FOR LOVERS OF THE WEED.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2242, 25 May 1880, Page 3

FOR LOVERS OF THE WEED.

Tobacco, like those who smoke it (re. marks an English paper), is credited With many sins of which it is guiltless. The “loss of health ” so often laid at its door is 1 probably duo in many instances not to tobacco itself, hut to some villianous compound hearing its name. A story told by the principal of the laboratory of the-Inland Ecvenue Department, in his report for the past year, shows how easily this may happen. The supervisor at Birmingham, observing that an article was being sold at a very cheap rate in packets, under the name of ‘‘smoking mixture,” sent a sample to the Inland Eevenuo Laboratory for examination, and it being found to contain a large proportion of vegetable matter resembling the broken-up heads of camomile flowers, further inquiry led to the discovery of the manufactory. The Erocess of manufacture consisted in cxausting the bitter principles of camomile flowerheads with water, and then dying and sweetening them with a solution of logwood and liquorice,which brought them, when dried, somewhat to the color of tobacco. The heads, when broken up, were then mixed with from 80 to 30 percent of cut tobacco, according to the price at which tho mixture was to be sold. The mixture was supplied to retainers in packets labelled “ The New Smoking Mixture, Analysed and Approved ; aud as agencies had already been established in several fowns, an extensive trade would no doubt soon have arisen had the manufactory not been suppressed at an early stage of its existence.