St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-04-07
SMOKE And KISSES.
The Cigarette Discussion
Opens Another: Are Mems
Kisses Good?
Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Mrs.
Leslie Think They
Are.
An Experienced st. Paul
Woman Who Says She
Prefers Cigarettes.
The Weekly Sum Of Festivi-
ties and Social Small
Talk.

The debate, :'Should Women Smoker"
opened by the New York Herald last
week, with Charlotte Adams on the
affirmative, and with Belya Lockwood,
Mrs. Frank Leslie and Ella Wheeler
Wilcox on the negative. opens by infer
ence from the arguments presented
new question: ''Are Mems Kisses
Good?' Mrs. Leslie aud Ella haven't
a doubt Oh the subject. Says Mrs. Les
lie: THE less we copy man, especially
his vices, the more earnestly will he
seek to induce us TO embeilish his ruder
life with the retiEements and beauties
of our own. A man likes to idealize the
woman he admires, particularly the
woman he wishes to marry,
but if in approaching her with
tlmid reverence, he finds her redolent
with tobacco: if the sweet mouth he
longs to press is tainted with nicotine, [
fear the ideaiist would flee, as did
Lalnia's lover, in horror and dismay."
Ella puts the case still more clearly:
conservation teaches me that most
women do not object to kiss favored
with cigar-Smoke before marriage, and
most men do. and this should serve as
rule for both to live by after marriage.
The husband who does not approve of
it, and who comes home to lips favored
with cigar smoke, has excellent cause
for not placing himself in a position to
test that flavor again. l think nearly
every girl possessed of strong vitality
and mischieyous spirit, has her cigarette
era. but, so soon as she discovers the
sweet, exclusive use for which love in
tended her lips, she discards the cigar
cite forever"
The cigarette is proved bad on the as
sumption that mans kiss is good. But
if one mans kiss be gOod-the seal of
approval set upon an unscented course.
is it illogical to say that more mems
kisses are better-the added jewels APP
propriately growing an extraordinarily
sweet life. and that the woman who is
kissed by the. most men is the best
woman Or from this conclusion, il
logical to conclude that Ella Wheeler
Wilcox is one of the best women on
earth? But BE good and you'll be
married. is the law Of ethics which
governs the conduct of women, and if
to be good is 10 be kissed, kissing has a
tendency to matrimony. Then, if mat
rimony is the end of kissing, and smok-
ing is the end of kissing. too, is not the
one as great vice as the other, and
should not the institution of marriage
and the cigarette alike be tabooed as
social evils. destructive of womans
continued enjoyment Of the chief good
of lifeo
But the hypothesis may be wrong. and
the conclusions so upset. Charlotte
A dams, who has tried both mems kisses
and the blessings of a cigarette, clingS
to the cigarette-a living argument
against the enduring good of mems
kisses. There comes time in the life
OF every woman when retrospection
takes the place of anticipation, when
memory prevails over hope, when the
balance of tue inner life and the outer
has been adjusted once for all, to re-
main unchanged until the heart and the
senses shall be frozen in death. This
is the time when the woman who is
modern in the artistic sense, who has
touch of what the French call nevro-
site in her composition who exists at
once through her senses, her heart, her
Intellect, her imagination and her eX-
perience of actuality. finds her cigarette
more congenial comrade, truer lover
ana kinder friend than any the world
can offer besides. 1t caresses like a
dogs affection. it never ieers at disap-
pointment nor tauntS with failure.
"Holy smokew
''My choice between mems kisses and
cigarettes" asks a St. Paul woman adj
dicted to the weed. Give me the
cigarette. You have kisS-fire, smoke
and SensuonS delight-and after that,
another; in kiss you have a cigarette,
and after ito sit and eat the ashes"