V. From a consideration of the amazing _waste of property_, which the use of tobacco involves. On this point I have been unable to obtain the means for making out a perfectly accurate statistical result. I can only approximate a definite calculation. This approximation, however, will serve all the purposes of this argument.
We will examine _three items_: the _cost_ of the article,--the _time_ wasted by the use of it,--and the _pauperism_ it occasions. From a statement lately furnished me from the Treasury department of our National Government, exhibiting the quantity and value of cigars and snuff, exported from and imported into the United States, annually, from 1st October, 1820 to 30th September, 1832, it appears that the value of cigars imported into the United States in 1821, was $113,601. In 1827 it was $174,931. In 1832 it was $473,134; while from the same document it appears that the value of cigars exported, in each of those years, was about one quarter the value of imports.
Hence it appears that, in 1832, about half a million of dollars were paid for imported cigars; while in 1821, only $113,601 were paid; being more than a four-fold increase in eleven years. Whether there has been a corresponding increase in the value of domestic cigars consumed, I have no means of determining. From the fact of so prodigious an increase of imported cigars, I am led to fear that the evil of cigar smoking has increased in this country within ten years, far more rapidly than the increase of population. From this treasury document, it appears also, that in 1824, the value of unmanufactured tobacco exported from the United States, was
$4,855,566 Of manufactured tobacco, the value was 2,477,990 Of snuff, 203,789 ---------- Making a total of $7,537,345
In 1832, the value of unmanufactured tobacco exported, was $5,999,769 Of manufactured tobacco, 3,456,071 Of snuff, 295,771 ---------- Making a total of $9,751,611 for 1832, and an increase from the year 1824, of $2,214,266
Whether the quantity consumed in this country equals the quantity exported, or exceeds that quantity, I have no data enabling me to give a definite answer. But from the fact that large quantities of tobacco are raised in various other parts of the world, for foreign consumption; and from the fact that the people of this country are, above all other people under the sun, a chewing, smoking, snuffing people; I have very little doubt that the amount used in this country is double that exported. If so, the sum total paid annually, for this vile weed, in this christian country, is $19,503,222. But as I wish in this examination, to put the estimate _below_ rather than _above_ the truth, I will set down the value of tobacco, cigars, and snuff, consumed annually in this nation, as equal to the amount exported; that is, in round numbers, $10,000,000.