The Social History of SmokingApperson, George Latimer
History
The Social History of Smoking
Apperson, George Latimer
Smoking
Another foreign visitor to England, the Abbé Le Blanc, who was over
here about 1730, found English customs rather trying. "Even at table,"
he says, "where they serve desserts, they do but show them, and
presently take away everything, even to the tablecloth. By this the
English, whom politeness does not permit to tell the ladies their
company is troublesome, give them notice to retire.... The table is
immediately covered with mugs, bottles and glasses; and often with
pipes of tobacco. All things thus disposed, the ceremony of toasts
begins."
The frowns and remonstrances of Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of
Friends had not succeeded in putting the Quakers' pipes out. In a list
of sea stores put on board a vessel called by the un-Quaker-like name
of _The Charming Polly_, which brought a party of Friends across the
Atlantic from Philadelphia in 1756, we find "In Samuel Fothergill's
new chest ... Tobacco ... a Hamper ... a Barrel ... a box of pipes."
The provident Samuel was well found for a long voyage.
The non-smokers were the men of fashion and those who followed them in
preferring the snuff-box to the pipe. Sometimes, apparently, they
chewed. A _World_ of 1754 pokes fun at the "pretty" young men who
"take pains to appear manly. But alas! the methods they pursue, like
most mistaken applications, rather aggravate the calamity. Their
drinking and raking only makes them look like old maids. Their
swearing is almost as shocking as it would be in the other sex. Their
chewing tobacco not only offends, but makes us apprehensive at the
same time that the poor things will be sick," as they certainly well
deserved to be. To chew might be "manly," but it will be observed that
smoking is not mentioned. No reputation for manliness could be
achieved by even the affectation of a pipe. Similarly, in Bramston's
"Man of Taste," various fashionable tastes are described, but there is
no mention of tobacco.
In Townley's well-known two-act farce "High Life Below Stairs," 1759,
the servants take their masters' and mistresses' titles and ape their
ways. The menservants--the Dukes and Sir Harrys--offer one another
snuff. "Taste this snuff, Sir Harry," says the "Duke." "'Tis good
rappee," replies "Sir Harry." "Right Strasburgh, I assure you, and of
my own importing," says the knowing ducal valet. "The city people
adulterate it so confoundedly," he continues, "that I always import my
own snuff;" and in similar vein he goes on in imitation of his master,
the genuine Duke. These servants copy the talk and style (with a
difference) of their employers; but smoking is never mentioned. The
real Dukes and Sir Harrys took snuff with a grace, but they did not do
anything so low as to smoke, and their menservants faithfully aped
their preferences and their aversions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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