in alehouses or elsewhere, tending to the abetting the common excess.”  Another Lancashire Monthly Meeting, Penketh, under date “18th 8th mo. 1691” suggested that Friends were “not to smoke during their labour or occupation, but to leave their work and take it privately”—­a suggestion which clearly proceeded from non-smokers.  The smug propriety of these recommendations to enjoy a smoke in private is delightful.

At the Quarterly Meeting of Aberdeen Friends in 1692 a “weighty paper containing several heads of solid advyces and Counsells to friends” sent by Irish Quakers, was read.  These counsels abound with amusingly prim suggestions.  Among them is the warning to “take heed of being overcome with strong drink or tobacco, which many by custome are brought into bondag to the creature.”  The Aberdeen Friends themselves a little later were greatly concerned at the increasing indulgence in “superfluous apparell and in vain recreations among the young ones”; and in 1698 they issued a paper dealing in great detail with matters of dress and deportment.  Among a hundred other things treated with minutest particularity, the desire is expressed that “all Idle and needless Smoaking of Tobacco be forborn.”

William Penn did not like tobacco and was often annoyed by it in America.  Clarkson, his biographer, relates that on one occasion Penn called to see some old friends at Burlington, who had been smoking, but who, in consideration for his feelings, had put their pipes away.  Penn smelt the tobacco, and noticing that the pipes were concealed, said, “Well, friends, I am glad that you are at last ashamed of your old practice.”  “Not entirely so,” replied one of the company, “but we preferred laying down our pipes to the danger of offending a weaker brother.”

Many of the tobacco-boxes used in the latter part of the seventeenth century were imported from Holland.  They were long or oval and were usually made of brass.  They can be easily identified by their engraved subjects and Dutch inscriptions.  An example in the Colchester Museum is made of copper and brass, with embossed designs and inscriptions, representing commerce, &c., on the base and lid.  It has engraved on the sides the name and address of its owner—­“Barnabas Barker, Wyvenhoe, Essex.”  The similar boxes later made in England usually had embossed ornamentation.

The local authorities in our eastern counties seem to have had some curious ideas of their own as to where tobacco should or should not be smoked.  In a previous chapter we have seen that at Norwich, ale-house keepers were fined for permitting smoking in their houses.  At Methwold, Suffolk, the folk improved upon this.  The court-books of the manor of Methwold contain the following entry made at a court held on October 4, 1695:  “We agree that any person that is taken smoakeinge tobacco in the street shall forfitt one shillinge for every time so taken, and itt shall be lawfull for the petty constabbles