Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 7:

At Oxford in early Georgian days a profound calm—so far as study was concerned—appears to have prevailed. Little work was done, but much tobacco was smoked. In 1733 a satire was published, violently attacking the Fellows of various colleges. According to this satirist the occupation of the Magdalen Fellow was to
drink, look big,
Smoke much, think little, curse the freeborn Whig—

from which it may not unreasonably be surmised that the author was a Tory; and however little enthusiasm there may have been at Oxford in those days for learning and study, there was plenty of life in political animosities.

Another witness to the dons' love of tobacco is Thomas Warton. In his "Progress of Discontent," written in 1746, he plaintively sang:

Return, ye days when endless pleasure
I found in reading or in leisure!
When calm around the Common Room
I puff'd my daily pipe's perfume!
Rode for a stomach, and inspected,
At annual bottlings, corks selected:
And dined untax'd, untroubled, under
The portrait of our pious Founder!

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 13:

Many royal ladies of Europe, contemporaries of Queen Victoria and her son, have had the reputation of being confirmed smokers. Among them may be named Carmen Sylva, the poetess-Queen of Roumania, the Dowager Tsaritsa of Russia, the late Empress of Austria, King Alfonso's mother, formerly Queen-Regent of Spain, the Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy and ex-Queen Amélie of Portugal. It is, of course, well known that Austrian and Russian ladies generally are fond of cigarette-smoking. On Russian railways it is not unusual to find a compartment labelled "For ladies who do not smoke."

The newspapers reported not long ago from the other side of the Atlantic that the "smart" women of Chicago had substituted cigars for cigarettes. According to an interview with a Chicago hotel proprietor, the fair smokers "select their cigars as men do, either black and strong, or light, according to taste." How in the world else could they select them? It is not likely, however, that cigar-smoking will become popular among women. For one thing, it leaves too strong and too clinging an odour on the clothes.

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