XIV

For thy sake, TOBACCO, IWould do anything but die.

Charles Lamb,A Farewell to Tobacco.

The use of tobacco in churches forms a curious if short chapter in the social history of smoking. The earliest reference to such a practice occurs in 1590, when Pope Innocent XII excommunicated all such persons as were found taking snuff or using tobacco in any form in the church of St. Peter, at Rome; and again in 1624, Pope Urban VIII issued a bull against the use of tobacco in churches.

In England it would seem as if some of the early smokers, in the fulness of their enthusiasm for the new indulgence, went so far as to smoke in church. When King James I was about to visit Cambridge, the Vice-Chancellor of the University put forth sundry regulations in connexion with the royal visit, in which may be found the following passage: "That noe Graduate, Scholler, or Student of this Universitie presume to resort to any Inn, Taverne, Alehowse, or Tobacco-Shop at any tyme dureing the aboade of his Majestie here; nor doe presume to take tobacco in St. Marie's Church, or in Trinity Colledge Hall, uppon payne of finall expellinge the Universitie."

Evidently the intention was to make things pleasant for the royal foe of tobacco during his visit. It would appear to be a fair inference from the wording of this prohibition that when the King was not at Cambridge, graduates and scholars and students could resume their liberty to resort to inns, taverns, ale-houses and tobacco-shops, and presumably to take tobacco in St. Mary's Church, without question.

The prohibition, in the regulation quoted, of smoking in St. Mary's Church, referred, it may be noted, to the Act which was held therein. Candidates for degrees, or graduates to display their proficiency, publicly maintained theses; and this performance was termed keeping or holding an Act.

It is, of course, conceivable that the prohibition, so far as the church and Trinity College Hall were concerned, was against the taking of snuff rather than against smoking; but the phrase "to take tobacco" was at that time quite commonly applied to smoking, and, considering the extraordinary and immoderate use of tobacco soon after its introduction, it is not in the least incredible that pipes were lighted, at least occasionally, even in sacred buildings.

Sometimes tobacco was used in church for disinfecting or deodorizing purposes. The churchwardens' accounts of St. Peter's, Barnstaple, for 1741 contain the entry: "Pd. for Tobacco and Frankincense burnt in the Church 2s.6d." Sprigs of juniper, pitch, and "sweete wood," in combination with incense, were often used for the same purpose.

Smoking, it may safely be asserted, was never practised commonly in English churches. Even in our own day people have been observed smoking—not during service time, but in passing through thebuilding—in church in some of the South American States, and nearer home in Holland; but in England such desecration has been occasional only, and quite exceptional.

One need not be much surprised at any instance of lack of reverence in English churches during the eighteenth century, and a few instances can be given of church smoking in that era.

Blackburn, Archbishop of York, was a great smoker. On one occasion he was at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, for a confirmation. The story of what happened was told long afterwards in a letter written in December 1773 by John Disney, rector of Swinderby, Lincolnshire, the grandson of the Mr. Disney who at the time of the Archbishop's visit to St. Mary's was incumbent of that church. This letter was addressed to James Granger, and was published in Granger's correspondence. "The anecdote which you mention," wrote the Mr. Disney of Swinderby, "is, I believe, unquestionably true. The affair happened in St. Mary's Church at Nottingham, when Archbishop Blackbourn (of York) was there on a visitation. The Archbishop had ordered some of the apparitors, or other attendants, to bring him pipes and tobacco, and some liquor into the vestry for his refreshment after the fatigue of confirmation. And this coming to Mr. Disney's ears, he forbad them being brought thither, and with a becoming spirit remonstrated with the Archbishop upon the impropriety of his conduct, at the same time telling his Grace that his vestry should not be converted into a smoking-room."

Another eighteenth-century clerical worthy, the famous Dr. Parr, an inveterate smoker, was accustomed to do what Mr. Disney prevented ArchbishopBlackburn from doing—he smoked in his vestry at Hatton. This he did before the sermon, while the congregation were singing a hymn, and apparently both parties were pleased, for Parr would say: "My people like long hymns; but I prefer a long clay."

