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Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Print Collection > DRY DRUNK THE GREAT DEBATEAlthough there had been reservations about the new herb from the start, the first full-fledged anti-tobacco treatises appeared only after the practice of "drinking," and getting drunk from, tobacco had begun to be commonplace. Nowhere was the debate more heated or highly placed than in England, where King James I (reigned 1603–25) spearheaded an intensive, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to ban the stuff. A cornerstone of his argument was the link between tobacco and syphilis: he argued that both came from the Indians, whom he characterized as crude and savage, and that tobacco was used by them as a cure against the dread disease, compounding its foulness. During the intense early period of the debate, from about 1590 to 1630, many of Europe's most interesting and challenging minds, literary as well as philosophical and scientific, took part in the polemic, frequently, it must be said, with tongues at least partially in cheek. Most stood a middle ground, supporting moderate recreational and medicinal use and opposing outright abuse for any purpose. Meanwhile, Virginia tobacco had begun to meet with great favor among English smokers, much to the despair of James I, who eventually limited his ban on tobacco to just the non-Virginian product. The tax revenues from the import went directly into the King's coffers; as in other places and at other times, this was undoubtedly an important factor in his astounding reversal of position. Eventually the debate cooled, without, however, becoming entirely dormant. Eighteenth-century responses to tobacco were mixed, but essentially it was considered a gentlemanly act to while away an evening over a pipe; by the 19th century, it was a gentleman's –even a young boy's –duty to master the art of the cigar, which had by then displaced the pipe as the most elegant (and least time-consuming) smoking instrument. 17
18 In the 20 years following publication of his strongly worded Counterblaste –"surely in my opinion, there cannot be a more base, and yet hurtful, corruption in a Countrey, then [sic] is the vile use (or rather abuse) of taking Tobacco in this Kingdome" –King James came to see "that our colonies, still in their infancies can't be expected to prosper unless we tolerate the planting and venting of tobacco." A major problem addressed in this 1624 proclamation was the large quantity of Spanish tobacco being imported into England annually, despite high tariffs and the concomitant expense passed on to the consumer; the problem was, English consumers not only wanted to smoke, they preferred the Spanish product. 19
20 The stupefying effects of tobacco "drunkenness" and its close associations with alcohol are stressed in this print, which also plays on competition between the trades. 21 In this print (published by Hogarth along with another called Gin Lane, in which the evils of the stronger foreign alcohol are highlighted), the wholesome aspects of beer drinking and tobacco smoking are emphasized. The suggestion is that regular consumption of a good, healthy mug of British beer –and the pipe of tobacco that accompanies it –promotes positive values in society. The robust blacksmith holds the composition together, raising high his mug and a shoulder of mutton, while he puffs away at his pipe, in a set of gestures that are as nationalistic as they are hearty. 22 The South Sea Company, also known as the "South Sea Bubble," was formed in 1710 as a venture to make money through New World investments, but a decade later what had originated as a legitimate enterprise devolved, through massive overspeculation in England, France, and Holland, into a financial catastrophe on an enormous scale. Many prominent investors lost huge sums. Hundreds of prints were published about the affair, including this unusual broadside with its mezzotinted mourner lamenting his emptied purse. Tobacco imports were included in the "List of ye Bubbles of less Note" (along with widows' pensions, malt liquor, grand American fishery, the River Oronoko, corn trade, extracting silver from lead, butter from beech trees, paper manufactory, an air pump for the brain, etc., etc.). 23
A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, daungerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse. 24 Chute devoted the first half of his little treatise –the first on tobacco in the English language –to promoting tobacco "drinking" as a health remedy, which he rightfully states had not been done before. Pipes, he noted, could be made of either silver or clay, although silver got hot fast and was problematic to keep clean. Convinced that tobacco should be consumed only for health reasons, he suggests that it can relieve just about any ailment related to excess fluids in the body:
I thinke that there is nothing that harmes a man inwardly from his girdle upward, but may be taken away with a moderate use of Tabacco, and in those parts consist the chief reasons of our health, for the stomacke and head being cleare and void of evill humors, commonly the whole body is the better. 25 Starter, whose English family fled to the Netherlands for religious reasons, became a popular author of songs and occasional poetry. In his farcical poem on the origins of tobacco, the Olympian gods become so disgusted with Vulcan's new habit of smoking tobacco that they cast his supply out of their realm, thereby planting it upon the earth. There, the habit of pipe-smoking quickly becomes the vogue among wealthy, idle young men. The poem elaborates on a theme found in Samuel Rowlands's 1613 poem "To smokey Noses, and stinking Nostrils." 26
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28 Once attributed to the young Charles Dickens, this book satirizes mid-19th-century masculine etiquette, and includes a chapter on the cigar, which is considered to be: imperative; no gentleman can pretend to be a gentleman unless he smokes his cigar, and the sooner you master this accomplishment the better. . . . We think little gentlemen would always look very interesting with a pipe in one hand and a lollipop in the other. . . . Now, if you aspire to the Exquisite, . . . Take up your cigar with the forefinger and thumb, press it tenderly, very tenderly, all around, moistening it with your lips, then place it between the fore and middle fingers, (being careful to have primrose or lavender-coloured kid gloves on,) then allow one end to come in contact with the flame of a wax candle. . . . The best places for puffing cigars are certainly the public streets, or on the inside of stage-coaches, –it makes it so agreeable to the other passengers, particularly to the females. |
