SHOULD WOMEN SMOKE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3251, 2 December 1881, Page 4

SHOULD WOMEN SMOKE.

The World has been discussing from a society point of view the ticklish question, should women smoke. I learn with some surprise that already women do smoke, at least a very large number of women do—perhaps the larger portion of the sex throughout the world. 'The Chinese ladyj smokes from childhood, and one of the elegances of her attire is a silken tobacco pouch.' In Bussia ' the use of tobacco was prohibited— the knout for the first offence, death for the second —yet "Russian ladies are the greatest of smokers.' Not to mention other savage or semi-civilised nations in which the women smoke as regularly as the men, it seems that there are whole classes of respectable Englishwomen who hardly disguise their affection for the weed. They consist of ' women who write,' actresses, singers, women who have travelled much —particularly if fthey have been up the Nile—and generally all women •who are engaged in professions " which weary the nerves and exhaust the brain.' This is not a very formidable list so far. It amounts to this : that women whose manner of life is not domesticated are liable to contract some unfeminine habits. But the World anticipates a rapid change of opinion and practice in the sex generally on the tobacco question. Higher education is to help to bring it about. ' Girl-graduatea overworked and crammed, will take to the solace of smoking.' Thefashion will spread amongst all women of intelligence, and the day is at hand when a fashionable lady's dress would not be thought complete without ' a dainty little tobacco-pouch or cigarette-pocket.' On this prospect two or three remarks suggest themselves. I have always felt that in abstaining from tobacco women gave a remarkable illustration of their power of self-denial. Their refusal to smoke is a distinct element of moral superiority over men. Will the divinity that doth hedge a woman survive unimpaired when men see her fingers employed in rolling a cigarette or her dainty lips exhaling smofcerings ? Then, next, there is a practical difficulty. When a woman smokes will she —I hardly know how to express it—but will she expectorate ? The question is an awful one, and I pause for a reply. Finally, though we can forgive anything in a woman if she is young and pretty, we are not so tolerant when she has passed her meridian and is falling into the sere and yellow leaf. What man can think with patience of a venerable female ancestor —say his grandmother —with a short pipe in her mouth ! The question should women smoke may be answered by another. Should women prepare for themselves a loveless and degraded old age ? A withered crone crouched in a corner and sucking a dhudeen may be a very suitable figure for an Irish interior, but I fancy few men of civilised haTsits vrcmid like to give it a place in their own domestic establishment.