Robert Hall, the famous Baptist preacher, having once upon a time strongly denounced smoking as an "odious custom," learned to smoke himself as a result of his acquaintance with Dr. Parr. Parr was such a continual smoker that anyone who came into his company, if he had never smoked before, had to learn the use of a pipe as a means of self-defence. Hall, who became a heavy smoker, is said to have smoked in his vestry at intervals in the service. He probably found some relief in tobacco from the severe internal pains with which for many years he was afflicted.

Mr. Ditchfield, in his entertaining book on "The Parish Clerk," tells a story of a Lincolnshire curate who was a great smoker, and who, like Parr, was accustomed to retire to the vestry before the sermon and there smoke a pipe while the congregation sang a psalm. "One Sunday," says Mr. Ditchfield, "he had an extra pipe, and Joshua (the clerk) told him that the people were getting impatient.

"'Let them sing another psalm,' said the curate.

"'They have, sir,' replied the clerk.

"'Then let them sing the hundred and nineteenth,' replied the curate.

"At last he finished his pipe, and began to put on the black gown, but its folds were troublesome and he could not get it on.

"'I think the devil's in the gown,' muttered the curate.

"'I think he be,' dryly replied old Joshua."

The same writer, in his companion volume on "The Old Time Parson," mentions that the Vicar of Codrington in 1692 found that it was actually customary for people to play cards on the Communion Table, and that "when they chose the churchwardens they used to sit in the Sanctuary smoking and drinking, the clerk gravely saying, with a pipe in his mouth, that such had been their custom for the last sixty years."

Although probably the conduct of the Codrington parishioners was unusual, it is certain that in the seventeenth century smoking at meetings held, not in the church itself, but in the vestry, was common. The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary, Leicester, 1665-6, record the expenditure—"In beer and tobacco from first to last 7s.10d." In those of St. Alphege, London Wall, for 1671, there are the entries—"For Pipes and Tobaccoe in the Vestry 2s.," and "For a grosse of pipes at severall times 2s." In the next century, however, the practice was modified. The St. Alphege accounts for 1739 have the entry—"Ordered that there be no Smoaking nor Drinking for the future in the Vestry Room during the time business is doing on pain of forfeiting one shilling, Assention Day excepted." From this it would seem fair to infer (1) that there was no objection to the lighting of pipes in the vestry after the business of the meeting had been transacted; and (2) that on Ascension Day for some inscrutable reason there was no prohibition at all of "Smoaking and Drinking."

Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember in "The Heart of Midlothian" one curious instance of eighteenth-century smoking in church—in a Scottish Presbyterian church, too. Jeanie Deans's belovedReuben Butler was about to be ordained to the charge of the parish of Knocktarlitie, Dumbartonshire; the congregation were duly seated, after prayers, douce David Deans occupying a seat among the elders, and the officiating minister had read his text preparatory to the delivery of his hour and a quarter sermon. The redoubtable Duncan of Knockdunder was making his preparations also for the sermon. "After rummaging the leathern purse which hung in front of his petticoat, he produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed almost aloud, 'I hae forgotten my spleuchan—Lachlan, gang doon to the Clachan, and bring me up a pennyworth of twist.' Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with an obedient start, as many tobacco-pouches to the man of office. He made choice of one with a nod of acknowledgment, filled his pipe, lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, and smoked with infinite composure during the whole time of the sermon. When the discourse was finished, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, replaced it in his sporran, returned the tobacco-pouch or spleuchan to its owner, and joined in the prayers with decency and attention." David Deans, however, did not at all approve this irreverence. "It didna become a wild Indian," he said, "much less a Christian and a gentleman, to sit in the kirk puffing tobacco-reek, as if he were in a change-house." The date of the incident was 1737; but whether Sir Walter had any authority in fact for this characteristic performance of Knockdunder, or not, it is certain that any such occurrence in a Scottish kirk must have been extremely rare.

