Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 12:

The chief legitimate objection to cigarette smoking was well stated some years ago by the late Dr. Andrew Wilson. "I think cigarettes are apt to prove injurious," he said, "because a man will smoke far too much when he indulges in this form of the weed, and because I think it is generally admitted that cigarettes are apt to produce evil effects out of all proportion to the amount of tobacco which is apparently consumed." Excess can equally be found among cigar and pipe-smokers. The late Chancellor Parish, in his "Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect," tells a delightful story of a Sussex rustic's holiday—"May be you knows Mass [Master, the distinctive title of a married labourer] Pilbeam? No! doänt ye? Well, he was a very sing'lar marn was Mass Pilbeam, a very sing'lar marn! He says to he's mistus one day, he says, 'tis a long time, says he, sence I've took a holiday—so cardenly, nex marnin' he laid abed till purty nigh seven o'clock, and then he brackfustes, and then he goos down to the shop and buys fower ounces of barca, and he sets hisself down on the maxon [manure heap], and there he set, and there he smoked and smoked and smoked all the whole day long, for, says he 'tis a long time sence I've had a holiday! Ah, he was a very sing'lar marn—a very sing'lar marn indeed."

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 9:

Cheroots seem to have been known somewhat earlier. The earliest mention of them is dated about 1670. Sir James Murray, in the great Oxford Dictionary, gives the following interesting extract from an unpublished MS. relating to 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 ye other between their lips ... this is called a bunko, and by ye Portugals a Cheroota." The condemnation of cheroot-or cigar-smoking as a mean method of taking tobacco has an odd look in the light of modern habits and customs.

The use of cigars in this country began to come in early in the last century; and by at least 1830 they were being freely, if privately, smoked. It is probable that the reduction of the duty on cigars from 18s. to 9s. a lb., in 1829, had its effect in making cigars more popular. 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." Croker's shrewd suggestion was probably not far wide of the truth. It is quite likely, if not highly probable, that the revival of smoking in the shape of the cigar was directly connected with the experiences of British officers in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War.

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