The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-07-30
THE SMOKiNG-CAR.
1t Is Necessary to Ride Tn One to Ex-
perience the Fun Interest of
HALLWAY Travel

NOtnlng is more nOtlceaDle IN the
summer travel, which grows yearly and
is now getting lively as the season ad-
vanccs, than the extent of the smoking
habit in this country. On every train
bound for the suburban places or to
Atlantic City or the Long Branch range
of resorts, no matter what other car
has room in it, the smoking-car is
almost sure to be crowded. There are,
indeed, summer trains going out of
Broad street station that require two
cars to contain the lovers of the fra
grant weed that "cheers but not inebri-
ates." The smoking-car is the one re-
naming relic in steam-railway travel
of the early days of railroading, in
which so many American characteristics
found q place 1t is one of the last rel
les of what may be termed the shirt
sleeve age. Palace-cars and bourdoirs
and drawing-rooms aud restaurants on
wheels have multiplied, and one by one
the free-and-eaSy travelling habits of
early railroad days have been driven
from one end of the train to another
until they have sought and found final
refuge in the smoking-car 1t is there
that in hot weather sweltering humani-
ty sits in shirt-sleeves and even throws
down his Suspenders, while the fat man
and fat men are almost always great
travellers finds relief by a general
loosening up of horizontal straps and
equatorial buckles. Busters are not in
frequent, but such is the love of comfort
and such the latent rebellion against all
conventional restraints on the part of
the natural man in warm weather that
he loves the smoker and rushes for it
on all occasions. Married men have
been known to resort to the most des-
perate expedients and to promise their
wives new bonnets and all sorts of
things for the privilege of getting away
for half an hour or so in the smoking
car.
Not all men who love the smoking
car are smokers, some seeking only the
freedom and deshabille of the one spot
on the train where fair and particular
womandind can not enter; but as arule
a necessary adjunct to every man in
the smoKing-car is cigar or pipe,
as that once-considered plebeian form
of tobacco consumption is now con-
sidered quite fashionable. Cigars, of
course. predominant, and their narcotic
etfiorescence represents every shade of
natural and artificial iavoring. for the
chemical doctoring of cigars is fast be-
coming one of the familiar sciences.
No one can have any adequate idea of
the extent of the manufacture and con-
sumption of bad cigars until they take
a trip in smoking-car. Another instl-
tuition associated with the smoking-car
is the private bottle. Gradually the
pistol is being boyeotted, and the pri-
vate flask, often nickle-plated and in
cased in leather, like some more deadly
weapon, is taking its place in the mas
culine hip-pocket. Some surprises
greet the unsophisticated mind in the
smoking-car. The most sedate and
pious-looking traveller, who, in par
lor-car, might be mistaken for dea-
con, takes his swig from his suddenly
revealed facon de poche with all the
gusto of tipping grenadier.
Another necessary adjunct of the
snaeking-car is the euchre deck and
kindred poker-chips, though. so far as
known, these furnishings are invariably
the result of private enterprise. AS
yet the railroad companies have gone
no further than to provide adjustable
tables to place across the seats for the
accommodation of all the lovers of the
little joker and such as worship at the
shrine of the jackpot. There is hard
" train bound for the seashore that
is without premeditated or impro-
vie 81 ao,pfu ~ fkn II
and once in while some would-be
player representing an incomplete
party goes around soliciting q partner
to = make up the game, y though this
is looked upon somewhat as violation
of the ethics of travel.
The inevitable newspaper is another
smoking-car institution. The boy who
carries around books transacts but lit
tie business in the smoking-car The
average man, and especially the aver
age travelling man, is not much of
book-reader. He finds all he wants,
and sometimes more than he wants,
in the daily newspaper, which furnishes
complete and entirely satisfactory
mental pabulum.
One of the things that can not fail to
be noticed in smoking-car is the
anxious look. the haggard expressions,
the exhibitions of the tired-out feeling
among the men who are trying to es-
cape, perhaps for only day or two,
from the tcrribis business tension and
everincreasing pressure of professional
ard commercial cares. The wear and
tear of modern mammon comes out
strong in the smoking-car. The great
increase of orders and societies, secret
and otherwise, which men join from
benevolent motives or to make provi-
sion for sudden death, the dangers OF
which are increased by the compiica-
tions of modern life, is also a very
noticeable feature. Almost every man