An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health | Page 2

together,
do sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth
their hunger." Still earlier, viz. in 1535, Cartier found it in Canada:
"There groweth a certain kind of herbe, whereof in sommer, they make
great provision for all the yeere, making great account of it, and onely
men use it; and first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it
about their necks wrapped in a little beaste's skinne, made like a little
bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe; then when
they please they make powder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of
said cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the other end
sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till that it cometh
out of their mouth and nostrils, even as out of the tonnele of a
chimney."
In Great Britain the progress of the custom of using tobacco was not
unobserved. The civil and ecclesiastical powers were marshalled
against it, and Popish anathemas and Royal edicts with the severest
penalties, not excepting death itself, were issued. In the reigns of
Elizabeth, of James and of his successor Charles, the use and
importation of tobacco were made subjects of legislation. In addition to
his Royal authority, the worthy and zealous king James threw the
whole weight of his learning and logic against it, in his famous
'Counterblaste to Tobacco.' He speaks of it as being "a sinneful and
shameful lust"--as "a branch of drunkennesse"--as "disabling both
persons and goods"--and in conclusion declares it to be "a custome
loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain,
dangerous to the lungs, and in the black and stinking fume thereof,

nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is
bottomlesse."
In the English colonies of North America, it is no wonder that
legislation was resorted to, for the purpose of regulating the use of this
article, when it had become an object of so much value, as that "one
hundred and twenty pounds of good leaf tobacco" would purchase for a
Virginian planter a good and choice wife just imported from England.
In one of the provincial governments of New England, a law was
passed, forbidding any person "under twenty-one years of age, or any
other, that hath not already accustomed himself to the use thereof, to
take any tobacko untill he hath brought a certificate under the hands of
some who are approved for knowledge and skill in phisick, that it is
useful for him, and also that hee hath received a lycense from the
Courte for the same. And for the regulating of those, who either by
their former taking it, have to their own apprehensions, made it
necessary to them, or uppon due advice are persuaded to the use
thereof,--
"It is ordered, that no man within this colonye, after the publication
hereof, shall take any tobacko publiquely in the streett, high wayes or
any barne yardes, or uppon training dayes, in any open places, under
the penalty of six-pence for each offence against this order, in any the
particulars thereof, to bee paid without gainsaying, uppon conviction,
by the testimony of one witness, that is without just exception, before
any one magistrate. And the constables in the severall townes are
required to make presentment to each particular courte, of such as they
doe understand, and can evict to bee transgressors of this order."
In the old Massachusetts colony laws, is an act with a penalty for those,
who should "smoke tobacco within twenty poles of any house, or shall
take tobacco at any Inn or victualling house, except in a private room,
so as that neither the master nor any guest shall take offence thereat."
In the early records of Harvard University is a regulation ordering that
"no scholar shall take tobacco unless permitted by the President, with
the consent of his parents, on good reason first given by a physician,
and then only in a sober and private manner."

At a town-meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. in 1662, it was "ordered that a
cage be built, or some other means devised, at the discretion of the
Selectmen, to punish such as take tobacco on the Lord's day, in time of
publick service." But it does not appear that this measure had all the
effect intended, for, ten years afterwards, the town "voted that if any
person shall smoke tobacco in the meeting-house during religious
service, he shall pay a fine of five shillings for the use of the town."
But all these forces have been vanquished, and this one weed is the
conqueror. Regardless of collegial and town regulations, of provincial
laws, and of royal, parliamentary and