Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-02-08
WOMEN WHO SMOKE.
They Are Very Numerous I'm Russia
and Not Rare in England.

They Are Very Numerous I'm Russia
and Not Rare in England.
From the Queen.
Not so long ago it was considered a
risky and frisky thing for a woman to
smoke cigarette in the seclusion of the
family circle, but today well-5rought-up
married ladies, without the least approach
to fastness in behavior, smoke their three
or four cigarettes a day, with the approval
OF their husbands, and in the presence of
their servants. The ladies in Russian So
ciety, one and ALL smoke cigarettes as a
matter OF course, i'll private and in public.
At an afternoon call in st. Petersburg, at
. o CLOCK In the day, Russian lady offers
cigarette case and a match box in the
most natural manner to her visitors and
without any demur cigarettes are accepted
and smoked In the principal Russian
hotels the ladies smoke their cigarettes
after dinner in the presence of the assem-
hled company, even to a burning end on
the point of penknife. In London such
custom would not be allowed, and a fair
smoker would be at once requested not to
smoke.
American ladies appear from all that is
said, to be going side by side with their
English sisters-some smoking con amore,
others for the fun of the thing. Still it is
apparent to all in society that smoking
among ladies is immensely on the increase
husbands, men friends and even brothers
say nothing against the practice. and, Of
tener than not, encourage it. unless ey-
travaSant indulgence is the result then they
put limit to the number of cigarettes to
be smoked by the wife during the day If
she has not sufficient strength of mind to
DO so for herself; and, indeed, most lady
smokers make a point of 1mitia-; them
selves to three cigarettes day on an aver
age.
Ladies in these days are nurtured in an
atmosphere of tobacco smoke; how can it
be otherwise than that they should acquire
a taste for it? In nilder form, it is true,
than that of the pipe or cigar, which their
male relatives so keenly enjoy, but in that
OF the dainty cigarette. The DAYS have
gone by when the smell of tobacco smoke
made a woman faint. Among a few mar
rled laoies an antipathy to il does still ex-
lst, and these ladies, it must be confessed,
make their husbands rather uncomfortable
WIN Their restrictions against smoking here
or smoking there, and render them a little
enfious CT the freedom enjoyed by other
men IN this respect, whose wives are not
SO sensitive to this pungent scent.
II may be the encouragement men give
TO the ladies of their families and to their
charming friends TO smoke by Offering an
occasional cigarette has a SUSPICION of self
lshneSs about 1t in thus subtly cultiyating
a liking for what they might otherwise
consider obnoxious. So easily battered are
Women-eVen the most strong minded
among them-that not seldom they profess
an inclination for smoking when thew do
not actually care for it rather than an
pear churliSh or prim in the ewes of the
sterner sex. Smoking cigarettes after din
ner mas become so general that even in
the most orthodox and highly conventional
lam1Ees cigarettes are smoked at dessert
frequently smoke Also This is more mar
t,cularly the case in country houses. but
IN town the fashion is followed to a great
degree in smart society,