The Social History of SmokingApperson, George Latimer
History
The Social History of Smoking
Apperson, George Latimer
Smoking
Readers of Dickens are familiar with the drawing by Cruikshank which
illustrates the chapter on "Scotland Yard" in Dickens's "Sketches by
Boz," which was written before 1836. It shows the coal-heavers sitting
round the fire shouting out "some sturdy chorus," and smoking long
clays. "Here," wrote Dickens, "in a dark wainscoted-room of ancient
appearance, cheered by the glow of a mighty fire ... sat the lusty
coal-heavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay's best, and puffing
forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and
involved the room in a thick dark cloud." These good folk and others
of their kin had never been affected by any change of fashion in
respect of smoking. In another of the "Sketches," the amusing "Tuggs's
at Ramsgate," when poor Cymon Tuggs is hid behind the curtain, half
dead with fear, he hears Captain Waters call for brandy and
cigars--"The cigars were introduced; the captain was a professed
smoker; so was the lieutenant; so was Joseph Tuggs." Poor Cymon, on
the other hand, was one of those who could never smoke "without
feeling it indispensably necessary to retire, immediately, and never
could smell smoke without a strong disposition to cough."
Consequently, as the apartment was small, the door closed and the
smoke powerful, poor Cymon was soon compelled to cough, which
precipitated the catastrophe. It is noticeable that Dickens speaks of
the three worthies as _professed_ smokers, a remark which suggests
that such dare-devils, men who would take cigars as a matter of course
and for enjoyment, and not merely out of a complimentary acquiescence
in some one else's wish, were comparatively rare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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