SMOKING AMONGST WOMEN. SMOKING AMONGST WOMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9193, 24 March 1908, Page 2

SMOKING AMONGST WOMEN. SMOKING AMONGST WOMEN.

IN THE OLD WORLD. In the Rue de la Bfenfaisance, at the gates of the-Bois de Boulogne, and neighbouring the house in which lives Jean de Reszke, which has become a sort of Mecca of the singing world, is "le Lyceum," the French branch of the well-known ladies' International Club. In spite of a vast amount of difficulties, !_ie club has been started in Paris, and promises to become as popular .as the institutions in London and Berlin. It seemed almost impossible, knowing, as one does, the temperament of the French woman, that she should band herself together in a society of this sort; but so inci'edible a result has been attained at the price of much tact, perseverance and organising ability. Henceforward the French woman of tlie serious sort— the writer and intellectual worker — will have her own elegant club-house, where she may take her five o'clock "gbuter," receive her friends, conduct her correspondence and discuss subjects of the day with the best and most enlightened of her sex. It is, says the Paris correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette," in a recent article, a daring and interesting experiment, which will be watched, with the greatest interest by those who follow the woman's movements in different quarters of the globe. One hopes, however, that tlie French oommittee will not make tlie mistake of its "confreres " in London, who excluded a dis-' tinguished actress on the ground — well, that she was an actress, and, therefore, not entitled to rub shoulders with people who were not. As a- matter of fact Sarah — la Grande Sarah — -has written a book — several books — and a play or two, so that she would not require, probably, to knock twice at the portal of the Lyceum hotel. Wandering over the premises the other day, in response to an invitation to attend the hoilse-warming, I came across a little room that had a cosy and a confidential air. I turned questioningly to my cicerone. " Ah!" she said, "that may be a smoke-room one of these days." The answer set me thinking on the differences between the smoking feminine in France and in England. In England, if all we hear be true, the vogue is immense. Every girl who is at all "smart" smokes in private. She does not smoke because it is the fashion, but because tobacco, even in its attenuated and, as some say, pernicious form of dainty scented cigarettes, is a joy and a solace to her. The young Frenchwomen of the same class do not smoke, or hardly at all ; it is, perhaps, a pose that they do not. It is not considered the best of form. No good class woman would think of light- j ing up a cigarette in a restaurant, | neither does she court my lady Nicotine in tlie recesses .of her own boudoir. This abstention from tobacco in its most alluring form marks her off from the strenuously intellectual ; the writer, the poet and painter, and, again, from the "demimondaine." To smoke in France is to signify that you are enfranchised from ordinary convention, and, of 'course, the " femme dv nionde" wishes to convey no such impression. On the other hand, the woman who works, that is to say. of the superior class, feels herself entitled to do as she will in these matters. Women of the lower classes do not smoke, but, of late years, they haye developed a taste for alcohol which disquiets tho, doctors and other serious folk, who speak of tho spread of consumntion, and other physical miseries, an the direct cause of this habit of tippling. One often sees the "marchandes des quatre saisons," or women oosterrnongere, producing; a bottle from their dress pockets and gulping down a drmn of absinthe. Oddly enough, smoking is on the decrease in France anion est men. At least 40 ncr cent of young men in the higher nnd professional classes do not smoke. It is a common, experience^ to be invited to a house where, after dinner, neither cigars nor cigarettes ar«* produced : t^e men immediately join the ladip-s in tTTe ssdon. This, again. I fancy is something of a pose; it is a new manifestation "of what we call " snobbisme." but it is none the less curious.

At the dispersal of the famous Baker collection of autograoh©, a letter from Charlea I. to the Marquis of Ormond fetched £71, one from Prince Rupert to the King £19 19s, and a signature -f Oliver Cromwell £3fi. }