Two persons often ate from one plate, using their fingers for forks. A sheath-knife, or dagger, which they carried upon the person, served to cut the food. Among the first books printed in Venice was a folio volume on cookery, issued in 1475. In the English metrical _Stans Puer ad Mensam_, following Wright, the guest is told to "bring no knyves unskoured to the table;" in other words, his sheath knife should be clean, and he is also informed that polite persons will not pick their teeth with it while at table. It was considered a breach of good manners to blow the nose with the same fingers used in conveying food to the mouth. Hats were worn by the men, and head-dresses by the women, on all domestic occasions. In France, the metrical _Contenances de Table_, or manual of table manners, shows but little more refinement there than elsewhere. Among other directions the reader is told first to examine his seat whether it be clean: "Enfant, prens de regarder peine Sur le siege où tu te fierras, Se aucune chose y verras Qui soit deshonneste où vilaine." He is forbidden to spit upon the table while at dinner: "Ne craiche par dessus la table Car c'est chose desconvenable." Or to spurt water from his mouth into the basin used in common by the company: "Quant tu bouche tu laveras Ou bacin point ne cracheras." Or leave sops in his wine glass: "Se tu fais souppes en ton verre Boy le vin ou le gette à terre." But by implication he may spurt and throw remnants on the floor, as much as he pleases. Even in their use of tobacco, of which they are excessively fond, the Spaniards are temperate. Though they smoke it almost constantly, it is in such small quantities, and in so mild a form, that tobacco does them less injury than it inflicts on many other nations. It was the custom to carry a daily supply wrapped in a lettuce or cabbage leaf to preserve it moist. The cigarette was prepared for smoking by taking a small quantity of tobacco, finely cut, rolling it in a piece of corn-husk or paper, and lighting with flint, steel, and punk. Though the tobacco may be strong, prepared in this way the effect is less injurious than when rolled in larger quantities into a cigar, or cut from a plug and smoked from a pipe or chewed. Noble youths of both sexes were accustomed, to serve a sort of apprenticeship for a number of years in the king's household. In like manner the sons and daughters of gentlemen served in the houses of the nobility, and common people in the houses of gentlemen, that each might be benefited by the knowledge and refinement of his superior.