Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 10:

The earliest example of the use of a wooden pipe I have met with is dated 1765—but this was not in England. Many years ago the late Mr. A.J. Munby pointed out that Smollett, in one of his letters dated March 18, 1765, giving an account of his journey from Nice to Turin, describes how he ascended "the mountain Brovis," and on the top thereof met a Quixotic figure, whom he thus pictures: "He was very tall, meagre, and yellow, with a long hooked nose and twinkling eyes. His head was cased in a woollen nightcap, over which he wore a flapped hat; he had a silk handkerchief about his neck, and his mouth was furnished with a short wooden pipe, from which he discharged wreathing clouds of tobacco-smoke." This scarecrow turned out to be an Italian marquis; and no doubt the singularity of his smoking apparatus was of a piece with the singularity of his attire.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 9:

Readers of Dickens are familiar with the drawing by Cruikshank which illustrates the chapter on "Scotland Yard" in Dickens's "Sketches by Boz," which was written before 1836. It shows the coal-heavers sitting round the fire shouting out "some sturdy chorus," and smoking long clays. "Here," wrote Dickens, "in a dark wainscoted-room of ancient appearance, cheered by the glow of a mighty fire ... sat the lusty coal-heavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay's best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark cloud." These good folk and others of their kin had never been affected by any change of fashion in respect of smoking. In another of the "Sketches," the amusing "Tuggs's at Ramsgate," when poor Cymon Tuggs is hid behind the curtain, half dead with fear, he hears Captain Waters call for brandy and cigars—"The cigars were introduced; the captain was a professed smoker; so was the lieutenant; so was Joseph Tuggs." Poor Cymon, on the other hand, was one of those who could never smoke "without feeling it indispensably necessary to retire, immediately, and never could smell smoke without a strong disposition to cough." Consequently, as the apartment was small, the door closed and the smoke powerful, poor Cymon was soon compelled to cough, which precipitated the catastrophe. It is noticeable that Dickens speaks of the three worthies as professed smokers, a remark which suggests that such dare-devils, men who would take cigars as a matter of course and for enjoyment, and not merely out of a complimentary acquiescence in some one else's wish, were comparatively rare.

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