Here you can download The Social History of Smoking By George Apperson Pdf book free online – from The Social History of Smoking By George Apperson Pdf book; This is the first attempt to write the history of smoking in this country from the social point of view.
I have tried to confine myself strictly to the changes in the attitude of society towards smoking, and to such historical and social sidelights as serve to illuminate that theme.
The most surprising claim, perhaps, is that of Penzance, for which there is really no evidence at all. Miss Courtney, writing in the Folk-Lore Journal, 1887, says: “There is a myth that Sir Walter Raleigh landed at Penzance Quay when he returned from Virginia, and on it smoked the first tobacco ever seen in England, but for this I do not believe that there is the slightest foundation. Several western ports, both in Devon and Cornwall, make the same boast.” Miss Courtney might have added that Sir Walter never himself visited Virginia at all.
Another place making a similar claim is Hemstridge, on the Somerset and Dorset border. Just before reaching Hemstridge from Milborne Port, at the cross-roads, there is a public-house called the Virginia Inn. There, it is said, according to Mr. Edward Hutton, in his “Highways and Byways in Somerset,” “Sir Walter Raleigh smoked his first pipe of tobacco, and, being discovered by his servant, was drenched with a bucket of water.”