The Social History of SmokingApperson, George Latimer
History
The Social History of Smoking
Apperson, George Latimer
Smoking
Trickery of another kind is revealed in a scene in Chapman's play "A
Humorous Day's Mirth," 1599. A customer at an ordinary says: "Hark
you, my host, have you a pipe of good tobacco?" "The best in the
town," says mine host, after the manner of his class. "Boy, dry a
leaf." Quietly the boy tells him, "There's none in the house, sir," to
which the worthy host replies _sotto voce_, "Dry a dock leaf." But the
diner's potations must have been powerful if they had left him unable
to distinguish between the taste of tobacco and that of dried
dock-leaf.
Sometimes coltsfoot was mixed with tobacco. Ursula, the pig-woman and
refreshment-booth keeper in Bartholomew Fair, in Ben Jonson's play of
that name, says to her assistant: "Threepence a pipe-full I will have
made, of all my whole half-pound of tobacco and a quarter of a pound
of coltsfoot mixt with it too to eke it out."
The fumes of dried coltsfoot leaves were used as a remedy in cases of
difficulty of breathing, both in ancient Roman times and in Tudor
England. Lyte, in his translation, 1578, of Dodoens' "Historie of
Plants," says of coltsfoot: "The parfume of the dryed leaves layde
upon quicke coles, taken into the mouth through the pipe of a funnell,
or tunnell, helpeth suche as are troubled with the shortnesse of
winde, and fetche their breath thicke or often, and do [_sic_] breake
without daunger the impostems of the breast." The leaves of coltsfoot
and of other plants have often been used as a substitute for tobacco
in modern days. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, in 1897, said
that when he was a boy he knew an old Calvinist minister, who used to
smoke a dried mixture of the leaves of horehound, yarrow and "foal's
foot" intermingled with a small quantity of tobacco. He said it was a
very good substitute for the genuine article. Similar mixtures, or the
leaves of coltsfoot alone, have often been smoked in bygone days by
folk who could not afford to smoke tobacco only.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account