equal to the produce of the Spanish colonies in the West India and the Philippine Islands. Cuba not only produces the best cigars, but also the best materials for making them, as a matter of course; and no cheroots equal those of Manilla, whence leaf-tobacco of exceedingly fine quality is also sent to Europe.
Besides cigars and cheroots, cigarettes form another mode of using the material much used in foreign countries. In Great Britain, the methods of manufacturing tobacco are various, but the principal is by cutting it with machines into fine filaments. Usually the stalks are first removed, and, according to the amount of preparation the leaf has undergone, and the fineness of the cut, we have “Shag,” “Returns,” and other varieties. If the stalks are left in, and cut up with the rest, “Birds-eye” is the result; so called from the appearance presented by the small, thin, round sections of the midrib and stalk. These are called “cut tobacco;” but in addition there are other kinds, called “roll,” “pigtail,” &c., which are made by damping and fermenting the leaves, and forming them by twisting into a thin cylindrical cord, which is rolled up into the form of a ball. These kinds are favourites with those who chew tobacco. Besides smoking and chewing, tobacco is used as a sternutatory by inhaling through the nose, and the practice of snuff-taking in Britain is nearly coeval with smoking; the habit, which is highly objectionable in many respects, especially in a sanitary point of view, is certainly declining. The little snuff-ladle, with which it was formerly presented to the nose in immoderate quantities, is now never seen, except in collections of curiosities, or in Southern Africa, where the habit largely prevails.
There is no country in the world in which tobacco in some form is not used, but, except in very few, only by the male population. This, it appears, arises not so much from the dislike of the fair sex to tobacco, as to the belief that it is unfeminine and inelegant, a feeling not participated in by ladies of Manilla, Brazil, and Portugal, who puff their cigars and cigarettes wholesale.
So much has been written for and against the use of this narcotic, from the well-known “Counterblaste to Tobacco” of James I., to the much more important one of Sir Benjamin Brodie, that it may appear strange to assert that we are still in the dark as to its real effects upon the animal system. Hitherto, unfortunately, the question has been argued by those who have been violently opposed to its use, or, on the other hand, by those who have been addicted to its use; and each side has reasoned from feelings, instead of from facts. Whether it is positively injurious, and has a tendency to deteriorate the human race when used, is an all-important question, which every year becomes more difficult to solve, because the rapidity with which the habit is extending is in a corresponding degree lessening the opportunities for comparison, and consequently diminishing the proofs against the habit. Whatever may be the truth in this respect, it is quite certain that the habit seems unnatural to the animal economy, and that its known effects are in antagonism to our best supported views of alimentary philosophy. Indeed, the history of the human race presents no greater wonder than the remarkable manner in which this habit, so repugnant to reason, should have spread over the whole world, and enslaved a large majority of the human race. In the hidden cause for this there may be a reason which, if known, would fully account for it on rational principles; it may be a prophylactic, guarding men in their various avocations from atmospheric causes prejudicial to health; or it may be that its sedative properties help to calm down the excitement incidental to the progress of civilisation; but nothing of the kind has been proved in its favour, and we fear that all the positive evidence tends to an opposite view of the question. Ex fumo dare lucem cannot apply to that vast cloud which is raised by the smokers of Great Britain at a yearly expense to themselves of upwards of six millions of pounds sterling, and which cannot be positively proved to be beneficial to any but the small class of merchants and manufacturers who deal in this article, and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
THE NECKAR.
To name the river-scenery of Europe is almost to name the inland scenic beauty of the Continent. From the glacier cradle of a stream; through its troublous infancy, racing and leaping, and sounding its cataract trumpets in the hills; through its strong and useful manhood, bearing burthens and spreading fertility, seeking, by winding ways, a passage through an intricate world; to the calmer outspread of its honoured age, in sight of the infinite ocean to which it moves,—a river is in general a succession of varied beauties. To the summer wanderer rivers have the charm of freshness and coolness; they offer easy and almost noiseless travelling; they give opportunity for thoughts which rest and tranquillise the heart, and they pass before the eyes a diorama of Nature’s workmanship and man’s, which has power to soothe many a pain and sorrow to slumber.
A very accessible as well as a very beautiful specimen of the sisterhood of European rivers is the Neckar; one, however, which does not seem to attract so many English as it deserves. During a long day spent on its bosom in the height of summer last year, we did not meet with one of our countrymen; and the few words of English we heard spoken, were from the mouth of a German who had lived in the United States.
The junction of the Neckar with the Rhine takes place at Mannheim. This large garrison and commercial town of Baden contains probably the greatest amount of deadness, dulness, and silence ever collected in one city. In its wide, straight, clean, well-paved streets, lined with trees and fine houses, in its handsome, sunny squares, ornamented with bronze trophies, every noise dies away, recoiling—
E’en at the sound itself has made.
The soldiers march about more quietly than they do anywhere else, and the groups of military in the Wirthshaüser drink in silence, and joke sotto voce. Once in half-an-hour a pair of wheels startles the slumbering genius of the streets, and is lost in