Knockdunder's pipe, according to Scott, was made of iron. This was an infrequent material fortobacco-pipes, but there are a few examples in museums. In the Belfast Museum there is a cast iron tobacco-pipe about eighteen inches long. With it are shown another, very short, also of cast iron, the bowl of a brass pipe, and a pipe, about six inches in length, made of sheet iron.

Another eighteenth-century instance of smoking in church, taken from historical fact and not from fiction, is associated with the church of Hayes, in Middlesex. The parish registers of that village bear witness to repeated disputes between the parson and bell-ringers and the parishioners generally in 1748-1754. In 1752 it was noted that a sermon had been preached after a funeral "to a noisy congregation." On another occasion, says the register, "the ringers and other inhabitants disturbed the service from the beginning of prayers to the end of the sermon, by ringing the bells, and going into the gallery to spit below"; while at yet another time "a fellow came into church with a pot of beer and a pipe," and remained "smoking in his own pew until the end of the sermon." Going to church at Hayes in those days must have been quite an exciting experience. No one knew what might happen next.

In remote English and Welsh parishes men seem occasionally to have smoked in churches without any intention of being irreverent, and without any consciousness that they were doing anything unusual. Canon Atkinson, in his delightful book "Forty Years in a Moorland Parish," tells how, when he first went to Danby in Cleveland—then very remote from the great world—and had to take his first funeral, he found inside the church the parish clerk, who was also parish schoolmaster by the way, sitting in the sunnyembrasure of the west window with his hat on and comfortably smoking his pipe. A correspondent of theTimesin 1895 mentioned that his mother had told him how she remembered seeing smoking in a Welsh church about 1850—"The Communion table stood in the aisle, and the farmers were in the habit of putting their hats upon it, and when the sermon began they lit their pipes and smoked, but without any idea of irreverence." In an Essex church about 1861, a visitor had pointed out to him various nooks in the gallery where short pipes were stowed away, which he was informed the old men smoked during service; and several of the pews in the body of the church contained triangular wooden spittoons filled with sawdust.

A clergyman has put it on record that when he went in 1873 as curate-in-charge to an out-of-the-way Norfolk village, at his first early celebration he arrived in church about 7.45A.M., and, he says, "to my amazement saw five old men sitting round the stove in the nave with their hats on, smoking their pipes. I expostulated with them quite quietly, but they left the church before service and never came again. I discovered afterwards that they had been regular communicants, and that my predecessor always distributed the offertory to the poor present immediately after the service. When these men, in the course of my remonstrance found that I was not going to continue the custom, they no longer cared to be communicants."

Nowadays, if smoking takes place in church at all, it can only be done with intentional irreverence; and it is painful to think that even at the present day there are people in whom a feeling of reverence and decencyis so far lacking as to lead them to desecrate places of worship. The Vicar of Lancaster, at his Easter vestry meeting in 1913, complained of bank-holiday visitors to the parish church who ate their lunch, smoked, and wore their hats while looking round the building. It is absurd to suppose that these people were unconscious of the impropriety of their conduct.

"I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals."Addison,Spectator, April 2, 1711.

"I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals."

Addison,Spectator, April 2, 1711.

Shop-signs were one of the most conspicuous features of the streets of old London. In days when the numbering of houses was unknown, the use of signs was indispensable for identification; and greatly must they have contributed to the quaint and picturesque appearance of the streets. Some projected far over the narrow roadway—competition to attract attention and custom is no modern novelty—some were fastened to posts or pillars in front of the houses. By the time of Charles II the overhanging signs had become a nuisance and a danger, and in the seventh year of that King's reign an Act was passed providing that no sign should hang across the street, but that all should be fixed to the balconies or fronts or sides of houses. This Act was not strictly obeyed; and large numbers of signs were hung over the doors, while many others were affixed to the fronts of the houses. Eventually, in the second half of the eighteenth century, signs gradually disappeared and the streets were numbered. There were occasional survivals which are to be found to this day, such asthe barber's pole, accompanied sometimes by the brass basin of the barber-surgeon, the glorified canister of a grocer or the golden leg of a hosier; and inn signs have never failed us; but by the close of the eighteenth century most of the old trade signs which flaunted themselves in the streets had disappeared.

