MEMS. FOR SMOKERS.
Cigars.—The best and most approved cigars consumed among our nobility and gentry, are those brought from the Havanah in the West Indies. The Woodville, so called from the name of the importer, are held in the greatest estimation. In form, these should gradually decline from the middle to long and tapering ends. Color, a clear raw sienna brown, variegated with bright brown yellow spots. In flavour they should be light and spicy, draw free, leaving a firm white ash. An excellence too, that should distinguish these cigars from the common kind, independent of their taste, should be the length of time they are capable of retaining their light without being drawn.
The strong flavoured Cuba, by smokers of long standing, when indeed a pipe has not altogether superseded the cigar, are in the greatest request. These vary in color from black to brown, according to the strength or age of the leaf; and like the Woodville, are also distinguished when properly seasoned, and kept by mildew spots, though of a darker hue.
The tobacco of the Cubas growth is very frequently made up into cheroots, a form some prefer to the cigar, and are sold under the denomination of Manilla.
Without entering into a description of the numerous kinds of cigars vended in the United Kingdom, we can only remark, as a fact well authenticated, that the greater and more common part, sold from eight to thirteen shillings the hundred; are prepared from the cabbage-leaf, soaked in a strong solution of tobacco-water. Cigars, so composed, are generally passed off under the names of Hambro’, Maryland, and Virginia. The same deceptions may be said to exist, in respect to the small cheroots, whether scented or not: they are, with comparatively trifling exceptions, nearly all of British make.
The reason is obvious, why these deceits are practised: in a former part of this little work, we stated the duty on the imported raw leaf of tobacco to be three shillings per lb., while on the manufactured, it is just thrice that amount: at once a reason why a good price must needs be given for the genuine foreign article.
A great saving is effected in purchasing cigars by the weight or box as imported, while from a respectable shop you may be always sure of their being made abroad, as they are sent under seal in boxes from the West Indies.
Tobaccos.—An idea prevails among young smokers, that tobacco, independent of its fancied vulgarity, is always much stronger than cigars; an error that is very common. Like cigars, indeed, it is of various growth and quality, and like them, may be had weak, or strong. The smoker, if he desires it, can have tobacco as weak as the mildest Havanahs. The only difference in their manufacture is, the leaf is cut into shreds to form the one, and wrapt up to form the other. The Persian, Turkish, and Maryland tobacco, are the mildest. The shag and twists, the strongest; the latter of which, as its name implies, is manufactured uncut; its excellence may always be told by a shining cut and an agreeable smell. Besides these, we have tobaccos under an infinite number of appellations, with all the variations in their nature, incident to climate, growth, age, and method of being prepared for use.
The tobacco held in the greatest esteem in the East, is the Persian. The Turks, notwithstanding their own excellent growth of the plant, give very high prices to possess it; especially that which comes from, Shiraz. This is accounted the best. The moslems are also much in the habit of smoking a composition of opium and rose leaves with their tobacco through scented waters. A similar practice is common in India among the higher class; the same materials are made into a thick consistency and rolled into balls, which they term Jugeny. To the unpractised palate, the smoking of this composition has a strangely exhilarating and intoxicating effect.
A singular habit also prevails in the island of Ceylon. Some of the natives wrap the leaf of a strong tobacco they call Kapada into a lengthened form, and then covering it with the leaf of the Wattakan tree, light one end of it, and smoke by the other, till the whole is consumed.
Besides the tobacco of the West Indies, Persia and Turkey, considerable quantities are cultivated in the Levant, the coasts of Greece, the Archipelago, the island of Malta, and Italy.
Pipes.—In reference to these essentials to smoking tobacco, a great variety of tastes are displayed, while that of each country forms an amusing contrast to that of its neighbour. In the Eastern portion of the globe, the gorgeous hookah or superb chibouque with their serpent train are caressed: in France, the short twisted pipe: in Germany, the merschaum: in Holland, the long slender black pipe: in America, the short red clay pipe, or the ingeniously manufactured, yet murderous tomahawk, bears the tube of comfort; while in England—happy England—all, or any of these, are attainable.
The portable pipes the Turks are in the habit of using have their bowls generally made of a peculiar kind of red clay; and the tube part of jasmine and cherry sticks. The most expensive and those which from their exceeding size, and costliness, are regarded as the most sumptuous furniture of the mansion, are composed of a variety of materials.
The tubes, which sometimes have been known to exceed twenty yards in length, are commonly made of leather covered with the richest velvets, and bound with gold or silver wire; this is generally terminated at the one end by a gold, silver, or amber mouth-piece; while the other (when used as it almost always is with scented water) tipped with a reed of a foot long, is placed in a decanter containing the water, through which the smoke is to be drawn; it is then met and joined by a similar reed, bearing the chafing dish; this is of silver, very large, with a fretwork cover of the same metal, through which the fumes of the aromatics used arise.
