Almost everyone else was surprised; there were too 

 many successful farmers around and these could hardly 

 be influenced by the Reverend Trask. 



'mokers' emancipation 



It was not until 1880 that the city council in Boston 

 finally decided to make the public highways safe for 

 smokers by repealing an almost forgotten law, passed 

 in 1798. That regulation, modifying one of the early 

 colonial period, had prohibited the use of a "lighted pipe 

 or segar" on public streets and roads. It had been said 

 at the time that the ordinance was intended to reduce 

 a fire hazard but the restricted smokers protested that 

 they were being hampered by a Puritan code. 



In the mid-nineteenth century a sympathetic mayor 

 had already made it a little easier for smokers. A part of 

 the Boston Commons, under his direction, had been set 



Smokers' Circle on Boston Common around 1850 



Culver Pictures 



29 



