The fragrant weed : dedicated to its lovers / by Chispa.

  • Cervantes, Ignacio R.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fragrant weed : dedicated to its lovers / by Chispa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and Connaught, are determined smokers, the Prince of Wales especially being quite catholic in his tastes, and applying himself by turns to cigar, to pipe, or to cigarette. What little effect the “ Counterblaste ” ever had, if ever it had any, has entirely died away, and, from the shadow of the throne to the outer doors of a casual ward, tobacco is everywhere. Not that it has ever been without its opponents. From worthy Edmund Gardiner, who told us that the patrimony of many noble young gentlemen had vanished in smoke, and that “tobacco is a fantastical attractor and glutton feeder of the appetite ; ” down to Drs. Carpenter and Richardson and their colleagues of the Anti-Tobacco Society, who have discovered that smoking is the cause of many strange diseases, which, fortunately for themselves, the smokers are quite ignorant of ever having suffered from, there have always been writers and orators to denounce the “baneful weed.” On the other hand, a general consensus of opinion has been on the other side. Our greatest poets, painters, philosophers, preachers, physicians, surgeons, men of science, novelists, actors,-*4 all have been * The Railway Times, which must, at all events, be allowed to know something about engineers, goes so far as to say that, “ It would be difficult to name a really great man among all who have flourished during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries who has not been a confirmed and habitual smoker. From Sir Walter Raleigh, to Thomas Carlyle, every great thinker has found the operations of his brain facili¬ tated and fertilised by the fragrant cigar or the soothing pipe. Doctors and divines, authors and artists, statesmen, soldiers and sailors, mechanics and mathematicians, artisans and engineers, princes and peasants, have all acknowledged and bowed before the beneficient sway of tobacco. But this universal allegiance has one disadvantage. It unfortunately hap¬ pens that only a very restricted portion of the earth’s surface produces the particular tobacco of which is manufactured the finest cigars, and the enormous demand has naturally made a really good cigar a somewhat expensive luxury. And this natural dearness has been artificially height¬ ened by the heavy expenses and long credits which are the bane of our West-end retailers, until it is no exaggeration to say that many inveterate cigar smokers puff away the income of a first-class mechanic or a couple of curates. And certainly it would be unwise to advise these to buy inferior cigars. Of all abominations in this world, nothing is worse than a bad cigar. But it is possible to effect a very material saving by paying cash and dealing directly with the importer. Certainly it is then necessary to buy by the box, and a firm of importers, Messrs. J. T. Sparke and Co., come to the assistance of the connoisseur, and offer considerable facilities to buyers by forwarding sample bundles of half-a-dozen, on receipt of stamps, at practically the same prices as by the box, in order that in¬ tending purchasers may decide on the brand and size best suited to their individual tastes. Messrs. Sparke, who supply many of the nobility, gentry, merchants, and leading clubs of the County Palatine, are large importers of all the finest Havana brands, and certainly their prices will astonish all who have been accustomed only to retail charges.”