“And then he tried to sing All’s well,
But could not though he tried;
His head was turned, and so he chewed
His pig-tail till he died.”
Of all tobacco chewers, none can compete with the Yankee—not even our own Jack Tars. They are the very perfection of masticators, and of spitters, also, if the narratives of travellers in general, and of Dickens in particular, are to be relied on. “As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of these two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began, about this time, to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognized. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his, while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who, in the course of nature, must desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are requested by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the stairs. In public buildings visitors are implored, through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their ‘quids’ or ‘plugs,’ as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the marble columns. But in some parts this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger who follows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory at Washington; and let him not persuade himself (as I once did to my shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness which cannot be outdone.
“On board the steamboat there were two young gentlemen, with shirt collars reversed, as usual, and armed with very big walking sticks, who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some four paces apart, took out their tobacco boxes, and sat down opposite each other to chew. In less than a quarter of an hour’s time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain, clearing by that means a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young at chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy himself. A glow of delight came over me at this discovery, and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek quiver with his suppressed agony, while yet he spat and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on for hours.
“The senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are handsomely carpetted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon, with which every honorable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account. It is somewhat remarkable, too, to see so many honorable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable to discover, that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough, too, to see an honorable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair, with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient ‘plug’ with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place. I was surprised to observe, that even steady old chewers of great experience are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle of which we have heard so much in England. Several gentlemen called upon me, who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open window at three. On another occasion when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell short of the fireplace six distinct times. I am disposed to think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that object, as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.”
At the Cape of Good Hope grows a plant, allied to the iceplant of our greenhouses, and which is a native of the Karroo,[17] which appears to possess narcotic properties. The Hottentots know it under the name of Kou, or Kauw-goed. They gather and beat together the whole plant, roots, stem, and leaves, then twist it up like pig-tail tobacco; after which they let the mass ferment, and keep it by them for chewing, especially when they are thirsty. If it be chewed immediately after fermentation, it is narcotic and intoxicating. It is called canna-root by the colonists.
In Lapland, Angelica-root (Archangelica officinalis, Linn.) is dried and masticated in the same way, and answers the same purpose as tobacco. It is warm and stimulating, and not narcotic, nor does it leave those unpleasant and unsightly evidences of its use which may be observed about the mouth of the true votary of the quid.
The areca nut and the betle-pepper, which, in the Malayan Peninsula and other parts of the East, are used as a masticatory, will receive special notice hereafter.