Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 7:

The week-end habit was strong among London tradesmen in those days. Another Connoisseur paper of 1754 refers to the citizens' country-boxes as dusty retreats, because they were always built in close contiguity to the highway so that the inhabitants could watch the traffic, in the absence of anything more sensible to do, where "the want of London smoke is supplied by the smoke of Virginia tobacco," and where "our chief citizens are accustomed to pass the end and the beginning of every week." In the following year there is a description of a visit to Vauxhall by a worthy citizen with his wife and two daughters. After supper the poor man sadly laments that he cannot have his pipe, because his wife, with social ambitions, deems that it is "ungenteel to smoke, where any ladies are in company."

Again, in the Connoisseur's rival, the World, founded and conducted by Edward Moore, there is a letter, in the number dated February 19, 1756, from a citizen who says: "I have the honour to be a member of a certain club in this city, where it is a standing order, That the paper called the World be constantly brought upon the table, with clean glasses, pipes and tobacco, every Thursday after dinner."

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

Before the end of the seventeenth century, however, the signs were ceasing to have any necessary association with the trade carried on under them, and tobacconists are found with shop-signs which had no reference in any way to tobacco. For instance, to take a few examples from the late Mr. Hilton Price's lists of "Signs of Old London" from Cheapside and adjacent streets, in 1695 John Arundell, tobacconist, was at the "White Horse," Wood Street; in the same year J. Mumford, tobacconist, was at the "Faulcon," Laurence Lane; in 1699 Mr. Brutton, tobacconist, was to be found at the "Three Crowns," under the Royal Exchange; in 1702 Richard Bronas, tobacconist, was at the "Horse Shoe," Bread Street; and in 1766 Mr. Hoppie, of the "Oil Jar: Old Change, Watling Street End," advertised that he "sold a newly invented phosphorus powder for lighting pipes quickly in about half a minute. Ask for a Bottle of Thunder Powder."

Again, in Fleet Street, Mr. Townsend, tobacconist, traded in 1672 at the "Three Golden Balls," near St. Dunstan's Church; while at the end of Fetter Lane, a few years later, John Newland, tobacconist, was to be found at the "King's Head."

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