The sellers of tobacco naturally hung out their signs like other tradesfolk. Signs in their early days were, no doubt, chosen to intimate the trades of those who used them, and in the easy-going old-fashioned days when it was considered the right and natural thing for a son to be brought up to his father's trade and to succeed him therein, they long remained appropriate and intelligible. Later, as we shall see, they became meaningless in many cases. But in the days when tobacco-smoking first came into vogue, the signs chosen naturally had some reference to the trade they indicated, and one of the earliest used was the sign of the "Black Boy," in allusion to the association of the negro with tobacco cultivation. The "Black Boy" existed as a shop-sign before tobacco's triumph, for Henry Machyn in his "Diary," so early as December 30, 1562, mentions a goldsmith "dwellying at the sene of the Blake Boy, in the Cheep"; but the early sellers of tobacco soon fastened on this appropriate sign. The earliest reference to such use may be found in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, where, in the first scene, Humphrey Waspe says: "I thought he would have run mad o' the Black Boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there." Later, the "Black Boy," like other once significant signs, became meaningless and was used in connexion with various trades. Early in the eighteenth century a bookseller at thesign of the "Black Boy" on London Bridge was advertising Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"; another bookseller traded at the "Black Boy" in Paternoster Row in 1712. Linendrapers, hatters, pawnbrokers and other tradesmen all used the same sign at various dates in the eighteenth century. But side by side with this indiscriminate and unnecessary use of the sign there existed a continuous association of the "Black Boy" with the tobacco trade. A tobacconist named Milward lived at the "Black Boy" in Redcross Street, Barbican, in 1742; and many old tobacco papers show a black boy, or sometimes two, smoking. Mr. Holden MacMichael, in his papers on "The London Signs" says: "Mrs. Skinner, of the old-established tobacconist's opposite the Law Courts in the Strand, possessed, about the year 1890, two signs of the 'Black Boy,' appertaining, no doubt, to the old house of Messrs. Skinner's on Holborn Hill, of the front of which there is an illustration in the Archer Collection in the Print Department of the British Museum, where the black boy and tobacco-rolls are depicted outside the premises." The "Black Boy," indeed, continued in use by tobacconists until the nineteenth century was well advanced. A tobacconist had a shop "uppon Wapping Wall" in 1667 at the sign of the "Black Boy and Pelican."

Other significant early tobacconists' signs were "Sir Walter Raleigh," "The Virginian" and "The Tobacco Roll." "Sir Walter," as the reputed introducer of tobacco, was naturally chosen as a sign, and his portrait adorns several shop-bills in the Banks Collection. The American Indians, represented under the figure of "The Virginian," and the negroes were hopelessly confused by the early tobacconists, withresults which were sometimes surprising from an ethnological point of view. As the first tobacco imported into this country came from Virginia, a supposed "Virginian" was naturally adopted as a tobacco-seller's sign at an early date. An "Indian" or a "Negro" or a figure which was a combination of both, was commonly represented wearing a kilt or a girdle of tobacco leaves, a feathered head-dress, and smoking a pipe. A tobacco-paper, dating from about the time of Queen Anne, bears rudely engraved the figure of a negro smoking, and holding a roll of tobacco in his hand. Above his head is a crown; behind are two ships in full sail, with the sun just appearing from the right-hand corner above. The foreground shows four little black boys planting and packing tobacco, and below them is the name of the ingenious tradesman—"John Winkley, Tobacconist, near ye Bridge, in the Burrough, Southwark." Sixty years or so ago a wooden figure, representing a negro with a gilt loin-cloth and band with feathered head, and sometimes with a tobacco roll, was still a frequent ornament of tobacconists' shops.

