The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review

WHILE the first part of this paper* was passing through the press, the European mails brought us some notices of the Tobacco question in the Paris journals; called forth by the mysterious movement of the French Embassador, M. MERCIER, from Washington to Richmond. Whatever the cause of the visit, it has resulted in attracting considerable attention both in this country and in Europe, to the state of the tobacco trade with which -in its French relation-M. MERCIER's mission was supposed to have been connected. The statistics furnished by the Parisian papers substantiate those given by us; while their views are, in many respects, evidently translated from the American press. Both, however, are worthy of attention, as giving what is put forth as French opinion on a subject, the importance of which is not likely to be overestimated at this juncture. French journalists are fully alive to the necessity of Tobacco as a means of raising revenue, and in offering an explanation for any apparent apathy of interest in the matter, the organ of Prince NAPOLEON gives a very direct reason why the Tobacco question must command the earnest solicitude of the French Government. If, it says, this question has not up to this time occupied public attention, it is because it only directly interests the government. Nevertheless, it has a real importance, for the government draws from Tobacco an annual revenue of nearly two hundred millions of francs.

After proving this position by the Regie Statistics, (similar in a degree to those published in greater detail by us,) the Opinion Nationale proceeds to acknowledge that the French Government, usually so far-seeing, has been deceived on the Tobacco as well as on the cotton question. A year ago the

* See the Merchants' Magazine June, 1862.

VOL. XLVIII.—NO. II.

Moniteur declared that the fears for the then present cotton crop were exaggerated, and that those for the next (1862) had no foundation. This erroneous view was also applied to Tobacco, and, as a consequence, it is admitted that the French Government has left itself utterly unprovided for a Tobacco crisis. In the words of the Opinion Nationale-it did not think it its duty last year to encourage the cultivation of Tobacco in Algeria, the Antilles, and Guiana, and if the war between the North and the South, lasts for another year, it will find itself deprived of Tobacco, in the same way as the cotton manufacturers are deprived of supplies of cotton. The writer recognizes an American monopoly, at least so far as the character of the product is concerned, in Tobacco as well as cotton. "Just as the cotton of Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana cannot be replaced by the cotton of India, Brazil, or Egypt, so the Tobacco of Virginia and Kentucky are of a quality which cannot be found in the same articles from Brazil or Algeria."

In further illustrations of the demand for American Tobacco, he writes: "The same kinds of Tobacco do not everywhere produce the same qualities. Climate and soil greatly influence the taste and odor of the plant, and in order to supply consumers with a quality always the same, the State (Regie) manufacturers have adopted a mixture of different kinds of Tobacco, which never changes. Smoking tobacco is prepared with Kentucky and Maryland leaves, and with the indigenous tobacco of Pas-de-Calais and the Lower Rhine. Snuff is made by an admixture of Virginia and Kentucky tobacco, and of the leaves grown in the departments of the North, Lot, Lot et Garonne, and in Ille-et-Vilaine. Chewing tobacco is generally either pure Virginia or Kentucky.

"An important deficit in the supply of tobacco would cause grave embarrassments to all the governments of Europe; but more especially to those of England, France, and Holland. And it is to be feared that this deficit may be fatally produced within a year.

"The most fertile districts of Virginia are at this moment overrun and devastated by immense armies, and the majority of the slaves are in flight; while in the districts far removed from the theatre of war, the planters have neglected tobacco to sow wheat and corn. The Virginia crop will be reduced from eighty thousand to eight thousand boucauts. The same result will follow in Kentucky and Tennessee.

"An inexorable fatality seems to be following tobacco in this crisis. During two consecutive years the crop has almost completely failed in Brazil, and in the island of Cuba the plant was suddenly struck with a disease last year, which, added to a disastrous drought, has greatly reduced the crop. During the year 1861 there have been exported from Havana 1,977,892 pounds of leaf tobacco, and 50,119,000 segars less than in the year 1860. The Havana journals fear that the reduction will not be less than ten times more considerable."

Confronting these facts, and embracing these views, it is not difficult to see "how important is the role assigned to the tobacco which comes from the United States."

With the array of statistics already given, any thinking mind will be able to follow out the subject in a much more satisfactory, and certainly more agreeable, manner, than if we were to twist the figures into the elaboration of any particular theory. But in good truth there does not seem to be much ground for any variety of theories about the matter. The ques

tion seems to be one of a very simple and direct nature, based upon the laws which govern demand and supply. But then the politician, more eager to dispute than to define, and always more anxious to tempt half a dozen distempered ideas than to boldly grasp a single healthy one, propounds many inquiries as to what probable revenues can be relied on when a supply is not equal to a demand, that demand, involving not the comfort or good-will of a people, but the necessary funds of certain governments which are as daring as they are astute, as irascible as diplomatic, as designing as dignified, and altogether as unscrupulous as friendly. Of course we will not enter upon so hazardous an effort as to either meet the exigencies, or reply to the inquiries of the politician, being at least like GRAMMONT, of whom ANTHONY HAMILTON has given us so graphic and gallant an account, in one respect, to wit, "a sworn enemy to all long speeches."

