WOMEN AND CIGARETTES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3188, 12 September 1917, Page 8

WOMEN AND CIGARETTES

HOSTEL: SMOKING-ROOMS,

■Whatever may be the -working result as regards price, the Government control of tobacco, involving,_ of course, that which is used for cigarettes, is, says the "Daily Telegraph, a. matter tliat will affect a very considerable num. ber of ■■women. Smoking among women is on the inorease, and instead of being, as it was some 20 years ago, a land or audacious* defiance of tlio prim and goodly folk, it has come to be a widespread habit among all.classes. Perhaps the small messenger girl ■ who delivers telegrams or does light errands has not developed quite as aggresslveea taste for "fags" as did her brothers a decade ago. She still prefers _<he can get them. , But the girls going into factory employ, the yojing women in office occupation of all sorts, those v,ho are working on the land or driving vans and motor-lorries, to say nothing of tiro women who aTe still leisured, whether youthful ,or middle-aged, all • •lemand cigarettes, whose ashes and ends are to be seen at canteen's as well as at fashionable restaurants. A few months ago a well-known organisation for the welfare of girls, opening a hostel for clerks, and'typists, found-that a smoking-room must be included in their scheme, ino ladies responsible realised that they hadno alternative. It was better, cs tisy iudgeil, to., admit the fact that their residents would smoke, and to provide a place in which they could do so, than to make a rulo agdnst it that would bo disobeyed. at every turn. In pre-war days there was a movement to checlc cigarette smoking among ] <™ 3 >. °. nd there were many sound and convincing medical arguments as to wny it was desirable to do so. Every reason aaduccd in the case of lads is trebly strong when applied to yonng girls. The cigarette, first puffed as a bit of bravado, can become a veritable tyrant in a year or two, reducing its victim to a state of constant craving.. The feminine nervous system, so fine and so quickly excited, suffers worse injury froin excessive smoking than the somewhat hardier organism, of man. For excess it very soon becomes, and there are few doctors, whether in general or 'in specialised practice, who coulfl not tell of troubl.e9 among . their women patients, ranging from smokftrs' sore throat to complete nerve breakdown, that are _ directly traceable to over-indulgence in cigarettes.