The "Tobacco Roll," either alone or in various combinations, was one of the commonest of early tobacconists' signs, and was in constant use for a couple of centuries. It may still be occasionally seen at the present time in the form of the "twist" with alternate brown or black and yellow coils, which up to quite a recent date was a tolerably frequent adornment of tobacconists' shops, but is now rare. This roll represented what was called spun or twist tobacco. Dekker, in James I's time, speaks of roll tobacco. The youngster who mimics the stage-gallants in Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels" as describedin Chapter II (ante; page 31), says that he has "three sorts of tobacco in his pocket," which probably means that it was customary to mix for smoking purposes tobacco of the three usual kinds—roll (or pudding), leaf and cane. One would have thought that a representation of the tobacco plant itself would have been a more natural and comprehensive sign than one particular preparation of the herb, yet representations of the plant were rare, while those of the compressed tobacco known as pudding or roll in the form of a "Tobacco Roll," as described above, were very frequently used as signs.

From the examples given in Burn's "Descriptive Catalogue of London Tokens" of the seventeenth century, it is clear that the "Tobacco Roll" was a warm favourite. "Three Tobacco Rolls" was also used as a sign. In 1732 there was a "Tobacco Roll" in Finch Lane, on the north side of Cornhill, "over against the Swan and Rummer Tavern." In 1766, Mrs. Flight, tobacconist, carried on her business at the "Tobacco Roll. Next door but one to St. Christopher's Church, Threadneedle Street."

The shop-bill of Richard Lee, who sold tobacco about 1730 "at Ye Golden Tobacco Roll in Panton Street near Leicester Fields," is an elaborate production. Hogarth in the earlier period of his career as an engraver engraved many shop-bills, and this particular bill is usually attributed to him, though the attribution has been disputed. There is a copy of the bill in the British Museum, and in the catalogue of the prints and drawings in the National Collection Mr. Stephens thus describes it: "It is an oblong enclosing an oval, the spandrels being occupied by leaves of the tobacco plant tied in bundles; theabove title (Richard Lee at Ye Golden Tobacco Roll in Panton Street near Leicester Fields) is on a frame which encloses the oval. Within the latter the design represents the interior of a room, with ten gentlemen gathered near a round table on which is a bowl of punch; several of the gentlemen are smoking tobacco in long pipes; one of them stands up on our right and vomits; another, who is intoxicated, lies on the floor by the side of a chair; a fire of wood burns in the grate; on the wall hangs two pictures ... three men's hats hang on pegs on the wall." Altogether this is an interesting and suggestive design, but hardly in the taste likely to commend itself to present day tradesmen.

A roll of tobacco, it may be noted, was a common form of payment to the Fleet parsons for their scoundrelly services. Pennant, writing in 1791, describes how these men hung out their frequent signs of a male and female hand conjoined, with the legend written below: "Marriages performed within." Before his shop walked the parson—"a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin, or roll of tobacco."

Combinations of the roll in tobacconists' signs occur occasionally. In 1660 there was a "Tobacco Roll and Sugar Loaf" at Gray's Inn Gate, Holborn. In 1659 James Barnes issued a farthing token from the "Sugar Loaf and Three Tobacco Rolls" in the Poultry, London. The "Sugar Loaf" was the principal grocer's sign, and so when it is found in combination with the tobacco roll at this time it may reasonably be assumed that the proprietor of the business was a grocer who was also a tobacconist.

Before the end of the seventeenth century, however, the signs were ceasing to have any necessary association with the trade carried on under them, and tobacconists are found with shop-signs which had no reference in any way to tobacco. For instance, to take a few examples from the late Mr. Hilton Price's lists of "Signs of Old London" from Cheapside and adjacent streets, in 1695 John Arundell, tobacconist, was at the "White Horse," Wood Street; in the same year J. Mumford, tobacconist, was at the "Faulcon," Laurence Lane; in 1699 Mr. Brutton, tobacconist, was to be found at the "Three Crowns," under the Royal Exchange; in 1702 Richard Bronas, tobacconist, was at the "Horse Shoe," Bread Street; and in 1766 Mr. Hoppie, of the "Oil Jar: Old Change, Watling Street End," advertised that he "sold a newly invented phosphorus powder for lighting pipes quickly in about half a minute. Ask for a Bottle of Thunder Powder."

