The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1897-01-02
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 Kalmuck Mothers
Smoking Infants.

A brisk controversy has been going
on about cigarette-smoking 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 a
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-room, but it soon will. At all
the houses setting up to style it is
served at intimate dejeuners and
small but lively dinners.
Nobody is shocked at ladies smoking
not merely one'cigarette apiece but two
or three. A minister of Queen Christina
says that highly respectable and respec-
tedroyal lady is an,inveterate and vet
eran smoker. She got in the habit of
smoking cigarette when she was alb
bess of the Hradschin, b sinecure 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
IA. on doing SO. One summers day,
CHeT.ning, as she was standing smoking
on the balcony she saw him enter the
so1. Il,
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 a husband and wife.
who smoke are less likely to fall out
than if the former alone smoked. 1t is
not known whether the queen of Italy
smokes, but some of her ladies GER
tainly do. When 1 was at Stresa saw
them enjoying cigarettes when boating
on the lake, and in the grounds of the
duchess of Genoa's villa, where the
queen was staying. The crown prin-
cess of axe-Meiningen could not live
without her cigarette. 1t neither takes
from her good looks, nor spoils her
teeth, nor diminishes her activity.
She is nearly thirty-four, but appears
scarcely twenty-six. The 1nfanta
Eulalia spoke when she was last on
the Riviera of the comtesse de Paris as
having set her an example as a 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
discredited 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
tobacconistS 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 little Kalmuck comes into
the world-an event that happens
rarely twice in the same menage, the
mamma is given a ,well-flled pipe to
smoke before she nurses the baby.
The little one takes to smoking before
it is weaned. The pipe is the great
cure for nervous headache. Fredens-
borg, where the czar and czarina sum-
mer, is the dullest place in the world.
The queen of Denmark is exacting of
respect 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 cigarette. A court party from
Fredensborg one evening was dining |
at the Copenhagen Trivoli in the col
onnade of the restaurant. There was
a large Theatrical party near them;
the actresses did not smoke, but the |
ladies in attendance and those whom
they attended did. Some of the fair
smokers were Russians, and not in the
least inclined to- unfurl the flag of re-
volt. That evening it was learned
that the crown princess of Saxe-Mein-
ingen is not the only granddaughter
of Queen Victoria who finds a solace I
in the cigarette. Why should not q
princess use it, as:an.old Irish woman
uses the pipe to take the edge off ner-
The only harm is in the
abuse. But there is no good thing
under the sun that is not mischievous
if taken in excess. There is no more
harm in mild smoking than in mild
tea drinking. George Sand,who lived
to the age of seventY-three and
was SO active and hard-working I
to the end,; smoked > cigarettes
and cigarsLand in excess. The
smoke curling before her eyes reused
up her imagination. Victor Hugo
hated smoking.