The Social History of SmokingApperson, George Latimer
History
The Social History of Smoking
Apperson, George Latimer
Smoking
At the time of the Restoration tobacco-boxes which were considered
suitable to the occasion were made in large numbers. The outside of
the lid bore a portrait of the Royal Martyr; within the lid was a
picture of the restored king, His Majesty King Charles II; while on
the inside of the bottom of the box was a representation of Oliver
Cromwell leaning against a post, a gallows-tree over his head, and
about his neck a halter tied to the tree, while beside him was
pictured the devil, wide-mouthed. Another form of memorial tobacco-box
is described in an advertisement in the _London Gazette_ of September
15, 1687. This was a silver box which had either been "taken out of
the Bull's Head Tavern, Cheapside, or left in a Hackney Coach." It was
"ingraved on the Lid with a Coat of Arms, etc., and a Medal of Charles
the First fastened to the inside of the Lid, and engraved on the
inside 'to Jacob Smith it doth belong, at the Black Lyon in High
Holborn, date August 1671.'"
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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