Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 3:

The number of shops where tobacco was sold in the early days of its triumph seems to have been extraordinary. Barnaby Rich, one of the most prolific parents of pamphlets in an age of prolific writers, wrote a satire on "The Honestie of this Age," which was printed in 1614. In this production Rich declares that every fellow who came into an ale-house and called for his pot, must have his pipe also, for tobacco was then a commodity as much sold in every tavern, inn and ale-house as wine, ale, or beer. He goes on to say that apothecaries' shops, grocers' shops, and chandlers' shops were (almost) never without company who from morning to night were still taking tobacco; and what a number there are besides, he adds, "that doe keepe houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by but by the selling of tobacco." Rich says he had been told that a list had been recently made of all the houses that traded in tobacco in and near about London, and that if a man might believe what was confidently reported, there were found to be upwards of 7000 houses that lived by that trade; but he could not say whether the apothecaries', grocers' and chandlers' shops, where tobacco was also sold, were included in that number. He proceeds to calculate what the annual expenditure on smoke must be. The number of 7000 seems very large and is perhaps exaggerated. Round numbers are apt to be over rather than under the mark.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 13:

There are still many good people nowadays who are shocked at the idea of women smoking; and to them may be commended the common-sense words of Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, formerly of Ripon, who arrived in New York early in 1913 to deliver a series of lectures at Harvard University. The American newspapers reported him as saying, with reference to this subject: "Many women in England who are well thought of, smoke. I do not attempt to enter into the ethical part of this matter, but this much I say: if men find it such a pleasure to smoke, why shouldn't women? There are many colours in the rainbow; so there are many tastes in people. What may be a pleasure to men may be given to women. When we find women smoking, as they do in some branches of society today, the mere pleasure of that habit must be accepted as belonging to both sexes."

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