The Social History of Smoking

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co had long been practically banished, and the natural consequent spread downwards of the use of cigars-in accordance with the invariable law of fashion-together with t

of cigars before him. "Now, Mrs. Quilp," he says, "I feel in a smoking humour, and shall probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in case I want you." Quilp smokes cigars one after the other, his wretched wife sitting patiently by, from sunset till some time after daybreak. The dwarf's tastes, however, were catholic. A little later in the book the reader finds him, when encamped in the back parlou

d was continually increasing, smoking was regarded socially as somethin

h that would have delighted the heart of King James I. It ran thus: "The Commander-in-Chief has been informed, that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, cigars, or cheroots, has become prevalent among the Officers of the Army, which is not only in itself a species of intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tob

es of intoxication" was absurd enough; but the allegation, introduced by a question-begging "undoubtedly," that smoking occasioned drinking was directl

es for the same reason." The ladies had a keen scent for the abominable odour of tobacco, and distrusted the men who smoked. Here is Fitz-Boodle's, or Thackeray's, comment on it-"What is this smoking that it should be considered a crime? I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. They speak of it as of some secret awful vice that seizes upon a man, and makes him a pariah from genteel society. I would lay a guinea that many a lady who has just been kind enough to read the above lines lays down the book, after this confession of mine that I am a smoker, and says, 'Oh, the vulgar wretch!' and passes on to something else." He goes on to prophesy-and fo

guished man of letters, the late Mr. Francis Turner Palgrave, of "Golden Treasury" fame, who was an inveter

the second time, nor did he foresee that the ladies, to whom he addressed his impassioned defence of s

s throw much light on the social history of smoking in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Mr. Harry Furniss, in the preface to his edition of Thackeray, has an admirably terse and pertinent paragraph on this aspect of the "Fitz-Boodle Papers." He says-"No gentleman in those days was seen smoking even a 'weed' in the streets. Cigarettes were practically unheard of in England, and outside one's private s

and smoking was always a feature of their gatherings. The "yard of clay" is provided gratis for members, and it is to its almost universal use, says Mr. Peter Rayleigh, in his book on "The Cogers and Fleet Street," "that Cogers owe their existence in the present quarters. Once upon a time the Cogers 'swarmed' to a well-appointed room, where carpets covered the floor

r, was, except in certain well-defined circumstances, regarded as little less than a heinous crime." Lady Dorothy remarked that "smoking-rooms in country houses were absolutely unknown"-but that was not quite correct as we shall see in the experiences of Professor von Holtzendorff, to be mentioned directly-and that "such gentlemen as wished to smoke after the ladies had gone to bed used, as a matter of

Major Wellesley Ponto goes to smoke a cigar in the stables-Ponto had no smoking-room-with Lord Gules, who is described as a "very young, short, sandy-haire

he thought it most important for a German to know, namely, the smoking-room. "According to his idea," continued the professor, "every German has three national characteristics, smoking, singing, and Sabbath-breaking; the first and only idea in which I found him led astray by an abstract theory." Later, his hostess, explaining to him the method and routine of life in an English country-house, said that the ladies retired about eleven, while the gentlemen finished their

thought I had noticed that even the key-hole was stopped up, in order to preserve the ladies' delicate nerves from every disagreeable sensation." After dinner, again, when the ladies had left the table, "the gentlemen passed the bottles of port, sherry, and claret, wi

the short clays-"cutties"-which could be smoked while a man was at work. Milo, a tobacconist in the Strand, and Inderwick, whose shop was near Le

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zy purchased

clays of Inder

Fiolet from

n to a correspondent of Notes a

. The finest were made in France, and the favourite brand was 'Fiolet, Saint Omer.' I do not know if this kind is still smoked, but it was made of a soft clay that easily coloured. In taverns, of course, the churchwarden-beloved of Carlyle and Tennyson-was usually smoked to the accompaniment of shandygaff. At Simpson's fish ordina

tion by cadets of a good one out of a fresh consignment packed in sawdust was eagerly watched by the 'Johns.' Of course we were imitating our p

d it was 'bad form' (not, by the way, a contemporary expression) to smoke while in the company of the fairer half of creation. Consequently, men had either to indulge in the practice out of doors, or else, as you say, sneak away to the kitchen when the servants had gone to bed, and puff up the chimney. It was only in large houses that a billiard room could be found, and even in a billiard room a pipe or cigar was taboo if ladies were present, while smoking-rooms could no more be found in middle-class houses than ba

bs," speaks of dandies smoking their cigars upon the steps of "White's," most fashionable of clubs, and, in an earlier chapter, of young Ensign Famish lounging and smoking on the steps of the "Union Jack Club," with half a dozen other "young rakes of the fourth or fi

ing-room. Shirley Brooks said that this room, which was reached by a long passage from the Strangers' Dining-room, "was not a cheerful apartment by daylight, and when empty, but which, at night and full, was thought the most cheerful apartment in Town." At other clubs of more fashion, perhaps, but certainly of less good-fellowship, smoking-rooms made their way more slowly. At White's, smoking was not allowed at all till 1845. The Alfred Club, founded in 1808, which Lord Byron described as pleasant-"a little too sober and literary, perhaps, but, on the whole, a decent resource on a rainy day," and which Sir William Fraser c

