Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 8:

In the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century smoking reached its nadir. No dandy smoked. If some witnesses may be believed smoking had almost died out even at Oxford. Archdeacon Denison wrote in his "Memories"—"When I went up to Oxford, 1823-24, there were two things unknown in Christ Church, and I believe very generally in Oxford—smoking and slang"; but one cannot help fancying that the archdeacon's memory was not quite trustworthy. It is difficult to imagine that there was ever a time when the slang of the day was not current on the lips of young Oxford, or that so long as tobacco was procurable it did not find its way into college rooms.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 2:

It chaunc'd me gazing at the Theater,
To spie a Lock-Tabacco Chevalier
Clowding the loathing ayr with foggie fume
Of Dock Tobacco friendly foe to rhume—

says a versifier of 1599, who did not like smoking in the theatre and so abused the quality of the tobacco smoked—though admitting its medicinal virtue. Dekker suggests, probably with truth, that one reason why the young gallant liked to push his way to a stool on the stage, notwithstanding "the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality"—the "mewes" must have been the squeals or whistles produced by the instrument which was later known as a cat-call—was the opportunity such a prominent position afforded for the display of "the best and most essential parts of a gallant—good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tolerable beard." Apparently, too, serving-boys were within call, and thus lights could easily be obtained, which were handed to one another by the smokers on the points of their swords.

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