My Lady Nicotine — Curious Meditations on Smoking

1903

My Lady Nicotine

Curious Meditations Upon the Smoking Habit

There must be a great army of men who smoke an ounce of tobacco a day. Such worthy smokers are, of course, men of a philosophic and reflecting disposition, although they do not always care to favor the world with the results of the high meditations due to the influence of the soothing weed.

It will be new, even to many of these, to know that it would take no less than 9S years to dispose of a ton of tobacco at this rate of consumption, says Tit-Bits, and it will be still more surprising to consider the magnitude of this amount under various aspects.

The smoker of an ounce a day is almost invariably a faithful disciple of the pipe. He may submit to a cigar or a cigaret to please the ladies, but the pipe remains his true love. Hence we will first suppose that our ton of tobacco is to be sacrificed to My Lady Nicotine in the homely pipe. If the ordinary ounce packets in which the tobacco is probably bought were piled in a single column they would tower to a height of 2,700 feet. Arranged in a solid block they would form a cube of packed "shag" measuring 13 feet in every direction, or more than twice the height of a man.

We might conceive a pipe specially built to consume this mass. Such a pipe, if built on the plan of the familiar briar would be 100 feet long, and the bowl would be 20 feet in diameter. This bowl could accommodate 700 men. Should the smoker of such a huge pipeful prefer the "church warden" he would obtain a graceful clay 500 feet long.

On a low average two matches are used to each pipe of tobacco. After his 750,000 pipes the smoker would have used as many matches as would stretch from London to Coventry, or Bath or Gloucester, if placed end to end. The timber would be barely contained in a grove of 20 stalwart trees each 40 feet high. The heat energy represented, and which is largely water, would serve to run a locomotive a considerable distance.

We must not forgot that there are many who prefer the mild cigaret. Let us consider our ton of tobacco in this form. There will be a considerable difference in the actual number of cigarets consumed if the smoker makes his own in preference to buying them ready made. In the former case he will burn no fewer than 1,000,000 in fragrant smoke; a quantity which is placed in order would make a thin white line from London to Brighton, and in the latter case they would stretch for 37 miles. Placed side by side, they would pave a small pathway five miles long.

Could we make these cigarets into one huge whole, we should obtain a cigaret 10 feet in diameter and nearly 100 feet long. A man built in proportion to enjoy this little smoke would be a mere 2,220 feet high. The consumer of this tobacco may, like Svengali, be a lover of the big cigar of the Havana. If so, he must be prepared to spend at least £3,000, of which 500 pounds will be wasted in fag-ends.