164 TOBACCO. 



pray should should n't she ? Alas ! what is to be 

 the end of all this ? 



A writer in the Washington Post gives an ac- 

 count of a well-dressed lady who entered a drug- 

 store, and, coolly asking for a couple of cigars, 

 paid for them as unconcernedly as she would for a 

 bottle of cologne. In answer to his questions, the 

 druggist informed him that he sold as many cigars 

 either to ladies or on their order by messengers as 

 he did to gentlemen, remarking that at first the 

 ladies were quite shy as to their purchases, and 

 that he managed matters so as to save their blushes. 

 "But after a while,"' he added significantly, "they 

 don't mind." 



And what shall be said of ladies' smoking-clubs? 

 From the Retailer, of Xew York city, Ave learn 

 that a cigar-dealer of Louisville, Ky., pronounces 

 the members of such a club his most profitable 

 customers. By his account, it seems that they are 

 from the aristocracy of the city ; that they insist 

 on the very finest of tobacco, flavored with the 

 most delicate perfumes ; that they meet at one 

 another's houses, and, with locked doors, have out 

 their smoke ; that they seek to remove all traces of 

 the habit, or, if any tell-tale scent betrays them, 

 charge it to the account of their smoking gentle- 

 men friend?. One of these young ladies is re- 

 ported as saying that, although she would prefer 

 not to have her smoking habit known, yet that, if 

 the secret got out, and was unfavorably commented 

 on, "she would snap her fingers in the objector's 

 face." 



