Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 7:

In Townley's well-known two-act farce "High Life Below Stairs," 1759, the servants take their masters' and mistresses' titles and ape their ways. The menservants—the Dukes and Sir Harrys—offer one another snuff. "Taste this snuff, Sir Harry," says the "Duke." "'Tis good rappee," replies "Sir Harry." "Right Strasburgh, I assure you, and of my own importing," says the knowing ducal valet. "The city people adulterate it so confoundedly," he continues, "that I always import my own snuff;" and in similar vein he goes on in imitation of his master, the genuine Duke. These servants copy the talk and style (with a difference) of their employers; but smoking is never mentioned. The real Dukes and Sir Harrys took snuff with a grace, but they did not do anything so low as to smoke, and their menservants faithfully aped their preferences and their aversions.

Read More

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 13:

Elizabeth was evidently of a sociable turn, and though she turned her nose up at a tavern, there seems to have been little difference between these festive dinners at Mr. Thresher's "shopp," where Mistress Savage indulged her taste for ale and tobacco, and similar pleasures at an inn or tavern.

Some of the references to women smokers occur in curious connexions. When one George Glapthorne, of Whittlesey, J.P., was returned to Parliament for the Isle of Ely in 1654, his return was petitioned against, and among other charges it was said that just before the election, in a certain Martin's ale-house, he had promised to give Mrs. Martin a roll of tobacco, and had also undertaken to grant her husband a licence to brew, thus unduly influencing and corrupting the electors.

Read More