Again, in Fleet Street, Mr. Townsend, tobacconist, traded in 1672 at the "Three Golden Balls," near St. Dunstan's Church; while at the end of Fetter Lane, a few years later, John Newland, tobacconist, was to be found at the "King's Head."

Addison, in the twenty-eighthSpectator, April 2, 1711, took note of the severance which had taken place between sign and trade, and of the absurdity that the sign no longer had any significance. After satirizing first, the monstrous conjunctions in signs of "Dog and Gridiron," "Cat and Fiddle" and so forth; and next the absurd custom by which young tradesmen, at their first starting in business, added their own signs to those of the masters under whom they had served their apprenticeship; the essayistgoes on to say: "In the third place I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconsistent than to see ... a tailor at the Lion? A cook should not live at the Boot, nor a Shoe-maker at the Roasted Pig; and yet for want of this regulation, I have seen a Goat set up before the door of a perfumer, and the French King's Head at a sword-cutler's."

Notwithstanding the few examples given above, tobacconists, more than most tradesmen, seem to have continued to use signs that had at least some relevance to their trade. Abel Drugger was a "tobacco-man,"i.e.a tobacco-seller in Ben Jonson's play of "The Alchemist," 1610, so that it is not very surprising to find the name used occasionally as a tobacconist's sign. Towards the end of the eighteenth century one Peter Cockburn traded as a tobacconist at the sign of the "Abel Drugger" in Fenchurch Street, and informed the public on the advertising papers in which he wrapped up his tobacco for customers that he had formerly been shopman at the Sir Roger de Coverley—a notice which has preserved the name of another tobacconist's sign borrowed from literature. Seventeenth—century London signs were the "Three Tobacco Pipes," "Two Tobacco Pipes" crossed, and "Five Tobacco Pipes." At Edinburgh in the eighteenth century there were tobacconists who used two pipes crossed, a roll of tobacco and two leaves over two crossed pipes, and a roll of tobacco and three leaves.

The older tobacconists were wont to assert, says Larwood, that the man in the moon could enjoy his pipe, hence "the 'Man in the Moon' is representedon some of the tobacconists' papers in the Banks Collection puffing like a steam engine, and underneath the words, 'Who'll smoake with ye Man in ye Moone?'" The Dutch, as every one knows, are great smokers, so a Dutchman has been a common figure on tobacconists' signs. In the eighteenth century a common device was three figures representing a Dutchman, a Scotchman and a sailor, explained by the accompanying rhyme:

We three are engaged in one cause,I snuffs, I smokes, and I chaws!

Larwood says that a tobacconist in the Kingsland Road had the three men on his sign, but with a different legend:

This Indian weed is good indeed,Puff on, keep up the joke'Tis the best, 'twill stand the test,Either to chew or smoke.

The bill bearing this sign is in Banks's Collection, 1750. Another in the same collection, with a similar meaning but of more elaborate design, shows the three men, the central figure having his hands in his pockets and in his mouth a pipe from which smoke is rolling. The man on the left advances towards this central figure holding out a pipe, above which is the legend "Voule vous de Rape." Above the middle man is "No dis been better." The third man, on the right, holds out, also towards the central figure, a tobacco-box, above which is the legend "Will you have a quid."

