Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 10:

The earliest example of the use of a wooden pipe I have met with is dated 1765—but this was not in England. Many years ago the late Mr. A.J. Munby pointed out that Smollett, in one of his letters dated March 18, 1765, giving an account of his journey from Nice to Turin, describes how he ascended "the mountain Brovis," and on the top thereof met a Quixotic figure, whom he thus pictures: "He was very tall, meagre, and yellow, with a long hooked nose and twinkling eyes. His head was cased in a woollen nightcap, over which he wore a flapped hat; he had a silk handkerchief about his neck, and his mouth was furnished with a short wooden pipe, from which he discharged wreathing clouds of tobacco-smoke." This scarecrow turned out to be an Italian marquis; and no doubt the singularity of his smoking apparatus was of a piece with the singularity of his attire.

Read More

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 4:

One inference at least may be fairly drawn, I think, from this document, and that is that smoking was very popular north as well as south of the Tweed.

Tobacco was certainly cheap in Scotland. The following entries are from a MS. account of household expenses kept by the minister of the parish of Eastwood, near Glasgow, the Rev. William Hamilton. They cover two months only and show that the minister was a furious smoker. The prices given are in Scots currency, the pound Scots being worth about twenty pence sterling:

It may perhaps be interesting to compare with these prices, from which, apparently, it may be inferred that near Glasgow tobacco could be bought for some 5d. a pound, which seems incredibly cheap, the occasional expenditure upon tobacco of a worthy citizen of Exeter some few years earlier. Extracts from the "Financial Diary" of this good man, whose name was John Hayne, and who was an extensive dealer in serges and woollen goods generally, as well as in a smaller degree of cotton goods also, were printed some years ago, with copious annotations, by the late Dr. Brushfield.

Read More