Читать книгу The Seven Sisters of Sleep. Popular History of the Seven Prevailing Narcotics of the World онлайн

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The following from an old collection of epigrams is, in every respect, worthy of the theme.

“All dainty meats I do defie,

Which feed men fat as swine;

He is a frugal man indeed

That on a leaf can dine.

He needs no napkin for his hands

His fingers’ ends to wipe,

That keeps his kitchen in a box,

And roast meat in a pipe.”

In Hamburg, 40,000 cigars are smoked daily in a population scarcely amounting to 45,000 adult males. And in London, the consumption must be considerable to furnish, from the profits of retailing, a living to 1566 tobacconists. In England, we may presume that the largest smoker of tobacco must be the Queen, since an immense kiln at the docks, called the Queen’s pipe, is occasionally lighted and primed with hundredweights of tobacco, sea damaged or otherwise spoiled, at the same time blowing a cloud

“Which Turks might envy, Africans adore.”

The total number of cigars consumed in France in 1857 is stated to have been 523,636,000; and the total revenue of the French Government from the tobacco monopoly is estimated at £7,320,000 annually. In Russia the revenue is £7,200,000 annually; and in Austria near £3,000,000. These are large sums to pay for the privilege of puffing.