Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 3:

Taking the whiff, it has been suggested, may have been either a swallowing of the smoke, or a retaining it in the throat for a given space of time; but what may be meant by the "Cuban ebolition" or the "euripus" is perhaps best left to the imagination. "Ebolition" is simply a variant of "ebullition," and "ebullition," as applied with burlesque intent to rapid smoking—the vapour bubbling rapidly from the pipe-bowl—is intelligible enough, but why Cuban? "Euripus" was the name, in ancient geography, of the channel between Eubœa (Negropont) and the mainland—a passage which was celebrated for the violence and uncertainty of its currents—and hence the name was occasionally applied by our older writers to any strait or sea-channel having like characteristics. The use of the word in connexion with tobacco may, like that of "ebolition," have some reference to furious smoking, but the meaning is not clear.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 2:

The rich young gallant carried about with him his tobacco apparatus (often of gold or silver) in the form of tobacco-box, tobacco-tongs—wherewith to lift a live coal to light his pipe, ladle "for the cold snuffe into the nosthrill," and priming-iron. Sometimes the tobacco-box was of ivory; and occasionally a gallant would have looking-glass set in his box, so that when he took it out to obtain tobacco, he could at the same time have a view of his own delectable person. When our gallant went to dine at the ordinary, according to the custom of the time, he brought out these possessions, and smoked while the dinner was being served. Before dinner, after taking a few turns up and down Paul's Walk in the old cathedral, he might look into the booksellers' shops, and, pipe in mouth, inquire for the most recent attack upon the "divine weed"—the contemporary tobacco literature was abundant—or drop into an apothecary's, which was usually a tobacco-shop also, and there meet his fellow-smokers.

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