Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 3:

Many good folk would seem to have associated smoking with idling. In the rules of the Grammar School at Chigwell, Essex, which was founded in 1629, it is prescribed that "the Master must be a man of sound religion, neither a Papist nor a Puritan, of a grave behaviour, and sober and honest conversation, no tippler or haunter of alehouses, no puffer of tobacco." A worthy Derbyshire man named Campbell, in his will dated 20 October 1616, left all his household goods to his son, "on this condition that yf at any time hereafter, any of his brothers or sisters shall fynd him takeing of tobacco, that then he or she so fynding him, shall have the said goods"—a testamentary arrangement which suggests to the fancy some amusing strategic evasions and manœuvres on the part of the conditional legatee and his watchful relations.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

Shop-signs were one of the most conspicuous features of the streets of old London. In days when the numbering of houses was unknown, the use of signs was indispensable for identification; and greatly must they have contributed to the quaint and picturesque appearance of the streets. Some projected far over the narrow roadway-competition to attract attention and custom is no modern novelty-some were fastened to posts or pillars in front of the houses. By the time of Charles II the overhanging signs had become a nuisance and a danger, and in the seventh year of that King's reign an Act was passed providing that no sign should hang across the street, but that all should be fixed to the balconies or fronts or sides of houses. This Act was not strictly obeyed; and large numbers of signs were hung over the doors, while many others were affixed to the fronts of the houses. Eventually, in the second half of the eighteenth century, signs gradually disappeared and the streets were numbered. There were occasional survivals which are to be found to this day, such as the barber's pole, accompanied sometimes by the brass basin of the barber-surgeon, the glorified canister of a grocer or the golden leg of a hosier; and inn signs have never failed us; but by the close of the eighteenth century most of the old trade signs which flaunted themselves in the streets had disappeared.

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