Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-08-07
GIDDY GIRLS
Or New York City Who Use the
Filthy Weed.
Those Who Smoke Cigarettes and Those
Who Don't, According to the Best
Information.
GIDDY GIRLS

minds of many people as to the extent
of cigarette smoking by women in New
York. According to the illustrated
papers of the kind which depict the
New York girl driving coach up Fifth
avenue, having private sparring leap
frog in Broadway for lark, the New
York girl smokes necessarily, and with
an air of entire abandonment. The
papers in question represent her as
smoking cigarettes on all occasions,
even when she is engaged in the classic
diversion of leap frog. A reaction set
in after people had begun to believe
these pictures, and now it is often al
legged that New York girls do not smoke
at all.
The truth is, that among respectable
and educated women and girls elandeS-
line smoking is almost unknown. There
aIe, OfcOurse, cases where
GIddy Girls.
after elaborate precautions against dis
cuYery, venture to smoke cigarette in
their own apartments in companion
ship with other girls Of similar ideas,
Ut tie smoking does not amount t.
much. The girls who smoke thus reg
ularly are very few. There are isolated
cases, too, where the ladies of the house
indulge in the cigarette after luncheon,
but they are usually people from Euro
pean countries where the practice is
customary. Married women seldom
-. haxrn laC,a Of
u tendency to be fast. AS rule men
instinctively frOwn down any attempt
Onthe part of their wives to use tobacco.
The attempt some years ago to make it
fashionable for men and women to
smoke Russian cigarette after dinner
failed signally.
But there are very many cigarette
smoking women in New York, Who,
though not exclusive or particularly re-
find, are still respectable.
these women
usually begin TO smoke for the fun of
the thing, and after they have kept it
up little while find that the cigarette
has q strong hold on them as it has
on message boys and dudes. Their
husbands find It our, of course. The
aroma Of the common paper cigarette
is not of an evasive and delicate char
acter. When il is smoked in u room
the OdOr is detected at once by any one
coming into the house. The husbands
may irOwn il down at first, but they
become accustomed to their wives
smoking in time. Women of the kind
in question are usually those who live
in boarding houses. They have no
household duties; time hangs heavily
on their bands, and they while away
the tedium of the day by the aid of the
cigarette, just as the idle man mods
sleepily over his pipe. There Is no reas-
on TO doubt that the number of women
of this particular kind is very large,
and that they are the largest class of
consumers of cigarettes among the
Respectable Members Of Their Sex.
Their daughters and unmarried sisters
do not smoke so much, though they
may occasionally indulge. The fact Is
that no girl in respectable sociey can
be known as cigarette smoker anu not
gain reputation for fasIness.
Actrt sses are often cigarette smokers.
MOdjeska consumes vast quantities OF
cigarettes, and Bernhardt has painted a
portrait Ofherself in the act Of smoking.
IA is easy enough for women to buy
cigarettes nowadays without running
the risk of being discovered" said u
youth in a Fourteenth street tobacco
shop Yesterday. Formerly we got the
benefit of whatever purchases women
made in that line, but now we get only
a small part. You see, the trouble Is
the dry goods and notion houses have
taken to keeping cigarettes. The So
called bazaars and even some OF the
candy shops also sell them"
"Then smoking is general among
women"
at is among shop girls who want to
be tough, and among the miscellaneous
crowd of women shoppers. had charge
of a department in - mentioning
a great dry goods and notion house, un-
iii a wear ago. We sold all sorts of
smokers knick-knacks, from smoking
Jackets and caps 20 tobacco pouches and
cigarettes. / sold cigarettes TO thous-
ands of women, but among them all
there were not more than two or three
that | should call swell. They all
smoke the cheapest brand of cigarettes.
They seem to have no taste for the bet
ter kind. Our fine cigarettes are all
sold to men."-N. Y. Sun.