THE CURIOSITY SHOP

Manawatu Herald, 5 July 1904, Page 4

THE CURIOSITY SHOP

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOBACCO. Cultivated Tu Europe as an Ornamenriant. W Tho name tJbacco is thought by some to V have been taken from Tobacco, a province B 0 f Yucatan, by others from Tobago, an B island in tho Caribbean sea, and by still Bfe others from -Tabasco, in tho gulf ofFlorWf ilia. 'Tho plaid, all hough it Is assorted that B tho Chinese have used it from earliest B times, was not introduced into Europe unW. HI after tho discovery of America by Colambus. Ho first found it in usoon the island of San Domic m in tho West Indies, '(’lie Indian, anmng all tho tribes from I’eru to upper Canada, smoked it in pipes. The -seed of tho plant was first introduced in Europe bv Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo, who took it to Spain and cultivated it for ornamen.ai purposes, but its narcotic qualities v.v.ro shortly afterward discovered, and the practice of smoking it soon became general, aud its manufacture into snuff followed in course of time. It was In trod need in Italy and Franco in 1560 and was brought into (lie latter country by Jean Nicot, the French embassador to Portugal, in whose honor it received its botanical name, uicotiana, whence the name nicotine. The plant was introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh. It was along in tho seventeenth century before it was known to bo lucd in Asia, but the oriental nations at the present time are probably tho greatest smokers in the world, accord lug to Thorne. Leprosy In tlio Middle Ages. In the middle ages leprosy extended over tho wTiolo of Europe. Nearly every city in England, Franco and Germany had its hospital for such cases, and Italy suffered terribly from tho disease. The maximum was reached In 1800, when there were 19,000 leper houses in Europe. The patient* wore excommunicated by papal ‘‘bulls.’’ They were cut off as “unclean” from Into rco 11 rso of all sorts, and only in this way was tho plague gradually suppressed. II disappeared as an epidemic in Europe in tho sixteenth century. A writer in ths Now York Times «ays: It is still found everywhere in the orient, particularly among the fellahs of Egypt and India, in China and Japan, in all tho coast lands of Africa, on Madagascar, Mauritius, St. Helena and Madeira, in Mexico and Central and South America. Such sufferers are found in Europe at present, as, for example, in Norway, where there were 1,600 lepers in 1880 out of a population of 1,850,000, though this was a doorcase from 2,380 in 1864. They two also found ou tho Greek Islands of . Samos and Crete and to a less degree in Italy, Franco, Spain, Portugal and the Russian provinces, and single cases are also occasionally found in middle Europe. Nature Not Always the Best Planter, bough not generally recognized in Alw ’ and horticultural works, Mee- • botanical , ’T says it is simply a fact that ; ban’s Mohthi, ’ways place plants in the I' nature does not a.. *0 their development. • localities best suited me—bees which Swamp trees, for instau. n, great deal grow partly in water—grow ». - way a p. hotter, more vigorously and every -find patently more happily when they can - > themselves in dry ground, for specimen!, of maples, willows, sweet gdms and other supposed swamp t roes are always found In comparatively dry ground. What is known »a tho Bermuda lily is another case m point. This 3s n native of Jnpan, really Liliiuu longiflonnn, but nowhere does it grow in such luxuriance as in the islands of Bermuda, where it was accidentally in- I troduced ,or> escaped- from cultivation a great many years ago. So great is its luxuriance that it has been recognized as a distinct variety from the Japan plant and is known in cultivation as Liliuxn harrisll, having been first made known tocultivators about 10 years ago. Many other illustrations might bo given to show that nature dues not always arrange that plaints should naturally bo found in places the best suited to their growth. Is FmlaytLncky or Unlucky? There iiro persons who believe that death and disaster stalk abroad on Friday, and who have any number of facts at hand to prove their position. Well, hero is ah array of data gathered by an exchange from which almost anything pro and con may bo proved; Leo surrendered on Friday, Moscow was burned on Friday, Washington was horn on Friday, Shakespeare was born on Friday, America was discovered on Fridav, Richmond was evacuated on Friday, the Bastille was destroyed on Friday, tho Mayflower was landed on Queen Victoria was married on Friday, King Charles I was beheaded on Friday, Fort Sumter was bombarded on, Friday, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on Friday, JuliafeCaesar was assassinated on Friday, tho Swrelo of Marengo was fought on Friday, the battle of Waterloo was fought on Friday, Joan of - Aro was burned at the stake on Friday, the battle of Now Orleans was fought on Friday, the battle of Banket Hill was fought on Friday, the Declaration of Independence was signed on Friday. Song Birds at Table. Tho wealthy gormands of Home cherished a strong partiality for. song birds. Both Horace and Martial refer with approval to roast thrush, and Ovid recommends “a crown of thrushes” as si lover's present to his mistress. Thtushes' breasts wore-one of tho ingredients of the celebrated Aplolan dish (‘‘Patina apldana”), which also Included mushrooms, sow’s udder, Jlsh and chickens, rivaling the heterogeneous contents of a gypsy’s “pot au feu. ’' Horace relates that the sons of Aorlus, to stimulate their appetite for dinner, lunched on “nightingales of monstrous price,” andYarro tolls us of the aviary of LueuUns, which was also a “salle a manger, ” so that the epicure gratified his ears and his palate simultaneously, feasting upon the delicate warblers whose congeners, unconscious of their coming doom, were discoursing jneanwhile the most exquisite music. ' Fragrant Flowers. Of tho 4,200 kinds of flowers growing In Europe only 420 are odoriferous. Less than one-fifth of tho white kinds, which number 1,191, are fragHfeuit, 77 of the 951 yellow kinds, 84 of tho 838 red kinds, 31 of the 694 blue kinds, 18 of the 308 violet blue kinds and 28 of the 240 kinds with combined colors. Royal Longevity. Oldest of European- sovereigns Is the fopo, now in his eighty-fourth year. The ing of Denmark is 75; Queen Victoria, 74. There aro half a dozen or more other sovereigns who are over 70 and nearly S dozen who aw Known CO and 70.