Morning journal and courier., 1890-07-21
Smoking in Austria.

Vienna Correspondence London Daily Telegraph |
 According to statistics just issued the | number of cigars smoked in Austria during the past year was 1,9S5. .000, 900, showing a reduction of 7a, ,000. 900 on the previous year's returns. On the other hand the Reggie sold S95, ,000, COO of cigarettes, which is 174, ,000.- 0Oe more than during the year before. The
 quantity of tobacco sold by the government
 has neither increased nor diminished, though
 the consumption of snuff is steadily declin-
 ing. Cigsrstte.smokers in Austria prefer
 the ready made article, whereas in France
 and Spain smokers make their own cigarettes.
 The Austria Reggie cigarette is scarcely of a quality to satisfy tho average foreign palate. The tobacco may be sound and the paper free from injurious ingredients, but the whole lacks fragrance and flavor. At time when I was smoker myself never could get through Reggie cigarette. Is is surpris- | ing how the habit of this kind of smoking | has spread in this country, where but fifteen | or twenty years ago the pipe and cigar were | indulged in almost exclusively. An increass | of over 24 per cent. in the Reggie sales tells | it's own tale. You now see boys of ten and | twelve at every street corner, whiting their paper-cigar unrebuked, taking it as matter | of course that their pocket-money should be spent in tobacco. In former years it was | not usual for ladies to smoke In restaurants | and places of public resort. The grandes danes of society are not all smokers, but many of those who are. think nothing of | lighting a cigarette after dinner at any of the fashionable eating-houses. Some of
 them smoke cigars, though they seldom ven- tture to do so in public. Most young men have abandoned cigars altogether, and keep | up cigarette smoking from early morning till bedtime. It would be idle to deny thss the
 abuse of cigarettes Is working havoc
 amongst the Austrian youth. Here. as else | where, it has disastrous effect on the eyes, | throat, and stomach. Dust is one of the great drawbacks of the Vienna atmosphere, and when that is coupled with the smoke of | indifferent tobacco and paper, the effect on | the respiratory organs is necessarily most tn- I jurious. Then in Austra smoking is allowed everywhere, excepting in church and at the theaters. There are railway carriages la- belled for non-smokers, but on 6 recspt tourney got into one of these, and was not
 a little dismayed to find each side of the compartment provided with an ash-tray. The Vienna cafes are renowned for the de- licious cafe au-lait they give at early break
 fast, but go at whatever hour you will, from six in the morning, and you will find the air poisoned with foul cigarette smoke, while the bread and the milk coffee" itself are also slightly impregnated with the flavor of
 tobacco.
 The old-fsshioued .viennese, who can nc
 longer enjoy his pipe outside his own house has tXken to the 'Virginis," i" or rat-tailed ci' gar, with the straw mouthpiece, single ons
 of which is suficieat to ell the Alber s Hall with 0 vague odor of burned seaweed
 This atrocious cheroos is a mere apology fo
 | smoking. Not one in @ thousand tastes O l, tobacco, yet the "yirginia" seems to hsv
 the fatal fascination of the cigarette. It i
 making the same rayages among the lowe
 classes as Is the cigarette among their bet
 ters. Almost every 9orkingman carries fou \ or five "virginiasn in his breast-pocket whe
 he goes to his work in the morning, and |
 many cases they do not last him the ds :. through. His clothes are saturated with th e abominable smell of "virginiA" smoke. |, makes him offensive, even at'a distance, an renders the closed premises which he frs smoking is decidedly greater nuisance tha if snuff-takipg.
 It is only in the Tyrol and Galicia that tt - habit of taking snuff still exists. though th n | quality of the Austrian Reggie snuH is exce 1t lent. It is exported far and wide, and d high in favor with amateurs of all natoni ,s It has been predicted, on good authority 't that the difficulty of obtaining good tobacc It to smoke will revive the custom Of takin a snuff. In Austria, however, it is not th F. case. Even among the clergy 1t is not prt a valent as in other catholic countries; here th n priests smoke. In place where it may D I. said that everybody puffs the "Iudian weed, re it ia sometimes drawback to be non in smoker. When you pay call, on busines le or otherwise, you are at once offered clga a cite, which, even if you only take couple k whiffs, you are expected to light. If you 2 If not do SO, in many cases it throws chill o sa | tIa ati0r1 come.