MONARCHS AS SMOKERS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 221, 4 January 1909, Page 5

MONARCHS AS SMOKERS.

During the last few days th? Sultan of Turkey was shut up in the Yildez Kiosk he is said to havp smoked ever thirty cigarette* every hsur to "cool hi* nerves." l*»r year? Abdou tlamiri ha* smoked ftosers of strong cigarettes every day. ami it can he ?atd without fear of contradiction. that be has been the roost ardent devotee of the fragrant weed that was ever seated upon a Uirone.

King Edward likes cigars, cigarettes. and a pipe. He, however, has no liking for American made cigarcttc«v bis favoorites being mild Turkish. In bis young days bis Majesty smoked cigarettes and nothing else, but now be is more fond of a good cigar than "tobacco wrapped in paper". His everyday cigar is specially made for him of the finest tobacco in Cuba.

The German Emporor smokes cigars and cigarettes out of doors, bat when in the privacy of bis study be puffs at a small wooden pipe of the type favoured by the average smoker, and costing about half-a-erown. The Kaiser consumes various kinds of tobacco, sometimes a mixture, and his cigars which come from Cuba, cost abcut two shillings each. The King of Spain keeps strictly to the cigarette. This is rolled in paper ungummcdand requires very careful smoking to keep whole. Alfonso's cigarette is about as peculiar as the cigar of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. The latter is fitted with a straw tube and bad to bo h*ld in a candle flame for a minute or two before it could be made to draw. The Czar of Russia and the Prince of Wales favour the pipe when in priavte, but their smoking implements are of little value. A small pipe of the "bulldog** type is affected by each, and the tobacco tbey consume is of the common, inexpensive kind. Bismark was an ardent devotee of the weed, and it was Lis boast that be consumed over 100,000 cigars in fifty years. Thomas Alva Edison probably holds the record for the number of cigars smoked daily by one man, for be has confessed that while ten cigars are his normal allowance be consumes double that number when deeply absorbed in work. Edwin Booth, the tragedian, often smoked twenty-live cigars a day and bis dresser used to stand in the wings' with a lighted cigar in his hand ready for the great actor when be made bis exit. Dr Norman AicLeod a famous Scottish preacher, used to keep a box of cigars in his vestry and after service would regale himself with a puff, much to the horror of bis elders.

Tennyson's love for hi* pipe was proverbial. It was the great poet's boon companion, and an Irish clay was his favourite. Baskets of clay pipes ready for use were stacked round the walls of his rtudy and as many as 2»o were to be founi lying loose on the fleer.