Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 3: One result of the herb's popularity was found in frequent attempts by tradesmen of various kinds to sell it without being duly licensed to do so. Mr. W.G. Bell, in his valuable book on "Fleet Street in Seven Centuries," mentions the arrest of a Fleet Street grocer by the Star Chamber for unlicensed trading in tobacco. He also quotes from the St. Dunstan's Wardmote Register of 1630 several cases of complaint against unlicensed traders and others. Four men were presented "for selling ale and tobacco unlicensed, and for annoying the Judges of Serjeants Inn whose chambers are near adjoyning." Two other men, one of them hailing from the notorious Ram Alley, were presented "for annoying the Judges at Serjeants Inn with the stench and smell of their tobacco," which looks as if the Judges were of King James's mind about smoking. The same Register of 1630 records the presentment of two men of the same family name—Thomas Bouringe and Philip Bouringe—"for keeping open their shops and selling tobacco at unlawful hours, and having disorderly people in their house to the great disturbance of all the inhabitants and neighbours near adjoining." The Ram Alley, Fleet Street, mentioned above, was notorious in sundry ways. Mr. Bell mentions that in 1618 the wardmote laid complaint against Timothy Louse and John Barker, of Ram Alley, "for keeping their tobacco-shoppes open all night and fyers in the same without any chimney and suffering hot waters [spirits] and selling also without licence, to the great disquietness and annoyance of that neighbourhood." There were sad goings on of many kinds in Ram Alley.
From Chapter 7: The examples and illustrations which have been given so far in this chapter relate to tradesmen and merchants, country gentlemen and the clergy. Other professional men smoked—we read in Fielding's "Amelia" of a doctor who in the evening "smoked his pillow-pipe, as the phrase is"—and among the rest of the people of equal or lower social standing smoking was as generally practised as in the preceding century. Handel, I may note, enjoyed his pipe. Dr. Burney, when a schoolboy at Chester, was "extremely curious to see so extraordinary a man," so when Handel went through that city in 1741 on his way to Ireland, young Burney "watched him narrowly as long as he remained in Chester," and among other things, had the felicity of seeing the great man "smoke a pipe, over a dish of coffee, at the Exchange Coffee-house," which was under the old Town Hall that stood opposite the present King's School, and in front of the present Town Hall. Gonzales, in his "Voyage to Great Britain," 1731, says that the use of tobacco was "very universal, and indeed not improper for so moist a climate." He tells us that though the taverns were very numerous yet the ale-houses were much more so. These ale-houses were visited by the inferior tradesmen, mechanics, journeymen, porters, coachmen, carmen, servants, and others whose pockets were not equal to the price of a glass of wine, which, apparently, was the more usual thing to call for at a tavern, properly so called. In the ale-house men of the various classes and occupations enumerated, says the traveller, would "sit promiscuously in common dirty rooms, with large fires, and clouds of tobacco, where one that is not used to them can scarce breathe or see."
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