Having given such facts and figures as seem to us most necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the Tobacco question, we prefer rather to lounge, by way of rest, through fresh fields, especially those of a literary and poetical nature, wherein the Tobacco plant has won either the esteem or the animadversion, the observant culture or the obdurate criticism of the poet and man of letters. In this pastime a very agreeable companion is our friend the author of " A Paper of Tobacco," who, in other days, has indulged himself in a somewhat similar excursion, and, consequently, is full of the suggestiveness which experience gives.

Not the least picturesque of his reminiscences, are those connected with the early days of tobacco, when, about the end of the sixteenth century, the weed was highly and largely affected by the wits and gallants of the time. To wear a pair of velvet breeches, with diamond patches or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt-handled sword, and a Spanish dagger; to play at cards or dice in the chambers of the groom-porter, and smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard or in the play house, were then the grand characteristics of a man of fashion. Tobacconists shops were common, comparatively speaking; and as the article, which appears to have been sold at a high price, was indispensable to the gay man about town," he generally endeavored to keep his credit good with his tobacco merchant. Poets and pamphleters laughed at the custom, though generally they seem to have had no particular aversion to an occasional treat to a sober pipe and a pottle of sack. Your men of war, who had served in the Low Countries, and who taught young gallants the noble art of fence, were particularly fond of tobacco; and your gentlemen adventurers, who had served in a buccaneering expedition against the Spaniards, were no less partial to it. Sailors-from the captain to the ship-boy-all affected to smoke, as if the practice were necessary to their character; and to "take tobacco" and wear a silver whistle, like a modern boatswain's mate, was the pride of a man-ofwars man. The quid does not then appear to have been chawed either by seamen or landsmen-though, according to Captain MARYATT, it is one of the true indispensables of a modern middy-Peter Simple to wit: "You must learn to chaw backey, drink grog, and call the cat a beggar, and then you knows all a midshipman's expected to know now-a-days." Subsequently the sailors became ruminant, on the pretext that chewing tobacco was good for the scurvy.

"To take Tobacco was the fashionable phrase, and the whiffe the name

"A Paper of Tobacco," &c.

by which the custom was known among the vulgar. To drink tobacco was also applied to the use of the weed, from a prevalent custom of partially swallowing the smoke and then blowing it out through the nostrils; an amusement which still seems to have some attractions for amateurs. JOSEPH HALL, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, "characterized by the learned," says CAMDEN," as the English Seneca, dexterous at Controversy, not unhappy at Comments, very good at Characters, better in Sermons, best of all in Meditations and Contemplations," found, in this nose-smoking custom, a simile to illustrate the decline of hospitality, in his Satires.*

"Look to the tow'red chimnies which should be
The wind-pipes of good hospitality,
Through which it breatheth to the open aire
Betokening life and liberal welfare;

Lo! there th' unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnell with her circled nest;

Nor half that smoke from all his chimnies goes

Which one tobacco-pipe drives through his nose."

Of the "gentlenen adventurers who served against the Spaniards," Sir WALTER RALIEGH was a famous type, and particularly so in regard to leading the fashion in smoking. A passage in one of HowEL's letters, dated January 1st, 1647, which informs us that RALEIGH won a wager of good Queen BESS on the weight of smoke in a pound of tobacco, is very cleverly used by the talented author of "SHAKESPEARE and his friends."

"May it please your majesty," said Sir WALTER RALEIGH, coming into the room with his pipe in his hand, "I have smoked out the quantity of tobacco agreed upon.'

"Haste thee and weigh the smoke, then," replied the queen, with a chuckle of delight, which was echoed by those around her.

"I will tell your Majesty the weight of the smoke in a few seconds," responded RALEIGH, taking in his hand a small pair of ivory scales which stood on an adjoining table.

"Thou wilt never get so much smoke into such tiny balances, Sir WALTER RALEIGH," observed her Majesty with the same tone, "so thou mayest as well acknowledge that the wager is ours."

"Your Majesty will be pleased to observe that the weight in this scale is the exact weight of the ashes left in the pipe," replied Sir WALTER, showing the scales, in one of which he had put the ashes at even balance. "Now, if your Majesty will graciously remember the weight of the unburnt tobacco upon which the experiment was made, by subtracting from it the weight of the ashes, which I have here ascertained, the sum produced will be the exact weight of the smoke."

Sir WALTER RALEIGH, with the scales still in his hand, wore on his noble features, at this moment, an expression of very evident satisfaction, as he turned round and looked down upon his audience-some of whom seemed incredulous, others wondering, the rest puzzled what to think; but all were

Virgidemiarum, 1797-9. HALL alludes to his being the first professed writer of satires in England.

"I first adventure: follow me who list,
And be the second English Satirist."

His satires have elicited the most enthusiastic encomiums of POPE WARTON HALLAM, CAMPBELL, HENRY NEELE, and others.

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The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, Band 47