"a] example; his brush fell from his band, and monarch and subject were slumbering and snoring together. Wil--lpm was'tho "first "to awake, and exclaimed to'the painter: "Why, sir, you arc asleep."" He was, of course, roused, but having v no time to recollect in whose august presence he w as, exclaimed 1 abruptly "and irreverently: "Why, you fell-asleep^first!"