The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-11
SMOKING

From the Philadelphia Record.
 Smoking is known the world over, and, as rule, it acts as the pipe of peace.
 The smoking of herbs and leaves l of various kinds was known of long
 before the introduction of tobacco, and In remote sections of the world natives still smoke herbs. There is much speculation as to who smoked the first pipe, but the credit goes to Raleigh for bringing the practice into common use.
 At the time of the plague in Eng land in 1865, all the boys at Eton were obliged to smoke in school every morning. One of these boy
 smokers, a certain Tom Rogers, years afterwards declared to a friend that he never was whipped so hard in is life as he was one morning for not smoking.
 Even the aged Koreans in Seoul | joy smoke, And to see them smoke enjoy smoke. They sit out in froat of their little retail shops, with happy smile on their faces, and with pipe in their mouths that has stem three feet long. The bowl is very small, and rests on the ground. These old chaps are dressed in ki- monolike gowns, a fez tops their heads, straw sandals cover their | feet and long whiskers cover their chins. But they like their pipe. To these old men, smoking pipe is lcompromise with modernism. They 1 belong to the old regime, which despises the customs of the modern western world, and prefer everything as they were 1000 years ago, except possibly smoking.
 1 Mothers in the western hemi- sphere are almost heartbroken when their dear little tots" 20 or of vot- ing age, take up smoking. But the mother in the Philippine islands is different. She and her children are often seen smoking big cigars to- gether. All the natives use tobacco almost from babyhood, though the American school teachers. who have invaded the islands in late years, are now teaching the children to re- frain from tobacco. at laest until they are well along in their teens. While some of the people smoke big cigars, the. majority of the natives smoke cigarettes.
 In, Holland, it is no unusual sight to see boys four or five years old lighting up big cigars for their after dinner smokes.
 Turkish women are fond of smok- ing, and derive their pleasure from lvase-like pipe. with a tube for stem. Natives of Latin countries are ex- tremely fond of smoking, and. as a rule. prefer the cigarette. South Americans are very fond of tobacco | in the many forms.
 | During the war many soldiers and sailors who got to France were more or less surprised to have young woman come up to them and ask for cigarette. The usual way of ask ing was: You got cigarette?" And mine times out of ten they got them. This freedom of cigarette "begging," however, must not be taken to mean that all girls of France beg or even smoke cigarettes. It simply happens that some of the girls liked them.
 Natives of the Belgian Congo smoke pipes with stems seven or eight feet long. The long stem Is supposed to catch most of the nico- tine before the smoke reaches the mouth. Tobacco is smoked in every village in Arabia, and the Bedouins, too, kare passionateiy fond of the weed. Even the wahibi religious prohibition did not kill the desire for the universal narcotic.
 No mention is necessary to show the modern woman as a smoker.
 There Is hardly any place under the sun where the inhabitants do not smoke for medicinal purposes, as a religious belief or just because they
 want to smoke.