WHAT SHOULD WE SMOKE?

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 28 May 1932, Page 11

WHAT SHOULD WE SMOKE?

T OFTEN wonder, when watching the smoke of my own pipe, what was actually the sort of tobacco that Sir Walter Raleigh had in his when his manservant threw a bucket of water over him "to put the fire out." It must have been Virginia tobacco, but was it fine, medium, or coarse cut—or possibly twist? I have never heard a satisfactory answer, writes J. Corn-wallis-West in the London "3>aily Telegraph. ’ ’ History must have been right in saying that he was the first European to become addicted to the habit, for it is recorded how he "tooke a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the scaffolde." Even nowadays it is often mentioned in the press that before some unfortunate individual is dropped into eternity he is given a cigarette. In the late Victorian period smoking was still looked askance at by die-hard hostesses; while for a woman to be seen smoking in public—well, it simply wasn’t done.

, Most hostesses grudgingly allowed a cigarette to be smoked in the drawingroom, but a cigar was unthinkable, as the aroma was supposed to cling to the curtains. King Edward, however, himself an inveterate smoker of cigars, altered all this, and when a man lit a cigar after dinner he was not obliged to put it out whe'n a move was made to join the ladies.

One of the best known men of to-day, Lord Lonsdale, is never photographed or caricatured without a cigar in his mouth. I once found myself staying

“La Stinkadore Infamia ”

'at Lowtlier Castle and was given one of his best to smoke. I expressed my appreciation of it, and, when I came to unpack at the next place, at which I stayed, discovered that with liis usual generosity he had told his butler to put a box in mv portmanteau. Since the war pipe-smoking has become much more fashionable, even in London. There was a time when pipes were forbidden in certain clubs. Subsequently the rule was relaxed, and provided a member did not lower the dignity of the institution- by puffing a briar in a window fronting on the street he might indulge.

For some obscure reason a pipe is not supposed to go well with a tall hat or with uniform. During the war London provost-marshals were specially instructed to check officers smoking pipes. Now that tall hats have disappeared one might expect to see more pipes, but a friend of mine, while boasting that he smokes a pipe in the Brompton Road, confesses that when he gets near Bond .Street force of habit impels him to put it stealthily away in liis pocket. The late Marquis de iSoveral was a great- connoisseur of cigars. I happened to find myself next to him after dinner one evening at the house of a mutual friend, of whom it was rightly said that he did not know a good cigar from a bad one.

When the cigars were handed, Soveral took one and lit it, then whispered in my ear: “A well-known brand." When I asked what it was, he replied: “La Stinkadore Infamia.’ 7