Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 12:

The chief legitimate objection to cigarette smoking was well stated some years ago by the late Dr. Andrew Wilson. "I think cigarettes are apt to prove injurious," he said, "because a man will smoke far too much when he indulges in this form of the weed, and because I think it is generally admitted that cigarettes are apt to produce evil effects out of all proportion to the amount of tobacco which is apparently consumed." Excess can equally be found among cigar and pipe-smokers. The late Chancellor Parish, in his "Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect," tells a delightful story of a Sussex rustic's holiday—"May be you knows Mass [Master, the distinctive title of a married labourer] Pilbeam? No! doänt ye? Well, he was a very sing'lar marn was Mass Pilbeam, a very sing'lar marn! He says to he's mistus one day, he says, 'tis a long time, says he, sence I've took a holiday—so cardenly, nex marnin' he laid abed till purty nigh seven o'clock, and then he brackfustes, and then he goos down to the shop and buys fower ounces of barca, and he sets hisself down on the maxon [manure heap], and there he set, and there he smoked and smoked and smoked all the whole day long, for, says he 'tis a long time sence I've had a holiday! Ah, he was a very sing'lar marn—a very sing'lar marn indeed."

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

The tobacconists' sign that for very many years was in most general use was the figure of a highlander, which may still perhaps be found in one or two places, but which was not at all an unusual sight in the streets of London and other towns some forty or fifty years ago. Most men of middle age can remember when the snuff-taking highlander was the usual ornament to the entrance of a tobacconist's shop; but all have disappeared from London streets save two—I say two on the authority of Mr. E.V. Lucas, who gives it (in his "Wanderer in London") as the number of the survivors; but only one is known to me. This is the famous old wooden highlander which stood for more than a hundred years on guard at a tobacconist's shop in Tottenham Court Road. About the end of 1906 it was announced that the shop was to be demolished, and that the time-worn figure was for sale. The announcement created no small stir, and it was said that the offers for the highlander ran up to a surprising figure. He was bought ultimately by a neighbouring furnishing firm, and now stands on duty not far from his ancient post, though no passer-by can help feeling the incongruity between the time-honoured emblem of the snuff-taker and his present surroundings of linoleum "and sich."

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