Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 14:

Another eighteenth-century clerical worthy, the famous Dr. Parr, an inveterate smoker, was accustomed to do what Mr. Disney prevented Archbishop Blackburn from doing—he smoked in his vestry at Hatton. This he did before the sermon, while the congregation were singing a hymn, and apparently both parties were pleased, for Parr would say: "My people like long hymns; but I prefer a long clay."

Robert Hall, the famous Baptist preacher, having once upon a time strongly denounced smoking as an "odious custom," learned to smoke himself as a result of his acquaintance with Dr. Parr. Parr was such a continual smoker that anyone who came into his company, if he had never smoked before, had to learn the use of a pipe as a means of self-defence. Hall, who became a heavy smoker, is said to have smoked in his vestry at intervals in the service. He probably found some relief in tobacco from the severe internal pains with which for many years he was afflicted.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

Other significant early tobacconists' signs were "Sir Walter Raleigh," "The Virginian" and "The Tobacco Roll." "Sir Walter," as the reputed introducer of tobacco, was naturally chosen as a sign, and his portrait adorns several shop-bills in the Banks Collection. The American Indians, represented under the figure of "The Virginian," and the negroes were hopelessly confused by the early tobacconists, with results which were sometimes surprising from an ethnological point of view. As the first tobacco imported into this country came from Virginia, a supposed "Virginian" was naturally adopted as a tobacco-seller's sign at an early date. An "Indian" or a "Negro" or a figure which was a combination of both, was commonly represented wearing a kilt or a girdle of tobacco leaves, a feathered head-dress, and smoking a pipe. A tobacco-paper, dating from about the time of Queen Anne, bears rudely engraved the figure of a negro smoking, and holding a roll of tobacco in his hand. Above his head is a crown; behind are two ships in full sail, with the sun just appearing from the right-hand corner above. The foreground shows four little black boys planting and packing tobacco, and below them is the name of the ingenious tradesman-"John Winkley, Tobacconist, near ye Bridge, in the Burrough, Southwark." Sixty years or so ago a wooden figure, representing a negro with a gilt loin-cloth and band with feathered head, and sometimes with a tobacco roll, was still a frequent ornament of tobacconists' shops.

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