Social Progress of Tobacco 89 



the bad. Smoking was rarely practised in the home, 

 but was confined to the club-rooms of taverns and 

 inns. Long clays and churchwardens were practi- 

 cally the only smokes ; meerschaums were expensive 

 and little used ; wooden briars were totally unknown. 

 Clay pipes, however virtuous, are not, strictly speak- 

 ing, presentable in society. The courteous cigar was 

 beyond the reach of all but the longest purse, and the 

 elegant cigarette was almost unknown. A writer in 

 1845 remarks that ' the cigarette is rarely had re- 

 course to save by foreign visitors.' Hence it is not 

 surprising, perhaps, that smoking was considered 

 disreputable because clumsy and inconvenient. Cer- 

 tain it is that for a smoke it was necessary to seek 

 the accommodation of an inn. Clay pipes were 

 provided like tumblers and pewters for customers, 

 and on the parlour table was a tobacco-box on the 

 penny-in-the-slot principle, for smokers rarely carried 

 a supply of the herb with them. A verse on the box 

 explained its use : 



' Drop a brown into the hole, 

 Touch the spring and fill your bowl ; 

 When you have filled, without delay 

 Close the lid or sixpence pay.' 



Gradually smoking became more practised in the 

 higher ranks. By 1845 it was so common in the 

 Army that the Duke of Wellington issued an order 

 respecting the practice : 



' The Commander-in-Chief has been informed that 

 the practice of smoking by the use of pipes, cigars or 

 cheroots has become prevalent among the officers of 



