Social Progress of Tobacco 79 



which is a general custom as well among women as 

 men, who think that without tobacco one cannot live 

 in England because they say it dissipates the evil 

 humours of the brain. ... I have known several 

 who, not content with smoking in the day, went to 

 bed with pipes in their mouths, and others who have 

 risen in the night to light their pipes, to take 

 tobacco with as much pleasure as they would have 

 received in drinking either Greek or Alicant wine.' 



Children as well as women smoked ; they were not 

 only permitted but taught to take tobacco as an 

 essential part of their education. In 1634 D'Avenant 

 had protested that smoking was ' so much in fashion 

 that methinks your children begin to play with 

 broken pipes instead of corals to make way for their 

 teeth.' Thirty years later children were taught to 

 smoke, this being chiefly due to the lesson taught by 

 the Great Plague as to the virtues of tobacco. Con- 

 tinuing the above quotation, De Rochefort says : 



' While we were walking about the town (Wor- 

 cester) he asked me if it was the custom in France as 

 in England that when the children went to school 

 they carried in their satchel with their books a pipe 

 of tobacco which their mother took care to fill early 

 in the morning, it serving them instead of breakfast, 

 and that at the accustomed hour everyone laid aside 

 his book to light his pipe, the master smoking with 

 them and teaching them how to hold their pipes and 

 draw in the tobacco, thus accustoming them to it 

 from their youths, believing it absolutely necessary 

 for a man's health.' 



The scene which this account conjures up is irre- 



