The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1918-11-07
THE CIGARETTE CoNoUERs.

The expression Smoke up" signify
ing hurry or put on more speed, has
really a deeper significance than one
would think it first impulse. The fact
is that civilizations progress is pretty
well measured by the time the nations
spend in their smoking. We do not
mean in the number of smoking hours
of their day, but the speed with which
the actual smoking is done. Thus the
slow moving Turk dreams between
puffs at his hookah just as the cross
legged Indian of America protracted
his peace conferences by the slowest
possible pulls at the befeathered calu-
met.
The Dutchman and the German
peasantry were a step farther in pipe
enlightenment and sent up denser
clouds of smoke, although they still
fingered conservatively over the task
that allowed time to study the designs
enameled upon large and glistening
pipe bowls.
Next came the smaller, more active
pipes of the Irish, and the briar
roots, corn cobs, and calabaches that
still are affected by some of our or
ueEly DuJ not lOO eager ClllZeLS
Then we come to the more highly
organized cigar smokers who scorn
the intervention of pipe stem be-
tween their lips and the fragrant
weed. With the cigar there is clearly
less opportunity for delay and the
pensive moment. Once begun, the
smoke must be hurried through to a
finish, not, of course, with breakneck
or cnoke-neck speed, but still with
consistent continuity. So the cigar
smokers are generally the men of ac-
ton, and also the sports and the Wal
lingfords.
But next we make the wide leap to
the cigarette, and there the smoker of
real speed reaches his apogee. Once
the match has been applied there is
no more possibility of a letup than
there is to hold back the hurting of
pineapple hand grenade after the pin
has been drawn and the lever raised.
The loosely rolled and fully ventilated
tobacco burns like powder in Big
Bertha and one has to have his bel
lows working 40 strokes to the minute
to keep the lungs empty while the
fumes pour forth from mouth and
nose and, some claim, even from eyes
and ears, in unremitting clouds. 1t is
not easy to see that man will select
that type of smoking that harmonizes
with his own nature. To be sure, and
if that is admitted what must we de-
duce from a smoking statistics? Here
are the figures in black ash white,
gathered by the Wall Street Journal:
Since 1918, the year before the war
| began, the output of cigars, chewing
and smoking tobacco and of snuff has
actually fallen off, while the manu-
facture of cigarettes has risen in that
period 100 per cent Of this growth
| 20 per cent. is credited to the present
fiscal year. No less than 10000, OOO,-
| 600 cigarettes is the estimate of cigar
| cites that will be manufactured and
| sold in America during the current
| twelve months; but even that stupen-
| dous amount will not be the limit
| either of possible manufacture or pos
sible consumption.
Eighteen years ago our cigarette
| crop was a little over three billion
| about one-twelfth what it now has
grown to be- Speed, that is probably
the secret! 1t is the same impulse
that helped us to send a couple OF
million soldiers to France in period
Of time during which pipe smoker:
might have transported only one
tenth that number.
We have not discussed the meriti
of the various smokes, nor the pleas
ure they may give, but only thei
relative speed. Selah.-New Orlean
Times-PiCayune.