WOMEN CIGARETTE SMOKERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1797, 15 August 1906, Page 54

WOMEN CIGARETTE SMOKERS.

One cause of the prevalence of dyspepsia nowadays is smoking, and dyspepsia acts as a brake on an aiiafeitious woman and a blot on a pretty one. And yet, few Avorncn will believe that the red nose of dyspepsia is secondary to their habit of smoking. In strict moderation, smoking is apparently harmless, but Avhat is moderation? “lour cigarettes a day cannot possibly be the cause of my illhealth," plaintively assorts the martyr to palpitation and indigestion. But nicotine affects different people in varying degrees. Two cigarettes a day is excess for the neurotic Avoa.an, who should never smoke at all. When ivomen begin to smoke, they like to do it thoroughly, and a visit to the smoking-room of any of the women’s clubs is sulncient to prove to the observer that the dangerous habit of ‘"inhaling’’ is far too common. Most people have a hazy glimmering of the fact that much smoking, especially accompanied by inhaling, is a bad tiling. The physiological effects of tobacco are due to an a I kuloiil, nicotine, which acts chiefly upon the heart, causing irregular action, and producing the condition known as smoker's heart. Tire girl who is an habitual smoker undermines her health and unfits herself for work. A frequent complaint of the smoker is loss of mental tone and inability to concentrate the attention. Nervous symptoms will bo more apparent in a woman smoker than a man. neon use woman's nervous organisation is of a more delicato order, and more easily upset. That smoking, even in moderation, is harmful to women is very probable. There are many who assort that habitual smoking has a deteriorating effect on the race, and if parents of both sexes smoke, it would fellow that the children would bo physicaliy inferior to the children of non-smokers, other things being equal.

The ethics of smoking are mainly a personal consideration. It is not so much what wo do that seems to matter, but how we do it, and this is true of smoking as of everything else. To smoke in a public place lays a woman open to the criticism of strangers; and, although a girl is not necessarily “fast’’ because she enjoys an occasional cigarette, the true gentlewoman avoids doing anything unconventional in public. If a girl will smoke, she should only do so amongst friends, in the privacy of her own house, and, preferably, in a gathering of women, and of women who smoke theinsetoes. There are people who consider a girl peculiar if she smokes a cigarette; then why shock their susceptibilities by what is, in their opinion, the brazen display of an unwomanly act? Others are a's much surprised at the women who don’t smoke. “Only the middle-class British matron is a non-smoker nowadays’’ I have been told, and can onlyreply that the opinion of tho average middle-class British matron is generally a very sound one. The modern young mother and her cigarettes is something of a novelty even yet; if she pays proper attention to her house and her nursery, she will not. have much time to waste in smoking. Whatever he may say on the subject, in ms heart of hearts, the average man disapproves of women smoking. It may bo inherent selfishness, it may be aseocciation and a sentitive regard and desire to keep his women-folk unspotted from, the world; the fact remains that 90 per cent, of men prefer women not to smoke. The few avlio do not mind have generally a sister, wife, or woman friend whom they particularly respect, and who has succumbed to the fascination of smoking. llow often we hear a man declare, “I do not mind girls smoking at all, but I should not like my wife to smoke cigarettes." A masculine inconsistency Avhich has reason behind it! There are ivomen who smoke, not because they care for it, but under the mistaken impression that it is “smart,” and there are girls who smoke only because their friends enjoy it and consider them old-fashioned if they don't. These types never smoke to excess, and generally give up the habit when they attain, years of discretion. Some women smoko because they honestly, enjoy, not so much the smoking itself, but the feeling of good-fellowship which smoking in congenial society produces. The worst type of woman smoker is the heavy habitual smoker considered above. Smoking is something of a fad amongst women at present, and there are many who will give it up when it ceases to b© a novelty. The vast majority of women will not smoke. A natural feminine fastidiousness makes the average woman dislike the association of taste, odour, and stained finger-tins. The domesticated woman will prefer her tea, and the society woman some new fad. Women smokers will be found mainly amongst the ranks of working women—business and professional women —who, although they are doing good, useful, necessary work in the world, are not of the typo which goes to make the normal, healthy, domesticated woman whom the average man desires for the mother of his children.—Elizabeth Sloan Chesser, M. 8., in the “Daily Chronicle.”