Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 10:

Perhaps the best reflection of and comment upon the attitude of society towards smoking is to be found in the ironical, satirical pages of Thackeray. Let the reader turn to the confessions of George Fitz-Boodle Esq.-the "Fitz-Boodle Papers" first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for 1842-and he will find how smoking was regarded at that date, and what Thackeray, speaking through the puppet Fitz-Boodle, thought of it. George starts by saying: "I am not, in the first place, what is called a ladies' man, having contracted an irrepressible habit of smoking after dinner, which has obliged me to give up a great deal of the dear creatures' society; nor can I go much to country-houses for the same reason." The ladies had a keen scent for the abominable odour of tobacco, and distrusted the men who smoked. Here is Fitz-Boodle's, or Thackeray's, comment on it-"What is this smoking that it should be considered a crime? I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. They speak of it as of some secret awful vice that seizes upon a man, and makes him a pariah from genteel society. I would lay a guinea that many a lady who has just been kind enough to read the above lines lays down the book, after this confession of mine that I am a smoker, and says, 'Oh, the vulgar wretch!' and passes on to something else." He goes on to prophesy-and for once the "most gratuitous of follies" has been justified by the event-that tobacco will conquer. "Look over the wide world," he says to the ladies, "and see that your adversary has overcome it. Germany has been puffing for three score years; France smokes to a man. Do you think you can keep the enemy out of England? Psha! look at his progress. Ask the club-houses, Have they smoking-rooms, or not? Are they not obliged to yield to the general want of the age, in spite of the resistance of the old women on the committees? I, for my part, do not despair to see a bishop lolling out of the 'Athenĉum' with a cheroot in his mouth, or, at any rate, a pipe stuck in his shovel-hat."

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 11:

Sidgwick's praise of tobacco, classically draped in Greek verse, occasionally of the macaronic order, is delightful. He hails the pipe as the work of Pan, and the divine smoke as the best and most fragrant of gifts-healer of sorrow, companion in joy, rest for the toilers, drink for the thirsty, warmth for the cold, coolness in the heat, and a cheap feast for those who waste away through hunger. How is it, he says, that through so many ages men, who have need of thee, have not seen thy nature? Often, he continues-the verses may be roughly translated-often, when I am in Alpine solitudes, tied in a chain to a few companions, clinging to the rope, while barbarians lead the way, carrying in my hands an ice-axe and breathless crawling up the snow-covered plain-then, when groaning I reach the summit (either pulled up or on foot), how have I rested, on my back on the rocks, charming my soul with thy divine clouds! He goes on in burlesque strain to speak of the joys of tobacco when he lies in idleness by the streams in breathless summer, comforted by a bath just taken, or when in the middle of the night he is worn out by revising endless exercises, underlining the mistakes in red and allotting marks, or weighed down by the wise men of old-Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, the ideas of Plato, wiles of Pindar, fearfully corrupt strophe of chorus, wondrous guesses of Teutons and fancies of philologists, when men swoon in the inexplicable wanderings of the endless examination of Homer, when the brain reels among such toil-then he hails the pipe, help of mortals, and hastens to kindle sacrifices at its altars and rejoices as he tastes its smoke. Let some one, he exclaims, bring Bryant and May's fire, which strikes a light only if rubbed on the box-

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