YOUNG LADY CIGARETTE PARTIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 13, 15 January 1880, Page 6

YOUNG LADY CIGARETTE PARTIES.

What one thinks in America of cigavette-3moking women one booh ceases to think in Europe, where it is so frequent. For does not fat, famous, add froliceome Emily Faithful! smoke like a Michigan tug-boat ? Does not the Duchess of Edinburgh enjoy a quiet puff now and then, and even the Princess of Wales has her pretty little cigarette-case, which she hides profoundly'from the smoka-ahhoiriog nose of her Royal maraa-in-law ? Mdme. Ratazzi in Italy ia said to be a great smoker, and 00 also is- Elizabeth Thompson, the artist in England. The two daughters of the Due d'Orleans, one - of whom was the beautiful Mercedes, Qjeen of Spain," were fond of a quiet emoke, as is also the wife of the Pretender Don CNrloa. Although funokiug ladies are so numerous in Europe one often hears it insisted upon that American ladies are the greatest habitual smokers in the world. "I never saw a lady Bmoke in America," I had occasion to frequently say in France and always with the unsatisfactory feeling that I was not half believed. Once upon a time in Paris I lived several months in an extensive pension des demoiselles In this flourishing school was Mdlle N., a yooog American of 22, from Boston, a sort of parlour boarder, who had many extra privileges besides that of a privaffl bed - room, when every other pupil slept in a tiny couch in a dormitory that looked exactly like ah hospital. « Ah, but your American ladies do smoke, and smoke a great deal more than our French men," said the matron of the school one day. " Mdlle N. smokes much more than M. le Professeur, and if you don't believe it I will some day show you the ashes that come down from her room." I said nothing. And yet I could have told that which would have made madame's golden wig stand ■up like quills on a iretful porcupine,and reduce the matron to a state of gibbering idiocy. - I could have told her that, indeed, many cigarettes were, smoked in Mdlle N.s room each night, and that great were the ashes thereof; also could I have told her that every night when that huge dormitory full of pupils was still and every girl asleep, four of the teachers, all girls themselves, of from 20 to 22, whose business it' was to watch and guard that sleeping fold, stole aoftly from their beds up to the attic stairs, across the roof, down a skylight, and thus into Miss N.s room, where, with a bottle or two of beer and unlimited cigarettes, they smoked, drank and chatted till — goodness only knows how late — as if this were, indeed, not a pension des demoiselles, but a popular brasserie in the Latin Quarter. — Letter in Chicago Inter-Ocean,

The following rather tall story about tnosquitoa is told by a Sussex farmer writing from Fieiding to an , English paper, "and now, before, closing allow me to caution your readers about receiving as truth the statements made in the ".New Zealand Handbook." In that book not one word is said about niosquitos, which are so troublesome here as to prevent men from working in the buah during the summer months. I have femwn men. place a piece of netting over their hats and tie it down round their neckey then tie string round the bottom of their trouser legs, and sew up the opening below their shirt wristbands, when the mosquitos would settle so thickly on the netting as to prevent their being able to see how to use their tools." Many years ago before - the days of telegraphic messages, the late Mr. James Wood, the then editor and proprietor ot a -local paper, at his wits* end _ for news to fill hia columns, incautiously gave expression to .his thoughts, and wished that somebody would commit suicide, or come to an untimely end, or meet with an accident. Poor Wood got a fearful wigging for his wickedness ; but if people knew what it is to go up and down the face of the town seeking for news and finding none, they would sympathise with caterers for the reading public, and think no wrong of them for wishing something to happen that would make men's hair stand on an end. There is no news,, and nobody will help to make any. In peace resb the ashes of James Wood. The Sydney Morning Herald in its description of che Exhibition says: \ •' In beers the colonies are very strongly represented, especially New Zealand. Eicon tf nd cheese are strongly represented , the coast districts and New Zealand having a fine show. As a rule, our own exhibits seem to have lost, ground, either through over smoking or poor feeding, compared with the New Zealanders. There is a ripeness arid juiciness, so far as appearance goes, in. the exhibits from the sister colony, which those of New South Wales lack. Judging from what we oan see there is - leas loss in curing the New Zealand . flitches than our own," '• JRural Etiquette. — Guest : ' Don't you know any better than to walk into my room* without rapping I You see I am all undressed!' Servant: 'Oh 1 you needn't ex* cuse yourself, muni ; I x don't niind. , .