SMOKING IN ITALY

Hawera Star, Volume L, 6 March 1931, Page 6

SMOKING IN ITALY

DEARER CIGARETTES. ~ VATICAN CITY LIMITATIONS. ' In spite of hard times., the Italian public are buying dearer cigarettes than they were a few years ago. At least that is what Signor Boselli, General Director of the Administration of State Monopolies, says after a careful survey of sales and prices. Though fewer cigarettes were sold during the second half of last- year, better and dearer ones were much in demand. Within the last 20 years those very black, hard and strong cigars for which few foreigners acquire the taste have lost favour in Italy. iO'ld men —and a few old women—still smoke them. Thensons and daughters prefer cigarettes; in fact, the Treasury owes a debt of gratitude to the fashion of smoking among women, which has become widespread in the last four or five years. Only in rural districts has the revenue decreased. Here the strongest and most odorous of cigars still hold their own. When higher prices made them prohibitive to farmers, and labourers who are hard hit just now. cheap pipe tobacco was bought instead. Tobacco in nil its forms is very cheap in the Vatican City State, the. most thorough-going free trade realm m the world.’ But its sale is severely limited to its 524 citizens and to gentlemen-in-wniting actually on duty. Nobody may purchase more than 20 cigarettes a day.