The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1897-12-11
FEMININE SMOKERS.
A Practice That Is Growing In Fe-
vor with the Fair Sex.
Royal Russian Women Who are Very
Fond of Their CiGarettes-A Peculiar
Custom of KaImuck Mothers
Smoking Infants.

A brisk controversy has been going
on about cigarette-smolzing women in
the columns of the North American
Review and other periodicals, and
those who broke lances for and against
were women. Mrs. Lynn Lynton,
whose novels are read here as feuille.
tons so extensively and with so much
gusto, is quoted as leading the assault
against the lady smokers. Is it true
that she calls the cigarette when in
lady's mouth tie emblem of revolt?
If so, she is not up to date. so far as
continental practices go. The cigar
cite has not yet found its way with
after-dinner coffee into the official
drawing-roor, but it soon will. At all
the houses setting up 30 style it is
served at intimate dejeuners and
small bat lively dinners.
Nobody is shocked at ladies smoking
not merely onecigarette apiece but two
or three. a minister of Queen Christina
says that highly respectable and respec-
tedroyal lady is an,inveterate anda vet
eran smoker. She got in the habit OF
smoking a cigarette when she was ABB
bess OF the Hradachii, Is sinccure she
lost on getting married. Her cousin,
Archduchess Mathilde, who was en-
gagged to King Humbert when he was
prince of Savoy, lost her life owing to
her fondness for cigarettes. She was
forbidden by her father, Archduke
Albert, to smoke, but none the less
NsSt on doing so. One summers day,
t&eS ninG.as she was standing smoking
on the balcony she saw him enter the
courtyard on which she was looking
down. The archduchess, who was
wearing a muslin dress, whipped the
cigarette out of her mouth and hid it
behind her back. 1t came in contact
with the muslin, and she was in mo-
ment enveloped in flames, there being
a strong draught where she stood.
Most of the Russian grand duch
esses are smokers. Grand Duchess
Wlademir thinks husband and wife
who smoke are less likely to fall oGt
than il the former alone smoked. 1t Is
not known whether the queen of Italy
smokes, buS some OF her ladies GER
tainly do. When was at Strcsa saw
them enjoying cigarettes when boating
OH the lake, and in the grounds of the |
duchess of GenOa's villa, where the |
queen vas staying. The crown prin- |
cess of taxe-Meinirgen co2id not live |
her cigarette. 1t neither takes |
from her good looks, nor spoils her !
teeth, nor d;minishes her activity. |
She is nearly tairty-four, but appears |
scarcely twenty-siX. The Infanta |
Eulalia spoke when she was last on |
the Riviera of the contesse dc Paris as |
having set her an example as smoker. |
AS the French say, the infanta beau |
coup d'imagination, and saw in the |
cigarette or cigar OF the comtesse a
pipe which she believed that royal lady |
smoked in the streets of Seville. Span |
ish ladies are gratuitously credited or
with being great smokers.
They may do so in Cuba, though they |
are there more conservative and greater
sticklers for the proprieties than at
Madrid. The ladies who best patronize |
are, next to the Kalmucks, |
the Russians. The ruling passions of |
Kalmuck women are ribbons to twist |
round their long tresses, tea, tobacco,
and bright handkerchiefs. But if they |
have to choose between tobacco and
tea their option is for the former.
When Il little Kalmuck comes into
the world-an event that happens
rarely twice in the same menage, the
mamma is given 4 wel1-flled pipe to
smoke before she nurses the baby.
The little one talssa to smoking before
it is weaned. The pipe is the great
cure for nervous headache. Fredens-
borg, where the czar and cSnrina sum-
mer, is the dullest place in the world.
The queen of Denmark is exacting of
for the proprieties The last
charge that anyone could think of
bringing against her court is that of
fast behavior. Yet most of the young
and youngish ladies there are smokers.
There is no better way of showing off
pretty hands and rings than toying
with a cigarette A court party from
Fredensborg one evening was dining
1T the Copenhagen Trivoi in the col
onnade of the restaurant. There was
4 large Theatrical party near them;
The actresses did not smoke, but the
adies in attendance and those whom
.hev attended did Some of the fair
smokers were Russians, and not n the
east inclined to unfurl the flag O. re-
volt. That evening it was learn d
hat the crown princess of Saxe-Mein-
ngen is not the only granddaughter
If Queen Victoria who finds a solace
n the cigarette. Why should not a
princess use it, as an old Irish woman
lses the pipe to take the edge off ner-
The only harm is in the
lbuse. But there is no good thing
lnder the sun that is not mischievous
f taken in excess. There is no more
,arm in mild smoking than in mild
ea drinking. George Sand, who lived
% the age of seventy-three and
vas so active and hard-working
o the end, smoked cigarettes
md cigars-and in excess. The
moke curling before her eyes reused
lp her Imagination. Victor Hugo
tAted smoking. -