The Social History of Smoking

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to the dictates of fashion, and among whom consequently to

spelling-there was a "segar-shop" in the Strand till quite recently, and I saw the notice "segars" the other day over a small tobacco-shop in York-which has no authority, and on etymological grounds is indefensible. The derivation of "cigar" is not altogether clear; but the probabilities are strongly in favour of its connexion with "cigarra," the Spanish name for the cicada, the shrilly-chirping insect familiar in the southern countries o

at year, describes how he met three friars at Nicaragua, who, he says, "gave us some Seegars to smoke ... these are Leaves of Tobacco rolled up in such Ma

India, written between 1669 and 1679: "The Poore Sort of Inhabitants vizt. yet Gentues, Mallabars, &c., Smoke theire Tobacco after a very meane, but I judge Original manner, Onely ye leafe rowled up, and light one end, holdinge

r. Croker, in 1831, commenting on Johnson's saying that smoking had gone out, said: "The taste for smoking, however, has revived, probably from the military habits of Europe during the French wars; but instead of the sober sedentary pipe, the ambulatory cigar is chiefly used."

hed in 1820, was once popular. Colton was in succession Rector of Tiverton and Vicar of Kew, but on leaving Kew became a wine-me

ion of "Vanity Fair" takes place in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The original smoking-room of the Athen?um Club, which was founded in 1824, the present building being erecte

g my cigar over a glass of negus, Adam Ferguson comes with a summons to attend him to the Justice Clerk's, where, it seems, I was engaged. I was totally out of case to attend his summons, redolent as I was of tobacco. But I am vexed at the

tten in his "Journal" that after dinner he usually s

ve the cold

he fatigues

ll and confined, that the smell was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of the Nicotian weed for many years; but was again led to use it by the example of

s first, and then

ent, quoted in the preceding chapter, that smoking was very generally unknown in Oxford in 1823-24. The ar

he Island" (1823), a poem founded in part on the history of the Mutiny of the Bount

o! which, from

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's own sentiments, and whether he habitually

ion, as reported by a member of the firm that printed the magazine, a proof had been lost, and the poet was informed that the article must go to press next day uncorrected. Campbell sent word that he would look in in the morning and correct it. Preparations were duly made to receive him; he was shown into the best room, and left w

ted it-but continued to smoke, not wisely but too well. "He cam

oiled with a crumb of right Gloucester, blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure, a stray ash of tobacco wafted into

ver, he can't be a very upright judge. Maybe the truth is that one pipe is wholesome, two pipes toothsome, three pipes noisome, four pipes fulsome, five pipes quarrelsome, and that's the sum on't. But that is deciding rather upon rhyme than reason.... After all, our instincts may be best." It is cle

Lamb wrote to Hazlitt-"We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoky man must write smoky farces." But Lamb and his pipe were not to be parted by even repeated resolutions to leave off smoking. It was years af

the well-known "Farewell to Tobacco," written in 1805, and referred to in the letter of that year t

toil after virtue." But if all accounts are true, Parr far outsmoked Lamb. If the essayist discontinued or modified his smoking habits, he made up for

e cigar, and the changing atti

h rapidity ... considering the rate at which stage-coaches now travel [i.e. in and just before 1830] ... a place on the box or front of a prime set-out is, indeed, a considerable treat. But alas! no human enjoyment is free from alloy. A Jew pedlar or mendicant foreigner with his cigar in his mouth, has it in his power to turn the draft of sweet air into a cup of bitterness." Perhaps Angelo's objection was more to the quality of the cigar that would be smoked by

