TOBACCO-SMOKING

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 87, 11 January 1928, Page 12

TOBACCO-SMOKING

The tobacco habit has assumed increasingly large proportions among New Zealanders during the past decade. Those who do not smoke are to-day far outnumbered by those who do, and even amono- women the habit has become the rule rather than the exception. A study of figures relative to annual cigarette and tobacco imports to the Dominion is interesting (says the New Zealand Herald’’). In 1926 New Zealand imported 1,394,3021 b. of cigarettes and °,909 2131 b. of tobacco, cf a total value of £1,685,749. It is safe to assume that smokers paid almost £2,000,000 in retail prices for their purchases. In .ouna numbers a total of 557,720,800 cigarettes were smoked during 1926. Had theie been a fair apportionment every man, woman, and child in the country would have received 387. . On a basis of 10 cigarettes a day a person smokes 3650 a year at a cost of £l3 13s. However, no heavy smoker escapes so lightly. In the latter days of last century a man who cigarettes was looked upon by pipe smokers as quite comparable with the person who could not grow a respectable beaYd or at least a flowing moustache. To-day the cigarette smoker is almost in the ascendancy, showing the rise of the cigarette in popular esteem, tlie dutiable value of cigarette, imports in 1913 was £177.307. while in 1926 the figure was £772.513.