Alas! true picture!
And what do they leave in their wake?
Death to all animal and vegetable life!
The vile spittle and debris dropped by the way have killed all vegetable life. There’s nothing vile and filthy that they have not cursed the ground with.
The following are a few of the articles mixed with various brands of tobacco, as though the original poisonous weed was not sufficiently deleterious: Opium, copperas, iron, licorice,—blacked with lampblack,—the dirtiest refuse molasses, the offal of urine, etc.
The effluvia and smoke arising have killed the foliage and the birds by the wayside, and miles of beautiful forests have been burned away. Nothing but a broad strip of blackened, cursed, and barren waste, remains. To offset this evil there is—nothing.
Now, this army is daily on its march through our land, and I have only begun to mention its depredations. Who will stop it?
Its Names and Nativity.
Tobacco is a native of the West Indies. Romanus Paine, who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, seems to have been the first to introduce tobacco into Europe as an article of luxury. Paine is said to have lived a vagabond life, and died a miserable death.
The natives called it Peterna. The name tobacco is derived from the town of Tabaco, New Spain. The Latin name, Nicotiana Tabacum, is from Jean Nicot, who was a French ambassador from the court of Francis I. (born the year tobacco was introduced by Paine) to Portugal. On the return of Nicot, he brought and introduced to the French court the narcotic plant, and popularized it in France. Thence it was introduced all over Europe, but encountered great opposition. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into England about 1582.