GERMANS QUITTING PIPES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11805, 14 December 1912, Page 3 (Supplement)

GERMANS QUITTING PIPES.

'Perhaps nowhere on the. Continent of Europe-is there a people wlio 1 -are chang-: ing so rapidly as are the Germans. Ber-lin-bids .fair to rival Paris itself as attain usemont- centre. • But in^ nothing has German / life changed so i.much of late years as in the matter of smoking. Some 50 years ago an-English traveller in Germany remarked that: smoking-ap-. peared; to be one of the principal occupations of the population, and any stranger entering the country cannot helo being struck by the important part that the cigar plays in the daily life of the com-; munitv.

In the country the pipe still lives on.' and the pot-bowel led, long-shanked: pipe with curled mouthpiece and tassels' is part of every Bavarian peasant's costunie. During the last few years, however, the pipe and the cigar have found a formidable rival in the cigarette. The official statistics show that the consumption has increased by almost 100 per cent, in the last four years, although even' then the consumption was seven times greater than 30 years previously. A year ago the total number of cigarettes smoked in the course of the 12 months amounted to little short of 10,000.000.000, and tlie total outlay on them is given as about £12,000,000 a year.