DID BROOKLYN GIRLS SMOKE? (1887)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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“There are more women in the City of Brooklyn who smoke cigarettes than any one…would ever dream of.”
So floated the words of a Fulton street cigar store proprietor one evening in 1887, after a boy “of 12 or 13 years of age” entered and asked him for “a package of the same kind she got last night.”
I was paid to find out why. So, going to the source, I found a few men who talked. Actually, they sang like canaries. And I kept good notes.
TRACKING A RUMOR TO ITS SOURCE
The cigar store I walked into was doing a brisk business. But the customers were men. All men and, from time to time, a few boys. Playing the bored customer, I perused the tobacco boxes, fiddled with the cigar cutters, and then spotting the proprietor – rather he spotted me! – he struck up a conversation.
Like most customers who either didn’t know what they were looking for or had ulterior motives, I told him that I was just browsing. Taking him into my confidence just then, I asked him where all of his female customers were. Arching an eyebrow, he shot me a knowing glance, patted the side of his nose, and waved a hand before me, inviting me to the back of his store.
“That young man who was just in here is the son of a well to do business man who lives in one of the high stoned houses not far from here, towards the Heights,” stated the proprietor. “The boy is his sister’s messenger on his trips here for cigarettes and purchases on an average of a box a day for the use of his sister and her feminine callers.
I asked him what type of tobacco product they favored.
“They prefer a cigarette made with a waxed mouthpiece or with a stiff paper end, as in their use the tobacco does not stain the lips or get into the mouth.”
I then asked how they maintained their femininity – so important to their male counterparts – after inhaling tobacco fumes all evening.
IDENTIFYING THE GIRL SMOKER
“It is a funny thing to note the various devices resorted to by the young ladies to get rid of the tell tale fumes of the tobacco which are bound to linger on the clothing and breath.
“Cachous are at a premium with them for the latter purposes and they have an original as well as effective method of getting the smell of tobacco off their clothes and out of the room in which they smoke.”
I was incredulous at this point, and claimed that I would know if a woman intimate to me had indeed been smoking. I asked the proprietor how these women did it, how did they hide the tell-tale signs of their addiction.
“Why the simplest way in the world,” he replied. “You know it is one of the oldest known facts of our grandmothers that brown paper, on which is sprinkled a little sugar, burned in a room will effectually destroy any bad odors there may be in it. The ladies resort to this simple remedy in many cases, and to dentifrices and perfumes in others.
“Did you ever notice,” he continued, “out in the park on a bright Spring or Summer morning how the nurse girls delight to steal away into a private nook and there puff out the richly scented clouds of cigarette smoke, ‘to keep off the flies and mousquitos,’ as they explain it.
“Well, I will venture to say that there are a number of young ladies of your acquaintance right in this city, if you are at all well acquainted here, who smoke habitually, and you would never dream of it.
“The trade from the gentler sex is increasing every day and before long I would not be surprised to see ladies smoking openly; in their homes, I mean, after dinner, the same as the gentlemen do.
A CIGAR STORE ON ATLANTIC
Thanking this proprietor, he gave me the name of another cigar store man who would speak with me on the subject, and so I moved on to a business on Atlantic Avenue. There I found a gentleman equally interested in telling his tale of the female smokers. He had long been a tobacconist in London and now had a pretty little store on the thoroughfare.
Playing once again the ingenue, I struck up a conversation which he continued with great zest, equaled only with aplomb.
“In England, nothing is thought of a lady’s smoking a cigarette in the house, if she likes, and the practice is coming into pretty general use in this country. American people are slow to take to any new ideas, and once a thing becomes fashionable they fall into the wake of the leaders, and follow them like a flock of sheep over a fence.
Again, I queried this proprietor – as I did the last – about the type tobacco products of which his lady clients made use.
“I have here a curiosity in a way of a cigarette which is used to quite considerable extent by ladies in this city. It is made of the mildest and finest grade of Turkish tobacco and the thinnest of rice paper.”
The cigarette maker took out a box containing a beautiful, long cut tobacco, and a dainty little piece of paper as thin as tissue and as white as snow, and began to show me how it was done. He placed the paper on a piece of heavy manila, of the same size, deftly picked up sufficient tobacco for a single cigarette, and almost quicker than the eye could catch had rolled a perfect cigarette. The heavy paper which formed the tobacco in shape was removed and a little white sperm wax sealed the wrapper so neatly that the edges could not be distinguished.
“Those cigarettes are, of course, much more expensive than those sold in the ordinary trade. They are all made by hand and with great care. Habitual smokers require an article of more strength that this dainty smoke, but it is a great favorite with the ladies.”
I asked the gentleman if he had a large trade from ladies.
“Well, not strictly speaking a large trade,” he answered, the trace of a smile dancing upon his lips ever so briefly. “But there are a great many boys sent here for the goods, I have no doubt, by ladies. Messenger boys came sometimes and again little fellows picked up in the street. They always know what to ask for and have the exact change to pay for them. I can almost always tell when they are to be used by a lady.”
At this point my personal interest in the matter overcame the professional, and I asked the man if the habit was increasing among women or if it seemed just to be a passing phase, so to speak.
“The habit of using cigarettes certainly is, but the habit of smoking possibly not. You and I can remember how the grandmothers of our time used to smoke a corn cob pipe with evident relish, and it didn’t seem to hurt them any.
“Why shouldn’t ladies smoke, if they want to, as well as the gentlemen?”
Why not, indeed, I thought, as I bid the gentleman adieu, rolled a large cigarette, and lit its end. As I walked out into the busy Saturday night sidewalk traffic of Atlantic Avenue, I viewed the passing women in a somewhat different light, and smiled at their secrets, both known and unknown.
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