Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 1:

There is little doubt that the smoke of herbs and leaves of various kinds was inhaled in this country, and in Europe generally, long before tobacco was ever heard of on this side the Atlantic. But whatever smoking of this kind took place was medicinal and not social. Many instances have been recorded of the finding of pipes resembling those used for tobacco-smoking in Elizabethan times, in positions and in circumstances which would seem to point to much greater antiquity of use than the form of the pipes supports; but some at least of these finds will not bear the interpretation which has been put upon them, and in other cases the presence of pipes could reasonably be accounted for otherwise than by associating them with the antiquity claimed for them.

In any case, the entire absence of any allusions whatever to smoking in any shape or form in our pre-Elizabethan literature, or in mediæval or earlier art, is sufficient proof that from the social point of view smoking did not then exist. The inhaling of the smoke of dried herbs for medicinal purposes, whether through a pipe-shaped funnel or otherwise, had nothing in it akin to the smoking of tobacco for both individual and social pleasure, and therefore lies outside the scope of this book.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

The shop-bill of Richard Lee, who sold tobacco about 1730 "at Ye Golden Tobacco Roll in Panton Street near Leicester Fields," is an elaborate production. Hogarth in the earlier period of his career as an engraver engraved many shop-bills, and this particular bill is usually attributed to him, though the attribution has been disputed. There is a copy of the bill in the British Museum, and in the catalogue of the prints and drawings in the National Collection Mr. Stephens thus describes it: "It is an oblong enclosing an oval, the spandrels being occupied by leaves of the tobacco plant tied in bundles; the above title (Richard Lee at Ye Golden Tobacco Roll in Panton Street near Leicester Fields) is on a frame which encloses the oval. Within the latter the design represents the interior of a room, with ten gentlemen gathered near a round table on which is a bowl of punch; several of the gentlemen are smoking tobacco in long pipes; one of them stands up on our right and vomits; another, who is intoxicated, lies on the floor by the side of a chair; a fire of wood burns in the grate; on the wall hangs two pictures ... three men's hats hang on pegs on the wall." Altogether this is an interesting and suggestive design, but hardly in the taste likely to commend itself to present day tradesmen.

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