The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-13
A WOMAN'S BRIEF FUR THE CIGARETTE Ladies Should Use Holders
 While Smoking THE BLAMABLE BROTHERS A Retrousse Nose and Cigarette Form Dangerous Combination.
 The Feminine of the
 Cigar.
THE BLAMABLE BROTHERS

Our women of today play hockey and fence; they have brought down their pet ticoats to an irreducible minimum; they fill with credit posts formerly held only by men, and earn the bread of indepen- dence in hundred ways undreampt of by their grandmothers and more or less dis tasteful to their mothers. Yet in doing all these things the possibility of their re- maining womanly is generally admitted, writes Lady Poore in the London stan odard. What is there in the smoking of a cigarette that should unsex them? What horrid magic in the little white-coatei cylinder (showing so plainly by it's pretty suffix that it is the correct feminine of cigar) that it's consumption should brand them as bold and almost immoral? Is it fair to class the woman who smokes with her sister who drinks and bets to excess or swears, or laughs loudly in public places? By many otherwise reason able persons she is undoubtedly so classed.
 In Russia, Austria and Italy women of the best type have as much right as their husbands to their cigarette, but we poor Englishwomen must often add to the problematical sin of smoking the undenia- ble one of deceit if We desire to calm an over-active brain or harassed nerves or much-tired temper by a few whiffs of mild tobacco. Few of us have the courage of our convictions. We know We are not committing d crime in smoking, and vet our heart fails us when the cigarettes go round after lunch, or the savage midge nips us unmolested under the cedars on tic lawn. We would not willingly shock the gentle hostess, the dear, old-fashioned. parson, or the rich maiden aunt, and to spare their feelings we forego our pleasure; but We get no credit for our self denial, no pity for our unappeased cravings, even from those who are in our secret, since it is generally supposed that no woman ought to want to smoke. In almost every house nowadays some accommodation is provided for the male smoker, but now and then one chances on an establishment where to- bacco is under a ban, and smoking man who has found himself and his pipe thrust pitilessly forth into the cold, damp dark ness of November night can guess some thing of what smoking woman has to bear. Many midnight cigarette, or per- haps only half a dozen whiffs of one, has the present writer in actual fear of discovery and disgrace puffed up the wide chimney of her bed room in some country house, whose hospitality stopped short of indulgence toward her one vice. And if it is not the season of fires, one must needs blow out the lights and hang out of the window to smoke, taking care not to drop ash or end on the roof of some verandah or conservatory below, there to remain just out of reach a silent, damning proof of sin in the eye of mis- tress and maid. Better far had 1t been boldly deposited in the silver base of a flat candlestck.
 Almost the only women who can smoke with impunity are the admittedly eccen- tric and the smart pretty woman who neither desires nor deserves to be considered the one or the other becomes perforce a clandestine smoker. With a cigarette between her rosy lips she is bound to be accused by her social com peers of unduly counting attention. She is "indiscreet'-in short, she is hardly re- spectable. But had she been elderly and plain, devoted to good works and clever at knitting things for the North Sea fish ermen, her taste for tobacco would have been regarded as harmless peculiarity. It is not to be denied that there are diff ferent ways of smoking, offensive and in- offensive, and there are many occasions on which woman would be ill-advised indeed to light cigarette. If she pos sesses a retrousse nose she had better not smoke at all, for under 1t a cigarette is certain to look impudent.
 The use of holder, which will prevent pretty fingers from becoming stained. is much to be recommended. It satisfies a proper fastidiousness on the part of the smoker and lessens the risk of detection by the curious or ill-disposed. Far better than the amber mouthpiece is the long holder of cardboard and quill, of which one can buy hundred for shilling, so that every cigarette can have its own clean setting. One thing is certain, and that is that the woman smoker should under no possible circumstances frequent a smoking room intended for the men of a house and their friends. She will be invited to do so, no doubt, but, however, strong her inclination to accept. she must be firm in her refusal to enter it. It is mot her place, and her presence will be an embarrassment rather than pleasure to it's occupants.