“I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet, Heaven forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his friends’ request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.”——_King Henry IV., part 2._ It is the misfortune of kingdoms to be subject to rebellions, and of monarchs to behold the advent of pretenders, as it is the fate of gold to be imitated in baser metals, and bank notes to be forged. A rule is supposed to be strengthened by an exception, and tried gold to shine in greater splendour beside its counterfeit— “Than that which hath no foil to set it off.” So, tobacco, in the midst of all its success and prosperity, has been envied and imitated by duller pretenders to the virtue it boasts, from among the meaner denizens of the vegetable world. Of course these pretenders have been unsuccessful; for had they been successful, they had no longer been branded with the baser name, but had risen to the rank of benefactors and patriots. Such is the custom of the world. The following are the substances which are stated to be used for the adulteration of tobacco, principally in the form of “cut” and “roll.” Dr. Hassell divides them— First, into vegetable substances, as the leaves of the dock, rhubarb, coltsfoot, cabbage, potato, chicory, endive, elm, and oak; malt cummings, that is the roots of germinating malt; peat, which consists chiefly of decayed moss; seaweed, roasted chicory root, wheat, oatmeal, bran, catechu or terra japonica, oakum, and logwood dye. Secondly, into saccharine substances, as cane-sugar, treacle, honey, liquorice, and beetroot dregs. Thirdly, into salts and earths, as nitre, common salt, sal ammoniac, or hydrochlorate of ammonia, nitrate of ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, the alkalies, as potash, soda, and lime; sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of soda or glauber salts, yellow ochre, umber, fuller’s earth, Venetian red, sand, and sulphate of iron. And the experience of the excise, as may be gathered from the evidence of Mr. Phillips before the committee of adulteration, harmonizes with the above list. “With regard to tobacco,” he says, “we have found in _cut_ tobacco, sugar, liquorice, gum catechu, saltpetre, and various nitrates; yellow ochre, Epsom salts, glauber salts, green copperas, red sandstone, wheat, oatmeal, malt cummings, chicory, and the following leaves—coltsfoot, rhubarb, chicory, endive, oak, elm; and in _fancy_ tobacco, I once found lavender, and a wort called mugwort. It is a fragrant herb, suggestive rather of the nutmeg. In _roll_ tobacco we have found rhubarb leaves, endive and dock leaves, sugar, liquorice, and a dye made of logwood and sulphate of iron.”