The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1916-08-12
Then you'll find some
savory whifs Of fact in
this article-Social history
Of the divine weed"

Il y II
IliUJ wooers of Lady NicOtin
E have seen floating in the gel
49, ial vapor which curls uI
ward from their pipes ant
cigars, says the St Louis POst-Dis
patch; but none of them could have
more fascination than the quaint ant
! curious lore upon the subject OF the
weed which has been compiled by al
4 English writer, G. L. Apperson, and
published under the inviting title OF
! The Social History Of Smoking"
Everyone knows that tobacco was
one OF the gifts of the New World to
the Old, and that Sir Walter Raleigh
made smoking fashionable in England
in the days Of Queen Elizabeth For
the next so years the smoking of pipes
not only became general among all
| classes, but thing Of highest fashion.
held in the light of an art. In those
days 1t was not said that man smoked
tobacco, but that he drank" or
sucked tobacco; and the smoker
was called ''tobacconist" The gal
liant Of those days had no hesitation
about smoking in the presence of
women, and character in Chapman S
play, 'All Fools praises himself as
different from others:
And for discourse in my fair mis-
tress' presence
| did not. as your barren gallants do.
FIJI my discourses up drinking tobac-
CO."
One of the strangest things about
shakespeare works, says the author,
is the fact that nowhere does he men
lion the word tobacco. The conclu-
sion is drawn that Shakespeare did
not smoke. His contemporaries. Spen-
Ger and Ben JonsOn are different.
Spencer invoked the plant as Soy
eraigne weede, divine tobacco" and
from Jonson's comedies can be gath
cred a perfect compendium of to-
baccO drinking" as one of the most
important social phenomena of the
age. He reveals that a singular fea-
ture of the enthusiasm for tobacco
in the early years of the seventeenth
century was the existence OF pro
fessors Of the art Of smoking.
The tobacco sellers were mostly
apothecarieS and some of these took
pupils and taught them the Sights"
as tricks with the pipe werc called.
These included inhaling, and sending
out the smoke in globes, rings, and so
forth. Shift, professor of the art in
Jonson's Every Man Out Of His HUI
NOR" puts up bill in st. Paul's in
which he offers to teach any young
gentleman newly come into his in
heritance ito entertain the most gen.
give it the most exquisite perfume;
then to know all the delicate sweet
forms for the assumption of It; as
also the rare corollary and practice of
the Cuban ebolition, euripus and Whit.
which he shall receive, or take in here
at London and evaporate at Uxbridge,
or farther, IL it please him.
Taking the Whit" says the author,
may have been either a swallowing
Of the smoke, or a retaining it in the
throat for given space of time; but
what he meant by Cuban ebolirion'
or 'euripus is perhaps best left to
The imagination.
II one contemporary writer may be
believed, some of these early instruc-
tors in smoking professed to be able |
10 teach the secret of emitting smoke |
not only from the nose but from the |
ears; but healthy skepticism is per-
nitted here.
There is a tradition that Queen |
Elizabeth herself once smoked-with |
unpleasant results. Campbell. in his
History of Virginia" says that !
Raleigh having offered her majesty
some tobacco to smoke. after two
Or three whiffs she was seized with
nausea, upon observing which some OF
he earl Of Leiscester's faction whis-
oered that Sir Walter had certainly
poisoned her. But her majesty, in a
short while recovering, made the coun-
ess of Nottingham and all her maids
'moke whole pipe out among them"
The queen evidently had no desire
o monopOlize the novel sensation
,aused by smoking An old writer,
n Life of Raleigh" says that tobac-
% soon became of such vogue In
Queen Elizabeth's court that some of
he great ladies. as well as noblemen
herein would not scruple sometimes
o take pipe very socially"
Many royal ladies Of our time have
lad the reputation OF being confirmed
mokers, says Apperson. Among them
nay be mentioned Carmen Sylvia,
owager queen Of Roumania, the Dow
ger Tzarfna Of Russia, the late EN-.