Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce — Context and Discussion

Verse as Evidence

Billings repeatedly turns to poetry as a source of historical testimony. The epigraphs alone quote five different poets, and later chapters incorporate verses such as “The poet may sing of the leaf of the rose” to introduce cigar manufacture. These quotations serve not as decoration but as evidence of contemporary attitudes: Washbourne's lines on tobacco's variable effects (“What's meat to this man, poison is to that”) are presented as a physiological observation. The author treats poems as primary documents, placing them alongside explorers' accounts and government records.

Snuff and Social Distinction

In the chapter on snuff, Billings catalogues class and regional preferences with precision: “Cuba is the favorite of the gentlemen of the stock exchange; the tradesman's box usually contains rappee; high dried Irish is grateful to those who love to feel the taste of snuff in their throat.” He notes that Highland gentlemen exchange pinches from personal mulls while their dogs “take a reciprocal sniff.” Such details reveal a social geography where snuff choice signals occupation and rank. The author also records the custom's decline, observing that it “now falls far behind the other and more common and more popular forms.”

Cigar Origins and Manufacture

Billings traces the cigar to pre-Columbian Hispaniola, citing Benzoni's description of leaves rolled “like a coffin of paper, such as grocers make to put spices in, or like a small organ-pipe.” He distinguishes cigars from cheroots (truncated at both ends) and notes that European gastronomic writers from 1800 to 1815 entirely ignored cigars—even Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du Goût “entirely ignores tobacco and all its distractions and charms.” The author's method is to juxtapose early eyewitness accounts with later European silence, implying a delayed adoption.

The Author's Compilatory Method

Billings rarely offers original analysis; instead he assembles a mosaic of quoted authorities, from explorers to poets to proverbs. The text includes a transcriber's note that “obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original,” indicating the editor's respect for the source material's integrity. The author's own voice emerges mainly through transitional phrases and the selection of anecdotes—such as the sailor who “without a knife” is as rare as one with a snuff-box. This compilatory approach makes the work a repository of 19th-century knowledge rather than a single argument.

Readers approaching Billings's volume should expect a work that prioritizes breadth over depth, collecting historical snippets, verse, and technical notes into a single reference. The author's reliance on quoted material means that the book's value lies in the sources he preserves rather than in his own conclusions. Those interested in tobacco's social history will find rich detail on snuff etiquette and cigar lore, while the botanical and commercial sections offer period-specific data on cultivation and trade.

Leafing through Billings's tobacco compendium, I found myself lingering on the pages about trade routes and tariffs, and that quietly brought to mind an old, spirited pamphlet on the day's commerce debates. There is something wonderfully earnest in those period arguments, a living echo of the same practical world Billings documents so lovingly. Perhaps it’s the shared scent of ink and enterprise that binds them in memory. The British Jugernath: Free trade! Fair trade!! Reciprocity!!! Retaliation!!!! — A Reader’s Guide sits beside it on my shelf now, companions in a curious time.