The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1908. THE INSISTENT CIGARETTE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2185, 8 May 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1908. THE INSISTENT CIGARETTE.

It appears if rom some figures that the Melbourim "Argus” has punished that the use of the cigarette is spreading over the length and breadth of the .Commonwealth as- rapidly as strange Eastern , cults - spread over decadent Rome. An iifgemous mani-' pulator of statistics has lately created a rather~l*larming'' picture. In 1903 the Commonwealth consumption of cigarettes was, it «eems, 1,055,624 pounds. In 1907—1 t was 1,427,3681 b.. This represents, an increase of some 35 per cent for the five yearß. feuch a rate of progress is plain evidence that tlie habit of cigarette smoking is a rapidly-grooving .one among Australians, and- iCfurther suggests that the cigarette is bn'tho way to ousting the cigar and, the pipe. Tho total consumption of .tobacco in this form is impressive.' A thousand cigarettes weigh two o'ml 'a quarter pounds, and this works.out at a total of considerably over 600 million. cigarotto.s puffed away every year. No doubt those figures aft* only a rough approximation, btvV they will servo. Put in-a rorv those cigarettes are calculated to streteh thirty-nine thousand miles. There arc perhaps one and a half million, more or less, adult males on tho continent, and the total then works oufcat something like 440 cigarettes a yeaF each. This, of course, would he after all a moderate allowance. .But there are still many who prefer a pipe, and thero are to •be found those who do not smoke at all. Probably tho bulk of the cigarettes are consumed hy a quarter of a million smokers of .them. Rut doubtless the distribution iB very uneven. There are incorrigible and much misguided persons who are alleged—no ono ever will confess to it—to smoko three packets of ton in the day—which comes to something like 11,000 cigarettes in tho ybhr. Not so long ago cigarette smoking w'as; looked upon as an essentially juvenile vice, indulged in in the awkward transition period between school and manhood, But once acquired the cigarette 'habit is apt to stay, and manhood - no longor, it. would Bpem, brings a change to pipe or cigar. This last is much less “in the vogue” than in days gone by, and the adult cigarette smoker walks smoking and unashamed. This tendency to “something light” is attributed .by the Sydney “Morning •Herald” as being partly climatic in origin, the differentiation being ■ strongly marked even within the cigarette species, for the heavier Egyptian and Turkish tobaccos do not appear to he much in use, to say nothing of more mysterious and sacred.products known to the epicure. The .fact that the lightest of tobaccos are preferred is some plea against attacks on tho habit based on medical .grounds. But at the best it cannot bo said to bo conducive to health, and it becomes in certain cases a very serious danger. The habit of resorting incessantly to narcotics or stimulants of. ono kind or another cannot but be mischievous, and it is a sight to make tho judicious grieve when we see so large a proportion of. young colonials rushing to the cigarette the moment they are “off-the-'-ehainr” or have a spare threepenny hit to spend. Unfortunately little can be done to wage war against tho evil. Juvenile smoking may be repressed, if not suppressed, by the law, and by the due exercise of paternal authority. But the young man is very ..much a law' unto himself; and the older a cigarette smoker gets the more sure ho is that ho “cannot do without them.” To condemn the cigarette foot and branch is therefore waste of .time. But the grow th of the habit is no reassuring.