Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 5:

smokers of the period were often curious in tobacco-boxes. Mr. Richard Stapley, gentleman, of Twineham, Sussex, whose diary is full of curious information, was presented in 1691 by his friend Mr. John Hill with a "tobacco-box made of tortoise." Seven years earlier Stapley had sold to Hill his silver tobacco-box for 10s. in cash—the rest of the value of the box, he noted, "I freely forgave him for writing at our first commission for me, and for copying of answers and ye like in our law concerns; so yt I reckon I have as good as 30s. for my box: 5s. he gave me, and 5s. more he promised to pay me ... and I had his steel box with the bargain, and full of smoake." Apparently Mr. Hill's secretarial labours were valued at 20s. This same Sussex squire bought a pound of tobacco in December 1685 for 20d., which seems decidedly cheap, and in the following year a 5 lb. box for 7s. 6d.—which was cheaper still.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 11:

Among the chief strongholds of the old ideas and prejudices were some of the clubs. At the Athenæum the only smoking-room used to be a combined billiard-and smoking-room in the basement. It was but a few years ago that an attic story was added to the building, and smokers can now reach more comfortable quarters by means of a lift put in when the alterations were made in 1900. This new smoking-room is a very handsome, largely book-lined apartment. At the end of the room is a beautiful marble mantelpiece of late eighteenth century Italian work. At White's even cigars had not been allowed at all until 1845; and when, in 1866, some of the younger members wished to be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room, there was much perturbation, the older members bitterly opposing the proposal. "A general meeting was held to decide the question," says Mr. Ralph Nevill, in his "London Clubs," "when a number of old gentlemen who had not been seen in the club for years made their appearance, stoutly determined to resist the proposed desecration. 'Where do all these old fossils come from?' inquired a member. 'From Kensal Green,' was Mr. Alfred Montgomery's reply. 'Their hearses, I understand, are waiting to take them back there.'" The motion for the extension of the facilities for smoking was defeated by a majority of twenty-three votes, and as an indirect result the Marlborough Club was founded. The late King Edward, at that time Prince of Wales, is said to have sympathized strongly with the defeated minority at White's, and to have interested himself in the foundation of the Marlborough; where, "for the first time in the history of West End Clubland, smoking, except in the dining-room, was everywhere allowed." By "smoking" is no doubt here meant everything but pipes, which were not considered gentlemanly even at the Garrick Club at the beginning of the present century. The late Duc d'Aumale was a social pioneer in pipe-smoking. His caricature in "Vanity Fair" represents him with a pipe in his mouth, although he is wearing an opera-hat, black frock-coat buttoned up, and a cloak.

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