The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-11-25
CIGAR SMOKERS
USE LEFT HAND
Habit Well Nigh Universal
Among Brain Workers
AFTER DINNER COMFORT
Muscle Worker Has Different Way of
Handling Cigars, but Most
Men Use the Left
AFTER DINNER COMFORT


From the New York Sun.
Somebody began to talk about the hab-
its of man, and then somebody else re-
ferred to an old uncle of his who smoked
a pipe upside down. and then finally the
talk drifted around TO cigar smoking.
1t was pointed out that cigar smoking
had been a diversion of the male human
animal since it was first invented In 1t
he had developed curious traits.
For instance, most men who smoke ci-
CARS use their left hands as transporting
vehicles. Most men who smoke cigars
have too many serious uses for the right
hand to employ it in transporting the
lighted cigar.
Authors, writers, bookkeepers, lawyers,
statesmen, physicians and others outside
the pale of actual muscle encouraging la
Dor are men whose right hands are pretty
steadily occupied. If they smoke the ci-
gar must be carried by the left hand.
while the right tolls with pen or pencil,
and this habit, formed by necessity, be-
comes second nature.
After dinner when the cigars are burn
ing you may observe any one of these
smokers leaning back on the left side of
his chair with his left arm crooked at a
comfortable angle and the cigar slipping
between his lips at desirable intervals.
These facts might lead to the inference
that the left side of the mouth gets more
than its rightful share of the cigar. but
such is not the case.
There are other classes of men of whom
these ieft-handed revelations might not be
made and proved with the facility here
displayed. Motormen, conductors. cab
men. pilots, truckmen masons and others
have little opportunity to smoke during
work
When they do smoke, either hand is
good enough for them. The smoking am
bidexterity of this class extends to all
pipe and cigarette smokers whose labor
is physical In the heavy sense of the
word.
To be sure, a close observer will find
the left hand favored more or less by
every class of smokers from Greenland's
icy mountains to the other place. The
weaker hand seems to want the job
worse than the other, and 1t manifests a
peculiar aptitude for handling the weed
unerringly. So cigar smoking may be re-
garded as left-handed habit, simple II
not always pure
Then. again, there is the person who
holds his cigar in peculiar positions The
accepted rule in this matter is to keep
thus minimize the danger of scorching
the mouth.
In the hollow between the thumb and
forefnger with the lighted end pointed
inward, is one manner OF holding per-
fecto. 1t Is a decidedly bad way. 1t
tends to hold n man up TO suspicion. and
1t robs him of dignity.
A formal and sensible way is to follow
the method of most cigar smoking men
hold the weed between the first and sec
ond fingers until 1t becomes too. short for
comfort, when the second finger and
thumb may take hold and carry the job
along to its not distant conclusion.
Only men given to affectatlon hold their
cigars between other fingers than those
designated and such men cannot be nu-
merous enough to form species. or the
official records would mention them. In
this monograph the habits of the cigar
cite smoker have not been disclosed for
the reason that men addicted to cigarette
smoking have no very serious habits.
Pipe smokers always smoke one way
They draw the smoke in and then blow
1t out. Their manner of holding and
handling the pipe Is as interesting and
varied as that, and not bit more.