Discount Menthol Cigarettes -

From Chapter 2:
Ben Jonson has given us an amusing picture of the behaviour of gallants on the Elizabethan stage, in his "Cynthia's Revels." In this scene a child thus mimics the obtrusive beau: "Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in (having paid my money at the door, with much ado), and here I take my place, and sit downe. I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin. 'By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here—they do act like so many wrens—not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all—and then their musick is abominable—able to stretch a man's ears worse than ten—pillories, and their ditties—most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them—poets. By this vapour—an't were not for tobacco—I think—the very smell of them would poison me, I should not dare to come in at their gates. A man were better visit fifteen jails—or a dozen or two hospitals—than once adventure to come near them.'" And the young rascal, who at each pause marked by a dash had puffed his pipe, no doubt blowing an extra large "cloud" when he swore "by this vapour," turns to his companions and says: "How is't? Well?" and they pronounce his mimicry "Excellent!"

From Chapter 7:
The satirist wrote truly that after all the fashionable abstainers had been deducted, crowds remained, who smoked as heartily as their predecessors of a century earlier. The populace was still on the side of tobacco. This was well shown in 1732 when Sir Robert Walpole proposed special excise duties on tobacco, and brought a Bill into Parliament which would have given his excisemen powers of inquisition which were much resented by the people generally. The controversy produced a host of squibs and caricatures, most of which were directed against the measure. The Bill was defeated in 1733, and great and general were the rejoicings. When the news reached Derby on April 19 in that year, the dealers in tobacco caused all the bells in the Derby churches to be rung, and we may be sure that this rather unusual performance was highly popular. The withdrawal of the odious duty was further celebrated by caricatures and "poetical" chants of triumph. One of the leading opponents of the Bill had been a well-known puffing tobacconist named Bradley, who was accustomed to describe his wares as "the best in Christendom"; and when the Bill was defeated Bradley's portrait was published for popular circulation, above these lines:

Behold the man, who, when a gloomy band
Of vile excisemen threatened all the land,
Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe
The cheerful bottle and the social pipe.
O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl,
Still unexcised, rejoice thy honest soul!
May still the best in Christendom for this
Cleave to thy stopper, and compleat thy bliss!