A frequent sign-device among dealers in snuff was the Crown and Rasp. The oldest method of taking snuff, says Larwood, in the "History of Signboards,"was "to scrape it with a rasp from the dry root of the tobacco plant; the powder was then placed on the back of the hand and so snuffed up; hence the name ofrâpé(rasped) for a kind of snuff, and the common tobacconist's sign of La Carotte d'or (the golden root) in France."Râpébecame in English "rappee," familiar in snuff-taking days as the name for a coarse kind of snuff made from the darker and ranker tobacco leaves. The list of prices and names given by Wimble, a snuff-seller, about 1740, and printed in Fairholt's "History of Tobacco," contains eighteen different kinds of rappee—English, best English, fine English, high-flavoured coarse, low, scented, composite, &c. The rasps for obtaining thisrâpé, continues Larwood, "were carried in the waistcoat pocket, and soon became articles of luxury, being carved in ivory and variously enriched. Some of them, in ivory and inlaid wood, may be seen at the Hotel Cluny in Paris, and an engraving of such an object occurs in 'Archæologia,' vol. xiii. One of the first snuff-boxes was the so-calledrâpéorgrivoisebox, at the back of which was a little space for a piece of the root, whilst a small iron rasp was contained in the middle. When a pinch was wanted, the root was drawn a few times over the iron rasp, and so the snuff was produced and could be offered to a friend with much more grace than under the above-mentioned process with the pocket-grater."

The tobacconists' sign that for very many years was in most general use was the figure of a highlander, which may still perhaps be found in one or two places, but which was not at all an unusual sight in the streets of London and other towns some forty or fifty years ago. Most men of middle age can rememberwhen the snuff-taking highlander was the usual ornament to the entrance of a tobacconist's shop; but all have disappeared from London streets save two—I say two on the authority of Mr. E.V. Lucas, who gives it (in his "Wanderer in London") as the number of the survivors; but only one is known to me. This is the famous old wooden highlander which stood for more than a hundred years on guard at a tobacconist's shop in Tottenham Court Road. About the end of 1906 it was announced that the shop was to be demolished, and that the time-worn figure was for sale. The announcement created no small stir, and it was said that the offers for the highlander ran up to a surprising figure. He was bought ultimately by a neighbouring furnishing firm, and now stands on duty not far from his ancient post, though no passer-by can help feeling the incongruity between the time-honoured emblem of the snuff-taker and his present surroundings of linoleum "and sich."

Where Mr. Lucas's second survivor may be is unknown to me. Not so many years ago a wooden highlander, as a tobacconist's sign, was a conspicuous figure in Knightsbridge, and there was another in the Westminster Bridge Road; buttempus edax rerumhas consumed them with all their brethren. In a few provincial towns a wooden highlander may still be found at the door of tobacco shops, but they are probably destined to early disappearance. In 1907 one still stood guard—a tall figure in full costume—outside a tobacconist's shop in Cheltenham, and may still be there. There is a highlander of oak in the costume of the Black Watch still standing, I believe, in the doorway of a tobacco shop at St. Heliers, Jersey. It is traditionally said to have beenoriginally the figure-head of a war vessel which was wrecked on the Alderney coast. Another survivor may be seen at the door of a shop belonging to Messrs. Churchman, tobacco manufacturers, in Westgate Street, Ipswich. A correspondent of "Notes and Queries" describes it as a very fine specimen in excellent condition, and adds: "Mr. W. Churchman informs me that it belonged to his grandfather, who established the business in Ipswich in 1790, and he believed it was quite 'a hundred' year old at that time."

One of the earliest known examples of these highlanders as tobacconists' signs is that which was placed at the door of a shop in Coventry Street which was opened in 1720 under the sign of "The Highlander, Thistle and Crown." This is said to have been a favourite place of resort of the Jacobites. In his "Nicotine and its Rariora," Mr. A.M. Broadley gives the card, dated 1765, of "William Kebb, at ye Highlander ye corner of Pall Mall, facing St. James's, Haymarket," and says that the highlander was a favourite tobacconist's sign for 200 years. I have been unable, however, to find evidence of such a prolonged period of favour. I know of no certain seventeenth-century reference to the highlander as a tobacconist's sign.

