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 2:

When Robert, Earl of Essex, and Henry, Earl of Southampton, were tried for high treason in Westminster Hall on February 19, 1600-1, the members of the House of Lords, who with the Judges formed the Court, if we may believe the French Ambassador of the time, behaved in a remarkable and unseemly manner. In a letter to Monsieur de Rohan, the Ambassador declared that while the Earls and the Counsel were pleading, their lordships guzzled and smoked; and that when they gave their votes condemning the two Earls, they were stupid with eating and "yvres de tabac"—drunk with smoking. This was probably quite untrue as a representation of what actually took place; but it would hardly have been written had smoking not been a common practice among noble lords.

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