Women and Cigarette Smoking
One of the extravagant whims which has taken hold of the society women in New York, a New York paper tells us, is that of cigarette-smoking with all of its “refined accessories.” At first it was only a fashionable fad; now the demon of appetite has taken hold of the women, and they must have the cigarettes, not simply on special occasions, but constantly. The following bill of items is given by a lady writer, stating what it would cost for a smoking outfit for a fashionable woman in a year: An inlaid tabouret for holding the smoking outfit, $500; cigarette ring for holding cigarettes, to keep the fingers from stain, $100; cigarette holder, $50; cigarette cases of different sorts, $300; ten thousand cigarettes with initial or monogram at $3.00 a hundred, $300; making a total of $1,250. And it is stated that one woman who has made a specialty of catering to the feminine trade sells to many women as many as ten thousand cigarettes a year. Physicians have come to the place where they say that it is indeed a menace to the future of their women patients; and in this, and the fact that the feminine beauty will soon be destroyed by the habit, lie hope that it will be broken.