Note 764 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

It is not clear from the published documents at what date, or in what unions, the Central Authority had first allowed tobacco. In 1880, it decided that it could not legally be given to workhouse inmates (not being sick), if it had not been specially ordered by the medical officer under arts. 107 and 108 of the General Consolidated Order of 1847 (Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board, vol. ii. pp. 3, 72). Yet, by 1885, at any rate, the allowance of tobacco or snuff to non-able-bodied paupers, or to such as were "employed upon work of a hazardous or specially disagreeable character," with permission to smoke in such room as the guardians might determine, had been exceptionally granted in particular cases; see, for instance, Special Order to Carlisle of 22nd June 1885, not published in the Annual Report.