Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 8:

All's well that ends well; but one cannot help wondering what kind of tobacco it was that the Birmingham tradesman used, a half pipeful of which had such a deadly effect—but perhaps the effect was due to the salt, not to the tobacco.
In the year after that which witnessed Coleridge's adventure, i.e. in 1796, a tobacco-box with a history was the subject of a legal decision. This box, made of common horn and small enough to be carried in the pocket, was bought for fourpence by an overseer of the poor in the time of Queen Anne, and was presented by him in 1713 to the Society of Past Overseers of the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster. In 1720 the Society, in memory of the donor, ornamented the lid with a silver rim; and at intervals thereafter additions were made to an extraordinary extent to the box and its casings. Hogarth engraved within the lid in 1746 a bust of the victor of Culloden. Gradually the horn box was enshrined within one case after another—usually silver lined with velvet—each case bearing inscribed plates commemorating persons or events. A Past Overseer who detained the box in 1793 had to give it back after three years of litigation. A case of octagon shape records the triumph of Justice, and Lord Chancellor Loughborough pronouncing his decree for the restitution of the box on March 5, 1796. In later days many and various additions have been made to the many coverings of the box, recording public events of interest.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 15:

The older tobacconists were wont to assert, says Larwood, that the man in the moon could enjoy his pipe, hence "the 'Man in the Moon' is represented on some of the tobacconists' papers in the Banks Collection puffing like a steam engine, and underneath the words, 'Who'll smoake with ye Man in ye Moone?'" The Dutch, as every one knows, are great smokers, so a Dutchman has been a common figure on tobacconists' signs. In the eighteenth century a common device was three figures representing a Dutchman, a Scotchman and a sailor, explained by the accompanying rhyme:

The bill bearing this sign is in Banks's Collection, 1750. Another in the same collection, with a similar meaning but of more elaborate design, shows the three men, the central figure having his hands in his pockets and in his mouth a pipe from which smoke is rolling. The man on the left advances towards this central figure holding out a pipe, above which is the legend "Voule vous de Rape." Above the middle man is "No dis been better." The third man, on the right, holds out, also towards the central figure, a tobacco-box, above which is the legend "Will you have a quid."

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