THE AIR RAID CIGARETTE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 80, 28 December 1917, Page 9

THE AIR RAID CIGARETTE

AN AID TO THE AIB OF SANG MOID

■ "One.ofTect of .the rccen,t,nir rajds has been an increased deniand;foi L cigarettes," wrote a journalist during the Inst. period of. moonlight. "Men who have never smoked before now puff cigarettes when the bombs are falling." I can well imngino (writes George Edgar in the "Daily Mail") that the stress of a' raid anil the demand it Jinikos on self-control and courage cause the appetite for the extra cigarette, and impel ' men who never smoked cigarettes before; to fly to the cigarette packet. ■' ■ ;■ The new habit is merely an extension of <i tradition that has resolutely clung to the cigarette from its very first days. The cigarette has always, suggested phlegm in the liour of danger. In the palmy days of melodrama, when Abingtlon, the bud man of the Adelplii plays, wore the dress suit, the:gibus hat, ami the black Inverness coat-often lined with red silk-tbat made up the uniform of all stage villains, of a certain period, he would not have amounted to. much in villainy without the cigarette.; In Jus big moments of calculated ferocity out came the airy, nonchalant cigarette. _ During a period, stage villains bent on being particularly villainous smoked cigarettes, and the hab.t of hooting the villain when he took hie call .was lost when he discarded the practice. The stage cigarette habit spread also to the hero. When the hero, went out to survey the country under the menace of a dozen hostile revolvers > smoked a cisarette. When he encontered; the villain in the dead of night, coked down hebarrel of the ."bad man's" revolver, or at tbe gleaming Wade of his Inure, nd defied Him to do his worst, the hero smoked a cigarette. On the stage a do/en rears ago you could always tell when (he hero's character for courage was to i tested to its foundations Out came the "silver" cigaret e-<:ase and followed, the business of coolly lighting the debonair cigarette. . Cigarettes and you hful courage have The lion-tamers of yesterday had a whip in one hand and a'lighted cigarette in tbe other. When motoring developed to the point where speed tests became hairraising adventures, a cigarette glued to the impassive lip was a par of the track uniform. And during the days when the aeroplane was' being developed the new race of flying men made fine pay with the ci°arette for show purposes, lne airman of yeshrday settled in the car of advonture puffing nonchalantly as any Adelphi viitain of older times. ..He was a "cmck"-a very devil of the air-if t e stump still remained lighted when he came down. ' ml > To-day we all take risks. _ There is .. maximum of risk in appearing m pnblic when the Gotha lays its eggs over London. There is the • maximunr need for men to show phlegm, courage, and control during an air raid. Thus the newspaper reporter of to-day discovers that Ven-who have never smoked before now puff at cigarettes when the bombs are tnllin , '"- There ' s nothing remarkable in it." Humanity in the mass simply turns to the old symbol used by the few whose trade-mark was personal courage and who lived by exhibiting their selfcontrol in the face of danger.