Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 4: Some of the Puritan colonists in America took a strong line on the subject. Under the famous "Blue Laws" of 1650 it was ordered by the General Court of Connecticut that no one under twenty-one was to smoke—"nor any other that hath not already accustomed himself to the use thereof." And no smoker could enjoy his pipe unless he obtained a doctor's certificate that tobacco would be "usefull for him, and allso that he hath received a lycense from the Courte for the same." But the unhappy smoker having passed the doctor and obtained his licence was still harassed by restrictions, for it was ordered that no man within the colony, after the publication of the order, should take any tobacco publicly "in the streett, highwayes, or any barn-yardes, or uppon training dayes, in any open places, under the penalty of six-pence for each offence against this order." The ingenuities of petty tyranny are ineffable. It is said that these "Blue Laws" are not authentic; but if they are not literally true, they are certainly well invented, for most of them can be paralleled and illustrated by laws and regulations of undoubted authenticity.
From Chapter 8: Another famous parson, the Rev. John Newton, was a smoker, and so was Cowper's other clerical friend, that learned and able Dissenter, the Rev. William Bull, whose whole mien and bearing were so dignified that on two occasions he was mistaken for a bishop. Cowper appreciated snuff, but did not care for smoking, and when he wrote to Unwin, describing his new-made friend in terms of admiration, he concluded—"Such a man is Mr. Bull. But—he smokes tobacco. Nothing is perfection 'Nihil est ab omni parte beatum.'" Bull, however, was not excessive in his smoking, for his daily allowance was but three pipes. In his garden at Newport Pagnell, Bull showed Cowper a nook in which he had placed a bench, where he said he found it very refreshing to smoke his pipe and meditate. "Here he sits," wrote Cowper, "with his back against one brick wall, and his nose against another, which must, you know, be very refreshing, and greatly assist meditation."
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