Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 10:

The fear of the odour of tobacco-smoke was extraordinary. Mr. J.C. Buckmaster in his reminiscences describes the famous debating society at Cogers' Hall, and says that "after one night at the Cogers' it took three days on a common to purify your clothes" from the smoke. The journalists and Bohemians who met at the Cogers were above (or below) the dictates of fashion, and smoking was always a feature of their gatherings. The "yard of clay" is provided gratis for members, and it is to its almost universal use, says Mr. Peter Rayleigh, in his book on "The Cogers and Fleet Street," "that Cogers owe their existence in the present quarters. Once upon a time the Cogers 'swarmed' to a well-appointed room, where carpets covered the floors, the chairs were upholstered, and the tables had finely polished marble tops. The hot pipes and smouldering matches stained the table tops and burnt the carpets, so that they had the option of abandoning either the pipe or the quarters. Old customs die hard with Cogers, and they stuck to their pipe.... The pipe is a feature in all illustrations of Cogerian meetings."

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 9:

In 1805 Lamb wrote to Wordsworth—"now I have bid farewell to my 'sweet enemy' tobacco ... I shall, perhaps, set nobly to work." Forthwith he set to work on the farce "Mr. H.," which some months later was produced at Drury Lane and was promptly damned. After its failure Lamb wrote to Hazlitt—"We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoky man must write smoky farces." But Lamb and his pipe were not to be parted by even repeated resolutions to leave off smoking. It was years after this that he met Macready at Talfourd's, and by way probably of saying something to shock Macready; whose personality could hardly have been sympathetic to him, uttered the remarkable wish that the last breath he drew in might be through a pipe and exhaled in a pun.

It was in 1818 that Lamb published the collection of his writings, in two volumes, which contained the well-known "Farewell to Tobacco," written in 1805, and referred to in the letter of that year to Wordsworth quoted above. Its phrases of mingled abuse and affection are familiar to lovers of Lamb.

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