quity
Corner,' as the space at the east end on each side of the altar was
called, may occasionally have effectually sheltered card-playing; but
when a young snob went so far as to light a cigar there, he had the
pleasure of finishing it in the country, for he was rusticated. It was
on a cognate occasion in Jesus College, in which cobblers' wax played
a prominent part, that Dr. Corrie dismissed the culprit, after a
severe lecture, with these admirable words: 'Your conduct, sir, is
what a Christian would call profane, and a gentleman vulgar.'"

At Oxford, in November 1859, the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors issued
the following notice, which shows that an occasional outbreak of bad
manners might happen on the Isis as on the Cam: "Whereas complaints
have been made that some Undergraduate members of the University are
in the habit of smoking at _public entertainments_, and otherwise
creating annoyance, they are hereby cautioned against the repetition
of such ungentlemanlike conduct."

There was plenty of smoking among undergraduates at Oxford in those
days, as may be seen in such books as "The Adventures of Mr. Verdant
Green," and Hughes's "Tom Brown at Oxford," both of which date from
1861. When Tom, after a reading-bout, thought of going out--"there was
a wine party at one of his acquaintance's rooms; or he could go and
smoke a cigar in the pool-room, or at any one of a dozen other
places." Cigars were the fashionable form of smoke. When Tom offers
his box to Captain Hardy, that worthy's son says: "You might as well
give him a glass of absinthe. He is churchwarden at home, and can't
smoke anything but a long clay," with which the old sailor was
accordingly supplied.

A striking example of the attitude of the mid-nineteenth century days
towards tobacco may be found in connexion with railways and railway
travelling. In the early days of such travel there were no smoking
compartments, and indeed smoking was "strictly forbidden" practically
everywhere on railway premises. Relics of this time may still be seen
in many stations and on many platforms in the shape of somewhat dingy
placards announcing that smoking is strictly forbidden, and that the
penalty is so much. Nowadays the incense from pipes and cigars and
cigarettes curls freely round these obsolete notices and helps to make
them still dingier. If you wanted to smoke when travelling you had
either to contrive to get a compartment to yourself, or to arrange
terms with