THE MARCH OF THE CIGARETTE

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12483, 20 April 1906, Page 7

THE MARCH OF THE CIGARETTE

Statistics recently published show (says the London correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald") that there has been a falling-joff , in cigar ami tobacco smoking, while tho sale of cigarettes Tins largely increased. And hotel man Age r or keeper of a restaurant will confirm this view of the esu-e, hut it it> not- necessary to suppose that this change of habit ie confined to the well-to-do cla*ses. Nor is it to be- mainly accounted for by tho assumption that women and boys, smoke more than they did. A short spell of observation, in the London streets will convince anyone with eyes to see that, tho cigarette, hius grown greatly in favour with classes \«liich once held it in disdain. Tho old-fashioned omnibus driref used to reply contemptuously if anyone offered him his tobacco in this form. Now thy 'bus driver like the driver of the smart han<om cab, often shares the craving for this "particularly pernicious" form of smoking with drivers of many other kinck and with many workmen going to and from their daily labour. Ido not eny that tho practice is anything like universal—it is very far from being so—but still it is plain tliat the cigarette has to a considerable extent displaced the pipe a* well as the cigar. No doubt the handy and cheap form in which cigarettes are now provided at the snnaller tobacconists has had a good deal to do with the change. A penny for a packet of five, made of deceit tobacco—wkJi perhaps the j>ortrait of a popular aetrre-s thrown in— ie a charge which brings the cigarette well within the purchasing power even of the slenderest- purses. The doctors, however- coni-iime to Ikj_ almort- unanimously of the vame opinion as Mr Kdieon, that from cne cauw* or another the cigarette is more mischievous than (•he cigar, and a great- de;il more mischievous than the homely pipe.