In parliament, division is the mode of determining a question at the end of a debate. In the House of Commons the speaker puts the question, and declares whether in his opinion the 'Ayes' or the 'Noes' have it. Should his opinion not be acquiesced in by the minority, the house is cleared, and the 'Ayes' directed to go into the right lobby and the 'Noes' into the left, where they are counted by two tellers appointed for each party. In the House of Lords the two sides in a division are called 'Contents' and 'Not-contents.'
Tobacco is the name given to the leaves of those varieties of the Nicotiana which are prepared in different forms for use as a narcotic. It is generally manufactured for smoking, but also for chewing and as snuth.
The word tobacco is probably derived from tobaco, the name given to a peculiar Y-shaped instrument used by the old inhabitants of the island of Santo Domingo for inhaling tobacco-smoke through the nostrils. Other authorities claim that the name of the herb is derived from the Mexican word tabacco. Columbus and his party made the earliest European reference to tobacco on their return from the voyage to Cuba in 1492. The tobacco plant was first brought to Europe in 1558 by Francisco Fernandes, a Spanish physician. The wonderful healing properties which the plant was supposed to possess caused the habit of smoking and snuff-taking to spread with great rapidity over almost the whole of Europe. Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who gives his name to the genusNicotiana, sent a present of tobacco seeds to Catherine de'Medici, and she initiated in France the snuff-taking habit as a cure for headache. This habit soon spread to Scotland and Ireland, where it remained popular long after the smoking habit had become established in England.
The smoking of tobacco was really started by English example. In 1586, Ralph Lane, the first governor of Virginia, and Sir Francis Drake brought smoking materials and implements to Sir Walter Raleigh, who very rapidly popularised the custom.
Most of the tobacco used in the 17th and 18th centuries was grown in Virginia by English colonists, whose industry was carefully protected by laws prohibiting the production of tobacco in the British Isles.
There are about 50 species of Nicotiana, most of them indigenous to America. Of these, three varieties are in general use by smokers: (1) Nicotiana tabacum, the Virginian variety, originally derived from the South or Central American seed, and now cultivated in almost all temperate and warmer climates. (2) Nicotianarustica, grown principally in Turkey, Syria, and India. This is milder in flavour, and is principally used for the manufacture of cigarettes. It burns too quickly for a pipe tobacco. (3) Nicotiana Persica, or Persian tobacco, which is good for pipe tobacco, but not sufficiently uniform for the manufacture of cigars.
The tobacco plant is a coarse, rank-growing annual. Its stem is simple and unbranched, and grows to a height of about two meters, terminating in a bunch of yellow or rose-coloured flowers. The East Indian variety is slightly different, producing a green tobacco from a smaller plant. It is derived from the Mexican seed, and is also cultivated in Southern Germany and Hungary.
The tobacco plant can be cultivated in every part of the world, but with widely varying measures of success. It is grown in British gardens for the sake of its flowers. Clayey, moist soils produce tobaccos which are dark brown or reddish in colour when cured. Bright and yellow tobaccos are grown on sandy soils, and the leaf of this variety is thinner. The bright tobacco produced in Virginia and North Carolina is all grown in loose sandy soil with a clay subsoil.
The tobacco seeds are generally sown in nursery beds, and set out later. About 3OOOOO to 4000000 go to the ounce, and this produces about 40,000 plants, for which 50 square yards of nursery bed are sufficient. The seeds are sown at the end of March or beginning of April, in rich, heavy soil which has been carefully prepared and fertilised. The seedlings remain in the nursery from fifty to sixty days, during which time the fields are well tilled and manured. Transplanting is done on a warm, rainy day, and the young plants set in ridges varying from one to four feet in width. Ridges of one to one and a half feet are most usual in Cuba and Sumatra, as the wider ridge produces a leaf which is too coarse for the purpose of cigar-making.
The crop takes another two months until it flowers, and at this stage the buds are pinched off or 'topped', and some of the leaves pruned, so that only a certain number are left to ripen. For cigar-tobacco, from 15 to 20 leaves are left on the plant; for the best smoking tobaccos, 10 to 12 leaves. Plants which have been topped form suckers, and in Florida these are left to produce a second, although inferior, sucker crop.
The leaves take about 35 days to ripen after the plants are topped and pruned. The ripening leaf changes from a dark to a lighter yellowish-green colour, and is often mottled and becomes gummy. The ripe leaf cracks and creases when folded. The lower leaves ripen first, and for the best tobaccos the leaves are picked singly ;
as they ripen. For the bulk of the tobaccos, however, the whole plant is cut when the middle leaves are ripe. Warm, cloudy days are best for cutting, and the plants are not gathered in hot sunshine or when they are wet from rain or dew.
After harvesting the plants are left in the open to wilt, and are then conveyed to the drying-house or ventilating-barn, where they are straddled across tiers of poles and dried in a temperature which is raised to 170° F for four to five days. On damp days the moisture is allowed to penetrate into the drying-house to make the leaves pliable.
