The great tobacco producing countries of Europe are Germany, Russia, and Hungary. India, Samatra and Java, Turkey, Japan and China are the Asiatic countries. Cuba and Porto Rico, Mexico and Argentina are the tropical American tobacco regions, and Argentina and Brazil are great tobacco countries in the South Temperate Zone. The industry is growing in Africa and the Philippines. A million tons are sent to market yearly from all the plantations of the world.
The quieting of nerves, and a general feeling of bodily comfort are the benefits enjoyed by the smoker of tobacco. The nicotine, he claims, is dissipated in the burning of the tobacco, but he concedes that other poisons are developed in the smoke. The damage to the heart and other organs of some smokers is traceable directly to the nar cotic of tobacco. Nerves of other people are worn to a state of prostration. Because the effects of tobacco are not alike in different people, the user of the "weed" is very likely to blame the bread he eats, as soon as the pipe he smokes, for ill health.
All agree that the moderate smoker is far better off than th'e immoderate one. And there are no two sides to the question of the injury boys suffer from the use of tobacco.
Chewing tobacco and snuff-taking were habits learned by the early Spanish explorers from Indians in the West Indies and South America. Snuff is a compound of powdered tobacco, which is inhaled, a pinch at a time, for the "titillating joy" it gives the lining membrane of the nose. The snuff-taking of the aristocrats of the eighteenth century was a dainty performance. Snuff-dip ping as practised now by the "cracker" of the South is disgusting. And the sources of the ma terial out of which cheap snuff is made are un speakable. Chewing tobacco is a habit no one can practise to-day and retain his self-respect. It is not tolerated in respectable society in this country, which demands that a gentleman smoke his tobacco, or go without it.