Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 8:

A famous crony of Parr's, the learned Porson, was another devotee of tobacco. In November 1789 Parr wrote to Dr. Burney: "The books may be consulted, and Porson shall do it, and he will do it. I know his price when he bargains with me; two bottles instead of one, six pipes instead of two, burgundy instead of claret, liberty to sit till five in the morning instead of sneaking into bed at one: these are his terms:" and these few lines, it may be added, give a graphic picture of Porson. According to Maltby, Porson once remarked that when smoking began to go out of fashion, learning began to go out of fashion also—which shows what nonsense a learned man could talk.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 13:

In some letters of the Appleton family, printed some time ago from the originals in the Bodleian Library, there is a curious letter, undated, but of 1652 or 1653, from Susan Crane, the widow of Sir Robert Crane, who was the second wife of Isaac Appleton of Buckman Vall, Norfolk. Writing to her husband, Isaac Appleton, at his chamber in Grayes Inn, as his "Afextinat wife," the good Susan, whose spelling is marvellous, tells her "Sweet Hart"—"I have done all the tobakcre you left mee; I pray send mee sum this weeke; and some angelleco ceedd and sum cerret sed." How much tobacco Mr. Appleton had provisioned his wife with cannot be known, but it looks as if she were a regular smoker and did not care to be long without a supply. In 1631 Edmond Howes, who edited Stow's "Chronicles," and continued them "onto the end of this present yeare 1631," wrote that tobacco was "at this day commonly used by most men and many women."

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