“Don’t Spit in the Meeting House” Carroll County Times Article for 16 December 2001 by Jay A. Graybeal In recent years tobacco users have been ostracized and even forbidden to indulge their habit in many public and work places. Those who think that this is a relatively recent trend may be surprised to learn that chewing tobacco users were being criticized a century and a half ago. The following anonymous, mid-nineteenth century poem entitled, “Don’t Spit in the Meeting House,” was a plea to end tobacco use in churches: |
“The Israelitist camps were clean Such were their institutions And why should not a meeting house Be guarded from pollutions Religion is a cleanly thing And decency befits it Spitting is a nauseous thing And every one admits it
Yet this vile practice here prevails
Pray lend a kind propitious ear
But when they come to worship God
But for inveterate cases when |
It is unclear if the plea worked, however, chewing tobacco use waned in the early twentieth century and spittoons disappeared from many public places. One notable exception was the tavern where, judging from photographs, marksmanship greatly suffered. |
A spittoon is partly visible to the right of the small pile of firewood under the second central pew in this c.1890 interior view of the Old “Pipe Creek” Methodist Protestant Church built in 1829 near Uniontown. Historical Society of Carroll County Collection. |