It is by no means an uncommon thing in the East to have these tubes (which are remarkably flexible) carried through the wall of one apartment into another, that the apparatus may not be in the way of the smoker.
The merschaum or German pipes, in Europe, are celebrated for the virtues of their bowls, which are of a very porous quality. These are composed of a substance thrown upon the shore by the sea in Germany, and being called Ecume de Mer form the origin of the word Merschaum. In Germany they are commonly set in copper, with leather and horn tubes, but in England they are variously formed and ornamented with chains and tassels.
Tubes, when they are used for cigars (whose flavour we think they greatly tend to spoil) should be short, and composed of amber.
Lights for Smoking.—The advantage of obtaining an instantaneous light, is perhaps seldom more appreciated than by smokers. The articles used until lately for the purpose of igniting cigars, when out, or travelling, were the Amadou, with the flint and steel—the phosphorus box, and pneumatic cylinder:—all of which were, more or less, uncertain or inconvenient, until the ingenious invention of Jones’s Prometheans. These may very fairly be said to possess a never-failing facility in producing an instantaneous light.
The Promethean is composed of a small bulb of glass, hermetically sealed, containing a small part of sulphuric acid, and surrounded by a composition of chlorate of potash and aromatics. This is enclosed in paper prepared for the purpose. The light is simply effected by giving the promethean a smart tap that breaks the bulb, when the acid, coming in contact with the composition, causes instant ignition. It must be remarked however, the Lucifers or chlorate matches that ignite, by drawing the match through sand paper, introduced by the same inventor, is decidedly bad for a cigar; the fumes arising from the combustion being offensive, are too apt to spoil the flavour of the leaf.
In divans, burners called Jos-sticks, are generally used for lighting cigars, as they smoulder in their light, like the promethean.
FINIS.
London: Printed by Littlewood and Co. Old Bailey.
Footnotes:
[1] Memoires Philosophiques, Historiques, Physiques, concernant lá Decouverte de l’Amerique, &c. Par Don Ulloa. Traduit avec des observations par M——. Paris, 1787. Vol. II. p. 58.
[2] M. Valmont de Bomare, formerly director of the cabinets of Natural History, Medicine, &c. to the prince of Conde.
[3] The British Historian.
[4] A well-known perfumer in his day who resided in Beaufort’s Buildings, London, A. D. 1740.
[5] Scrows are the untanned hides of buffaloes, sewed with thongs of the same, and made up into bags or bales for the exportation of several kinds of American produce, as indigo, snuff, tobacco, &c. &c. The fleshy side of the skin is turned outwards, whilst the hairy side, partly scraped, comes into anything but an agreeable contact with the commodity.
[6] Independent of His Royal Highness’s attachment to the Columbian weed, the Duke has a repository where are to be seen, in curious arrangement, all the smoking tubes in use by the civilized inhabitants of the world, from the slender pipe used by the Hollander, to the magnificent Hookah used by the Indian prince in his Court, or on the back of his elephant; and so attentive is the prince to this healthy amusement, that even in his travelling carriage a receptacle is formed for the pipe, the tinder, the flint, and the steel.
[7] The Pipe of Peace.
[8] The two celebrated anglers.
[9] See Walton’s complete Angler. Charles Cotton of Beresford Hall, his little Fishing House.
[10] Except from British possessions in America, and then it is 2s. 9d.
[11] A short pipe smoked by the lower orders, and generally rendered black by time and the frequent use of the commonest shag tobacco.
[12] Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
[13] Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.
[14] By Goldsmith.
[15] Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle.
[16] Antiquarian fact: The identical Pipe and Chair used by the celebrated author of the Rambler are still in being, and are exhibited as relics of no ordinary value, at the house he used formerly to frequent in Bolt-court, Fleet-street. It now goes under the very appropriate appellation of Dr. Johnson’s Coffee-house.
[17] We more particularly refer to this fact from the reports concerning the Cholera Morbus that are now in circulation.
[18] Discourse on the Plague, A. D. 1678—recommends tobacco smoked in a pipe.
[19] Physician to the General Infirmary of the county of Stafford, A. D. 1785.
[20] At that time frequently so called.
[21] Vide Experiments on the Effects of Oil of Tobacco on Pigeons, &c. &c.—Phil. Trans. Vol. xx. Part I. Append, p. 38. Fonbine sur les poissons, Florence. Quarto.
[22] Treatise on the Culture of Tobacco.
[23] I am sorry to say our leading black primer is all out; I have been down below, but they cannot spare any there.—Printer’s Devil.