Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/504

 TOBACCO LAWS OF THE OLD DOMINION

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TOBACCO LAWS OF THE OLD DOMINION BY BUSHROD C. WASHINGTON WHEN Rodrigo Triana, a seaman on the Pinta, peering through the dark ness, cried, ' ' Land ahoy! " — or words to that effect in Spanish lingo — America, at that outcry, was practically discovered; and what had before been vague conjecture as to the western hemisphere, then and there became a fact forever. It is recorded, however, that the evervigilant Admiral Christopher Columbus, anx ious in his own person to make the first find, was himself also on watch that night, and a moment before Triana espied the outlines of land, had [observed some moving lights straight away in front, which indi cated they were sailing down upon a shore. When darkness lifted, the grey dawn of morning revealed the extensive beach of what turned out to be an island, alive with the natives — their figures in that primeval state in which beauty is said to be most adorned - - many of kthem holding between their teeth what appeared to be firebrands, and exhaling great jets of smoke through their puckered lips. The firebrands turned out to be rude wooden pipes in which were brightly glowing the' leaves of an indigenous plant — a plant thenceforward to take great place in history, to be writ large as an article of manufacture and commerce, and to become an active factor in the sociology of men and nations. It was to become also an article of happy uses and of villainous abuses; and as such — a solace, boon, and benefaction, or a withering, degenerating curse and crime — and much else also, of either praise or condemnation, according

to the view-point and the animus of the viewer. The plant bears the jocular and provincial name of "The Virginia Weed," but is known world-wide as Tobacco. That the glowing pipes of those insular natives — the mov ing lights — were observed by Columbus just a little before Triana cried "land ahoy," is an incident of vast importance, if true; for it is upon this historic order of the hap penings that eventful night, that Virginians, who delight to crown "The Mother of States" and all her belongings with the halo of antiquity, set up the claim, that their favorite weed was discovered just a little before America itself. Whatever the merits of the claim, it will be futile to dispute it; because — as is said in law — "It has color of title," and the Virginians being in sole possession of the particular items of history thereunto relat ing, the whole burden of proof to the con trary will rest upon the disputant. It is in no sense of disparagement, how ever, that they — the Virginians — were wont to think, if not to speak, of Columbus as "The discoverer of TOBACCO — and some islands and continents called America"; for when it is reckoned how big a thing tobacco came to be in their ancient Commonwealth, it is plain that, to their minds, Columbus, in having found tobacco, was worthy to be classed an explorer and discoverer of first magnitude, even had the islands and con tinents been omitted from the catalogue of his discoveries. Whatever measure of importance it at tained in other parts of America, in Vir NOTE. — The laws quoted in this article are ginia, the planting, curing, and other dis taken from Hennings Statutes, the first codified positions of tobacco, in time assumed the laws of the Colonial Assembly of Virginia, pub dignity and importance of a dominant social lished 1808, from manuscripts furnished by Thomas Jefferson, collected and preserved by him. The and civil institution. While it was smoked, chewed, and snuffed quaint orthography of the originals has been fol almost universally — these being its vulgar lowed.