, and none exciting the slightest observation. Every third window is a pipe-shop, and they [presumably the pipes] show, by their splendour and variety, the expensiveness of the passion. Some of them are marked '200 dollars.' The streets reek with tobacco-smoke. You never catch a breath of untainted air within the Glacis. Your hotel, your café, your coach, your friend, are all redolent of the same disgusting odour." In the following year, describing a large dinner-party at the Duke of Gordon's in Scotland, Willis says that when the ladies left the tab

oom; a large, wainscoted, uncarpeted place, with tables covered with green baize and writing materials. On a full night it is generally thronged towards twelve o'clock with smokers. It is then a perfect cloud of fume. There have I seen (tell it not to the West Indians), Buxton blowing fire out of his mouth. My father will not believe it. At present, however, all the doors and windows are open, an

think I'll descr

tobacco and c

tobacco was a

was bought since

far better atmosphere than in the smoking-room, whence I wrote to you last week." One wonders why Macaulay, who apparently did not smoke himself, and who, though somewhat more tolerant of tobac

Brougham, Lord Calthorp and H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. In Thackeray's "Book of Snobs," Miss Wirt, the governess at Major Po

m, the well-known seat of Mr. Coke of Norfolk, later Lord Leicester, and that on such occasions he enjoyed "the distinction of being the only guest besides the Duke of Sussex who ever indulged in the rare habit of smoking. But while the Royal Duke was wont to p

writing to her husband from Holkham, the home of her childhood, remarked: "The Billiard table

by other names either of familiarity or descriptive of the place of manufacture; and on the mantelpiece or table of inn or ale-house stood the tobacco-box. Miss Jekyll, in her delightful book on "Old West Surrey," figures an example of these old public-house tobacco-boxes

9, said, that at village outdoor festivals of the 'thirties and early 'forties, respectable elderly farmers and tradesmen would sit "round a table, on which was an automatic, square, brass tobacco-box of large dimensions, into which the smokers dropped a halfpenny and the lid flew back, and the p

is, befor

penny in

ve filled,

lid, or si

-boxes was included in the exhibition of Welsh A

panned iron. On the lid of the box is painted a keg of tobacco and

dropt int

he lid and

e filled, wi

he lid, or

with a sixpence, and not with a penny or halfpenny. It is engraved with the usual lines, except that the user is asked to put sixpence in the till, and then to shut down the lid under penalty of a fine of a shilling. What could it have been used for that was worth sixpence a time? Other uncommon features are that the money portion is shallow, and that the

olved 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 ne

ening of the election at Eatanswill, Tupman and Snodgrass resort to the commercial room of the Peacock Inn, where "the atmosphere was redolent of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which shaded the windows." Here, among others, were the dirty-faced man with a clay pipe, the very red-faced man behind a cigar, and the man with a black eye, who slowly filled a large Dutch pipe with most capacious bowl. Tupman and Snodgrass were of the company and smoked cigars. Sam Weller's father smoked his pipe philosophically. If Sam's "mother-in-law" "flies in a passion, and bre

," who expresses the hope that the newcomer does not "find this sort of thing disagreeable." "Not in the least," replied Mr. Pickwick, "I like it very much, although I am no smoker myself." "I should be very sorry to say

ly facetious description." Apparently in 1836 the only person who would allow himself to be seen smoking in the street was of the kind naturally inclined to do the other objectionable things mentioned. The same idea runs through the allusions to tobacco in "Pickwick." Smoking was undeniably vulgar. Mr. John Smauker, who introduces Sam Weller at the "friendly swarry" of the Bath footmen, smokes a cigar "through an amber tube"-cigar-holders were a novelty. When Mr. Pickwick is taken to the house of Namby, the sheriffs' officer, the "principal features" of the front parlour are "fresh sand and stal

ts them and regards "with wonder Pen's friend, from whose mouth and cigar clouds of fragrance issued, which curled round the doctor's honest face and shovel hat. 'An old school-fellow of mine, Mr. Foker,' said Pen. The doctor said 'H'm!' and scowled at the cigar. He did not mind a pipe in

ake himself, but in his own study, which rather shocks his mother. Pen goes from bad to worse during his University days, and, sad to say, one Sunday in the last long vacation, the "wretched boy," instead of going to church, "was seen at the gate of the Clavering Arms smoking a cigar, in the face of