Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/206

186 But if the amusement of theatre-going owes its origin to this period, there is another important addition to the social lives of our forefathers. The habit of smoking dates from the sixteenth century. The story of its introduction from the New World is too well known to repeat, but the process is quaintly described by a contemporary. "In these days (1573)," he says, "the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herb called Tabaco by an instrument formed like a little ladle, whereby it passeth from the mouth into the head and stomach, is greatly taken up and used in England against rheums and some other diseases engendered in the lungs and inward parts, and not without effect." Though used at first as a drug and for medicinal purposes. Sir Walter Raleigh made it fashionable, till to "take" tobacco soon became a necessary part of a gentleman's education. "They have pipes on purpose made of clay," says a foreigner, "into the farthest end of which they put the dry herb, so that it may be rubbed into powder, and, lighting it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils like funnels." For some time smoking was an expensive luxury, for tobacco cost as much as 18s. an ounce in modern