Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-17
TASTES IN TOBACCO

There's an Increasing number OF tobacco
perverts in Washington said local to-
bacconist who caters to high-class trade.
Men whose tobacco taste has degenerated.
/ mean There was one of them in here q
while ago. He has reverted to stogies.
after having smoked the best cigars man.
ufactured for a quarter OF a century or So.
'Tt IL probably due to the fact that he has
always smoked excessively that his taste in
tobacco has undergone gradual degenera-
ton. His tobacco palate has now become
50 tangled and out Of tune that he wants
something rank and acrid, and 30 he's be-
come a stogie man. It's the same sort Of
thing, suppose, as comes to pass with
these high lvers who in the end become
fond Of high game and a whole lot higher
cheese.
when this man first began to deal with
me he paid $1S a hundred for his cigars.
After few years he began to complain to
mean to him. He said they were too sweet
and insipid and that he had ceased to get
any fun out Of 'em.
He named a brand that he had smoked
ana liked while away on fishing trip.
That brand cost So a hundred. He began to
smoke them at the rate of about twenty q
day. After bit he began to tell me that
MS $S-a-hundred cigars tasted gummy and
|
paste In the smoke. Just for the sake Of
trying him out gave him one day cigar
That sell for so cents apiece, and asked
him to let me know how he liked it.
He came back the next day and reproved
me for my Righteousness in inducing him to
smoke what he called Putridororo. Then
knew that his tobacco taste was gone, and
that nothing but the rank goods was ever
going to satisfy him again. l tried him out
on perfectly common and ornery brand Of
wheeling stogie. and that stogie made an
Immediate hit with him. Said it was the
toothsomest bit Of tobacco he'd had in his
face for years, and from then on he's been
ordering his stogies from me by the thou
sand. He loves the rancid taste and smell
OF the stogies, and fairly eats them.
His is square, out-and-out case of de-
generation in tobacco taste His overindul-
gence In tobacco for long period Of years
mas twisted his tobacco appetite. His case
is py no means unusual. Many smokers
succumb In time to what they term tho
superior joys of the rankest Imaginable
cigars.
One Of my customers is a partner in a
washington brokerage concern. who for
many years smoked as fine a Vuelto Abajo
as came out Of that district. He, too, now
smokes stogie that smells like fire in
bone fertilizer factory.
"A severe attack of illness. I have noticed
Will OFTEN pervert a mans taste in tobacco
typhoid fever seems to have this effect
more than any other ailment Several Of
my customers. after having got over at
1
me that their regular brand of cigars tasted
and smelt abominable to them These have
hddled around In such cases with different
brands generally milder ones, but In time
they've all descended to rank kinds of
cigars, whereupon they've expressed their
delight and told me that such cigars have
brought back to them the old acute pleas
ure that they had taken in tobacco before
falling i'll.
"One of the most noted senators found
his taste in tobacco degenerating nearly ten
years ago. He had been a great smoker of
cigars. consuming from fifteen to twenty
OF them day. Then he found that he
wasn't getting any good out of his expensive
cigars, and he was puzzled to find-he him
SELF told me so-that he was beginning to
extract keen enjoyment from the aroma
or what he knew to be rank cigars smoked
by other men.
AS an experiment he procured a box Of
extremely rancid cigars, and found that he
enjoyed smoking them tremendousIy Rut
ne made up his mind that he wasn't going
TO become an affection to his friends and
associates, and 50 he decided that rather
than yield to what he knew to be a de-
generated appetite he would quit smoking
altogether. And he did quit-suddenly, but
for good and all.
THE fellows who are always making up
their minds to stop smoking are an anus
ing lot, by the way. The very great ma
Jority OF them are always making up their
minds to quit, and that's all; they never get
any further.
Ohe OF my customers, now a teSty old
chap. to whom I've been selling cigars for
nearly twenty-five years. has been swearing
every time he came in here for box of
his brand during all that time that 1t was
positively to be his last box.
When l smoke up this box I'll be
through with the internal weed forever he
always declares, whacking his cane down
on the counter. It's all blamed foolishness
this smoking business, when you begin to
analyze it, and L going to stop it. man
who can't control such idiotic appetite
as smoking hasn't got any right to live.
Id quit right now and not buy this box,
but there are some fellows visiting at my
house. and, of course. I've got to smoke
with them
THE fellows at his house was only one
of his thousand and one excuses
"Of the men who really do make the stab
at quitting, 1 should say that one in ten
really sticks it out. The others backslide
sooner or later.
When l do quit smoking one of them
said to me not long ago. I bully and hector
and abuse my wife and children. and impose
upon my employees. and go up and down the
world with chip on my shoulder, waiting
for somebody to step on my toes SOS can
take a try at knocking his block off. and
I'm a nuisance in general to myself and
to everybody else. Gimme two boxes Of
my old brand and gimme 'em quick"