s that with so many men smoking cigars the old domestic and club restrictions, as pilloried in Thackeray's pages, were maintained so long. In 1853 Leech had an admirably drawn sketch in Punch of paterfamilias, in the absence of his wife, giving a little dinner. Beside him sits his small son, and on either side of the table sit two of his cronies. One has a cigar in hi

is must have been before 1841, when Sir Astley died. Writing in the 'sixties Gronow said: "If Sir Astley were now alive he would find everybody with a cigar in his mouth: men smoke nowadays whilst they are occupied in working or hunting, riding in carriages, or otherwise employed"-which shows how the prejudice against outdoor smoking was th

but he was one of the many men of letters and artists, who, despising the conventions of society, were largely instrumental in breaking down stupid restrictions, and in overcoming senseless prejudices, and were thus heralds of freedom.

pedding, who spent his life on the elucidation of Bacon, was one of the "Apostles," and he continued a

r in the twilight after some family meal in the old house in Kensington." Thackeray was a cigar-smoker, but Tennyson was a devotee of the pipe. It was on this occasion, as the poet himself reminded Thackeray's daughter, that

e latest historian of Lutterworth says that "The great puffs of tobacco smoke with which he [Tennyson] mellowed his thoughts, proved insufferable to his host, an

visit about 1859, Charles Kingsley, so the Laureate told his son, "talked as usual on all sorts of topics, and walked hard up and down the study for hours smoking furiously, and affirming that tobacco was the only thing that kept his nerves quiet." The late Laureate, Alfred Austi

he Rector of Eversley in a remote part of the parish, on a common, when Kingsley suddenly said-"I must smoke a pipe," and forthwith went to a furze-bush and felt about in it for a time. Presently he produced a clay churchwarden pipe, "which he lighted, and solemnly smoked as he walked, putting it when

Tennyson sat in solemn silence smoking for hours, one on each side of the fireplace, and that when the visitor

s anecdote concerning him which was new to print. Rossetti told, on the authority of Woolner, how, in the course of a trip with friends to Italy, tobacco such as Tennyson could smoke gave out at some particular city, whereupon the poet packed up his p

ortune, in a fashionable ball-room, when pulling out his handkerchief to bring out his pipe with it from his pocket. The vulgar thing falls upon the floor, and Tom is ashamed to claim his property and so

ry are included; and "J" does not recognize Thackeray's picture as quite true of the "wines" of his undergraduate day, i.e. about 1850. "They may," he says, "have 'told bad stories and sung bad songs,' as Thackeray says in his 'Book of Snobs.' I can only say that I never heard either the one or the other." But certainly there was noise, and there was smoke-plenty of it. "Conversation there was none," says "J," "only a noise. Then came smoke. In a short time the atmosphere became dense, the dessert and the wine came to an end, and it was chapel time (mercifully)." One story Clark tells of an extraordinary attempt to smoke. Referring to the compulsory "chapels," he says t

ight happen on the Isis as on the Cam: "Whereas complaints have been made that some Undergraduate members of the University are in the habit of smo

ading-bout, thought of going out-"there was a wine party at one of his acquaintance's rooms; or he could go and smoke a cigar in the pool-room, or at any one of a dozen other places." Cigars were the fashionable form of smoke. When

curls freely round these obsolete notices and helps to make them still dingier. If you wanted to smoke when travelling you had either to contrive to get a compartment to yourself, or to arrange terms with your fellow-travellers. In a Punch of 1855, Leech drew a railway-platform scene wherein figures one of those precocious youngsters of a type he loved to draw. A railway porter says to his mate, as the two gaze at the back of this small swell, with his cane and top-hat, "What does he say, Bill?" "Why, he says he must have a compartment to hisself, because

th the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and every one knows how the soldiers in the Crimea and in India alike craved for tobacco as for one of the greatest of luxuries, and how even an occasional smoke cheered and encouraged and sustained suffering humanity. The late Dr. Norman Kerr, who was no friend to ordinary, everyday smoking, wrote: "Th

uffered greatly from the want of it. The soldiers yearned for a pipe after a hard day's work, and smoked dry leaves as the only substitute they could obtain." Mr. L.E.R. Rees in his diary of the same siege noted-"I have given up smoking tobacco, and ha

l-prevailing as now, was yet very common. It is highly probable that one of the things which led to the gre

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

king pipes of wood was either obsolete [it had never been introduced] or wholly in futuro. But a college friend of mine, a Norfolk squire, possessed a gardener who was of an inventive turn, though he was not a Scotchman. This man conceived and wrought out the idea of making pipes of willow-wood, cuttin

ting, and deserves to be remembered; but it was not long bef

hite Heath being the material known as "briar" or "brier," and at first as "bruyer." The Oxford Dictionary quotes an advertisement from the Tobacco Trade Review of so recent a date as February 8, 1868, of a "Heath Pipe: in Bruyer Wood." The briar pipe not only soon drove the clay largely out of use, but immensely increased the number of pipe-smokers. Bulwer Lytton may not have known the briar, but he