THE CURIOSITY SHOP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3693, 5 July 1906, Page 4

THE CURIOSITY SHOP.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOBACCO First Cultivated In Europe as an Ornai».->. tal Plant. The name tobacco Is thought by some o have been taken from Tobacco, a provimof Yucatan, by others from Tobago, mIsland In tho Caribbean sea, and by etui others from TobascO, In the gulf of Flor Ida. The plant, although It Is assorted that > (he Chinese have used it from earliest . times, was not introduced Into Europe until after the discovery of America by Columbus. He first found it In use on the island of San Domingo in tho West Indies. Tho Indian, among all the tribes from Peru to upper Canada, smoked it in pipes. The seed of tho plant was first intro- : duced in Europe by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo, who took it to Spain and cultivated it for ornamental purposes, but its narcotic qualities were shortly afterward discovered, and tho practice of smoking it soon became general, and its manufacture Into snuff followed in course of time. It was introduced in Italy and France in 1660 and was brought into the latter country by Jean Nlcot, the French embassador to Portugal, in whoso honor it received its botanical name, nlootiana, 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 be used in Asia, but tho oriental nations at the present time are probably tho greatest smokers in the world, according to Thorne. ____ Leprosy In the Middle Ages. In tho middle ages leprosy extended over the whole of Europe. Nearly every city in England, Franco and Germany had its hospital for such cases, and Italy suffered terribly from the disease. The maximum was reacheiyn 1300, when there were 19,000 leper houses in Europe. Tho patients were excommunicated by papal “bulls." They were cut off as “unolean” from Intercourse of all sorts, and only in this way was tiie plague gradually suppressed. It disappeared us an epidemic iu Europe in tho sixteenth century. A writer in the New York Times «ays: It is still found every wliere in the orient, particularly among tho fellahs of Egypt and India, in China and Japan, in all the coast lands of Africa, on Madagascar, Mauritius, St. Helena and Madeira, in Mexico and Central and South America. Such sufferers nrq found in Europe at present, as, for example, in Norway, where there were 1,000 lepers in 1880 out of a population of 1,850,000, though this was a decrease from 2,350 in 1864. They ; are also found on the Greek Islands of , Samos and Crete and to a loss degree in i Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and tho ! Russian provinces, and single cases are also occasionally found in middle Europe. Nature Not Always tho Best Planter. Although not generally recognized in botanical and horticultural works, Meehan's Monthly says it is simply a fact that nature does not always place plants in the localities best suited to their development. Swamp trees, for instance —tacos which grow partly In water —grow a great deal better, more vigorously and every way dp- . patently mote happily when they can find themselves iu dry ground, for specimens | oi nmpSw, willows, sweet gums aud other supposed swamp trees are always found in comparatively dry ground. What is known as the Bermuda lily is another case in point. This is a native of Japan, really Lilium longifiorum, but nowhere docs it grow in such luxuriance us in the islands of Bermuda, where it was accidentally introduced or escaped from cultivation a giv t, many years ego. So great is its lux* nr!. •• nee that it lias been recognized as a unninot variety from the Japan plant and ’a known in cultivation as Lilium hartea in;.-; boon first made known tocul-liv.-iun.-' about 10 jours ago. Many other lilii.-n rations might be given to show that iiHiuio does net always arrange the t plant* -honlil naturally be found in places the ;,e:.n. suited to their growth.

lii V< Hiay 11.11 r,Uy or Unlucky? There Ctv: personsbelietothat death can dlsaslei stalk eKvead oil Friday, and who have aay num Vv of facta at hand to move theiv position. Well, here is an ar- ... of fin* a gnthcrul by an from • ; ;.-ii aio.',.-:., an.w-hmg pro and con may i.i.- r-M.ivcd; Lee ;. , ..i , .o:ulen;d on Friday, ’■ ’< aw i barm ,i on Friday, Washingi.a urns aon Friday, Shakespeare was r I' ,; on < riday, America was discovered ' n Friday, Uichnu.mi was evacuated on Fr; my, the Bastille was destroyed on Friday; i lie Mayflower was landed on Friday, i'y.ieen Victoria was married on Friday, Ar-g Charles I was beheaded on Friday, ' Vi; l Sunder was bombarded on Friday, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on Friday, Julias Ca'sar was assassinated on Friday, blif battle of Marengo was fought, on Friday. tho battle of Waterloo was fought on Friday, Joan of Arc was burned at the F ane on Friday, tho battle of Now Orleans v. iis fought on Friday, the battle of Bunker hill was fought on Friday, tho Declaration of Independence was sighed on Friday. Song Birds at Table. The wealthy gormands of Rome chefr Idled a strong partiality for song birds. Both Horace and Martial refer with approval to roast thrush, and Ovid recommends “a crown of thrushes” as a lover’s present to his mistress. Thrushes’ breasts were one of the ingredients of tho celebrated Aploian dish (‘‘Patina apiciana"), which also included mushrooms, sow’s udder, fish and chickens, rivaling tho heterogeneous contents of a gypsy’s ‘pot an fou.” Horace relates that the sons of Aortas, to stimulate their appetite for dinner, lunched on ‘‘nightingales of monstrous price,” and VaiTo tells us of the aviary cf Luoullus, which was also a “salle a manger,” so that tho epicure gratified his ears and his palate simultaneously, feasting upon tho delicate warblers whoso congeners, unconscious of their coming doom, were discoursing meanwhile the moat exquisite music. Fragrant Flowers. Of the 4,200 kinds of flowers growing to Europe only 420 are odoriferous. Less than cae-fifth of the white kinds, which number 1,194, are fragrant, 77 of the 951 yellow kinds, 84 of the 883 red kinds, 31 of the 504 blue kinds, 13 of the 303 violet blue kinds Mkl 23 of the 240 kinds with combined cjlors. Koyal I.ougevlty. Oldest of European sovereigns is the pope, now in his eighty-fourth year. The King of Denmark is 75; Queen Victoria, 7i, There are half a dozen or more other sovereigns who are over 70 and nearly a gown who >uv ’vi -.v.-ei) fiu and 70.