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 



