From Chapter 10: The growth of cigar-
smoking was rapid. Mr. Steinmetz, in his book on "Tobacco," published in 1857, remarked that no way of using tobacco had made a more striking advance in England within the preceding twenty years than cigars. For a long time it had been confined in this country to the richer class of
smokers, but when he wrote it was "in universal use." The wonder is that with so many men
smoking cigars the old domestic and club restrictions, as pilloried in Thackeray's pages, were maintained so long. In 1853 Leech had an admirably drawn sketch in
Punch of paterfamilias, in the absence of his wife, giving a little dinner. Beside him sits his small son, and on either side of the table sit two of his cronies. One has a cigar in his hand and is blowing a cloud of smoke, while the other is selecting a "weed." The host is just lighting his cigar as the maid enters with a tray of decanters and glasses, and with disgust written plainly on her face. The objectionable child beside him says—"Lor! Pa, are you going to smoke? My eye! won't you catch it when Ma comes home, for making the curtains smell!"
From Chapter 13: From the evidence so far adduced it may fairly be concluded, I think, that during the seventeenth century
smoking was not fashionable, or indeed anything but rare, among the women of the more well-to-do classes, while among women of humbler rank it was an occasional, and in a few districts a fairly general habit.
The same conclusion holds good for the eighteenth century. Among women of the lowest class
smoking was probably common enough. In Fielding's "Amelia," a woman of the lowest character is spoken of as "
smoking tobacco, drinking punch, talking obscenely and swearing and cursing"—which accomplishments are all carefully noted, because none of them would be applicable to the ordinary respectable female.