Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 8:

A satirical print by Rowlandson contains A Man of Fashion's Journal, dated May 1, 1802. The "man of fashion" rides and drinks, goes to the play, gambles and bets, but his journal contains no reference to smoking. Rowlandson himself smoked, and so did his brother caricaturist, Gillray. Angelo says that they would sometimes meet at such resorts of the "low" as the Bell, the Coal Hole, or the Coach and Horses, and would enter into the common chat of the room, smoke and drink together, and then "sometimes early, sometimes late, shake hands at the door—look up at the stars, say it is a pretty night, and depart, one for the Adelphi, the other to St. James's Street, each to his bachelor's bed."

But outside the fashionable world pipes were still in full blast, and in many places of resort the atmosphere was as beclouded with tobacco-smoke as in earlier days. Grosley, in his "Tour to London," 1765, says that there were regular clubs, which were held in coffee-houses and taverns at fixed days and hours, when wine, beer, tea, pipes and tobacco helped to amuse the company.

Read More

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

The "Tobacco Roll," either alone or in various combinations, was one of the commonest of early tobacconists' signs, and was in constant use for a couple of centuries. It may still be occasionally seen at the present time in the form of the "twist" with alternate brown or black and yellow coils, which up to quite a recent date was a tolerably frequent adornment of tobacconists' shops, but is now rare. This roll represented what was called spun or twist tobacco. Dekker, in James I's time, speaks of roll tobacco. The youngster who mimics the stage-gallants in Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels" as described in Chapter II (ante; page 31), says that he has "three sorts of tobacco in his pocket," which probably means that it was customary to mix for smoking purposes tobacco of the three usual kinds-roll (or pudding), leaf and cane. One would have thought that a representation of the tobacco plant itself would have been a more natural and comprehensive sign than one particular preparation of the herb, yet representations of the plant were rare, while those of the compressed tobacco known as pudding or roll in the form of a "Tobacco Roll," as described above, were very frequently used as signs.

Read More