The plants are then taken down and stripped, and the leaves sorted into firsts, seconds, and lugs - the name given to the inferior leaves. They are formed into hands containing ten to twelve leaves, and these are left in heaps and fermented at a temperature of about 130° F for from three to four weeks. The heaps are shuffled from time to time, to allow all the leaves to assume a uniform brown tint. This process is called the fermenting or sweetening process. In the non-fermenting processes the leaves are simply sun-cured, or sun-dried, and this tobacco is used chiefly for chewing tobaccos. In the fermenting process the starch and sugar in the leaf are decomposed, but they are retained in the sun-dried process. Lastly, the leaves are packed carefully in hogsheads for shipment.
Tobacco leaf is used for making into various smoking mixtures, roll tobacco, cake or plug, cigars, cigarettes, and snuff. For snuff the leaf requires very careful fermentation during several weeks. It is ground up and flavoured so as to produce the greatest possible amount of free ammonia, free nicotine, and other aromatic scents. Syria produces and manufactures a smoking tobacco which is known as Latakia. It is similar to Turkish-grown tobacco, but differently treated. The plants are not topped. The seeds as well as the leaves are included in the curing, this taking place in the smoke of a fire of evergreen-oak, which gives a black colour and a peculiarly strong flavour to the tobacco.
Tobacco for pipe-smoking is mostly grown in the USA, the chief states being Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia. Louisiana grows a dark, almost black, and very strong tobacco known as perique. Cigarette tobaccos are principally imported from Virginia, and Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes are also in great demand. The Egyptian cigarette is made from Turkish leaf, as the cultivation of tobacco in Egypt was prohibited in 1891. The best cigar tobaccos are grown in Cuba. A very good cigar leaf is also produced in Jamaica, Sumatra and North Borneo.
Since the introduction of tobacco into England, it has been subject to continuous legislation and import duties. In the early days a certain quantity of tobacco was grown in England for domestic consumption, and quite a considerable trade was done with Turkey, which, at that time, imported her tobacco supplies from England. Queen Elizabeth imposed a tax of 2d per Ib on imported tobacco. In 1621 James I increased this to 6s. lOd. per Ib.
During the American War of Independence, England's source of supply and the revenue there from were temporarily suspended, and tobacco was again widely planted in England, although the prohibition laws had not been repealed. These laws had never applied to Scotland, and to reimburse themselves for the loss of revenue during the non-importation of American tobacco, the Government purchased the Scotch tobacco crops at the fixed price of 4d. per Ib., thus temporarily creating a Government monopoly in tobacco. The ban on the growing of tobacco in the British Isles, renewed in 1782 in England, and in 1830 in Ireland, was modified later in the 19th century, and tobacco can now be cultivated under licence.
During the late 20th century an American-led ban on tobacco smoking supposedly because of the connection with lung cancer, but more likely under pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby, in public places slowly extended to Britain, with Scotland banning the smoking of tobacco in pubs and clubs in 2005. Research Tobacco
The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a group of six buildings, and an outdoor band shell, designed for musical and theatrical performances and to provide related educational facilities, located on the west side of Manhattan, in New York City. The design of the complex was the work of several eminent contemporary American architects. In the 1950s the Metropolitan Opera Company and the New York Philharmonic found that they needed new quarters; to meet their needs the Lincoln Center corporation was organised, under the direction of the American businessman and philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller III. Construction began in 1959, financed largely by private funds, with contributions from the city, state, and federal governments.
The first building completed (in 1962) was Philharmonic Hall, now renamed the Avery Fisher Hall. The hall was designed by Max Abramovitz; the lobby space contains two monumental wire and metal sculptures by the American sculptor Richard Lippold. After a series of renovations to rectify acoustical problems, a new interior was designed by Philip Johnson in 1976. The next building completed, also to Johnson's designs, was the New York State Theatre (in 1964), directly across an imposing fountaincourt from the Avery Fisher Hall. The State Theatre is the home of the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera companies. Flanked by the other two buildings is the enormous Metropolitan Opera House (built in 1966), designed by Wallace K Harrison and decorated with murals by the French painter Marc Chagall. Just south of it is Damrosch Park, with its band shell for outdoor concerts. The Vivian Beaumont Theatre (built in 1965), the work of the architect Eero Saarinen, is the home of the Lincoln Center Theatre. Adjacent to it is the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts (built in 1965), designed by the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Part of the New York Public Library system, it provides reference services; circulating and research collections of books, publications, and recordings; facilities for listening to recordings; and free recitals and films. The Lincoln Center was completed in 1969 with the opening of a building housing the Alice Tully Hall, for chamber music recitals and film showings, and the Juilliard School. Research Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
In architecture a lobby is a passage or hall of communication, especially when large enough to serve also as a waiting room. It differs from an antechamber in that a lobby communicates between several rooms, and an antechamber to one only; but this distinction is not carefully preserved. Research Lobby
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Research Tobacco