The figure was usually made with a snuff mull in his hand—the highlander being always credited with a great love and a great capacity for snuff-taking. But one curious example was furnished, not only with a mull but with a bat-like implement of unknown use. Mr. Arthur Denman, F.S.A., writing inNotes and Queries, April 17, 1909, said: "I have a very neat little, genuine specimen of the old tobacconist's signof a 42nd Highlander with his 'mull.' It is 3 ft. 6 in. high, and it differs from those usually met with in that under the left arm is an implement almost exactly like a cricket-bat. This bat has a gilt knob to the handle, and on the shoulder of it are three chevrons in gold, without doubt a sergeant's stripes. On the exposed side of the bat is what would appear to represent a loose strip of wood. This strip is nearly one-third of the width of the instrument, and extends up the middle about two-fifths of the length of the body of it. I can only guess that the bat was, at some time, primarily, an emblem of a sergeant's office, and, secondarily, used for the infliction of chastisement on clumsy or disorderly recruits; and perhaps it was equivalent to thePrügelof German armies, with which sergeants drove lagging warriors into the fray. But is there any record of such an accoutrement as being that of a sergeant in the British army? and what was the purpose of the loose strip, unless it was to cause the blow administered to resound as much as to hurt, as does the wand of Harlequin in a booth."

These questions received no answers from the learned correspondents of the most useful and omniscient of weekly papers. Personally, I much doubt Mr. Denman's suggested explanations of his highlander's curious implement. There is no evidence that a sergeant in the British army ever carried a cricket-bat-like implement either as a sign of office or to be used for disciplinary or punitive purposes like the canes of the German sergeants of long ago. It would seem to be more likely that this particular figure was of unusual, perhaps unique, make, and had some special local or individual significance, whereveror for whom it was first made and used, which has now been forgotten.

After the suppression of the Jacobite uprising of 1745, the English Government made war on Scottish nationality, and among other measures the wearing of the highland dress was forbidden by Parliament. On this occasion the following paragraph appeared in the newspapers of the time: "We hear that the dapper wooden Highlanders, who guard so heroically the doors of snuff-shops, intend to petition the Legislature, in order that they may be excused from complying with the Act of Parliament with regard to their change of dress: alledging that they have ever been faithful subjects to his Majesty, having constantly supplied his Guards with a pinch out of their Mulls when they marched by them, and so far from engaging in any Rebellion, that they have never entertained a rebellious thought; whence they humbly hope that they shall not be put to the expense of buying new cloaths." This is not a very humorous production, but at least it bears witness to the common occurrence in 1746 of the highlander's figure at the shops of snuff and tobacco-sellers.

The highlander, as he existed within living memory at many shop doors, and as he still exists at a few, was and is the survivor of many similar wooden figures as trade signs. The wooden figure of a negro or "Indian" with gilt loin-cloth and feathered head, has already been mentioned as an old tobacconist's sign. In early Georgian days a tobacconist named John Bowden, who dealt in all kinds of snuff, and also in "Aloe, Pigtail, and Wild Tobacco; with all sortsof perfumer's goods, wholesale and retail," traded at the sign of "The Highlander and Black Boy" in Threadneedle Street, London. At York, in this present year, 1914, I came upon a brightly painted wooden figure of Napoleon in full uniform and snuff-box in hand, standing at the door of a small tobacco-shop. Another class of sign or emblem was represented by the "wooden midshipman," which many of us have seen in Leadenhall Street, and which Dickens made famous in "Dombey and Son." Sometimes the wooden figure of a sailor stood outside public-houses with such signs as "The Jolly Sailor"; and a black doll was long a familiar token of the loathly shop kept by the tradesmen mysteriously known as Marine Store Dealers. Images of this kind sometimes stood at the door, or in many cases were placed on brackets or swung from the lintels.

Sir Walter Scott said that in London a Scotchman would walk half a mile farther to purchase his ounce of snuff where the sign of the Highlander announced a North Briton.

Dickens's little figure, which adorned old Sol Gills's shop, "thrust itself out above the pavement, right leg foremost," with shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat very much unlike the real thing, and "bore at its right eye the most offensively disproportionate piece of machinery." But this was only one of many "little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the shop-doors of nautical instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney-coaches." All have disappeared, together with the black dolls of the rag shops and many otherold-time figures. A stray highlander or two, or other figure, may survive here and there; but with very few exceptions indeed, the once abundant tobacconists' signs have disappeared from our streets as completely as the emblems and tokens of other trades.

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