Smoking car

“ In our railroad cars smokers have to separate themselves from wives, children, and friends and go by themselves into a smoking-car or apartment, and why? simply because tobacco smoke is unpleasant to every man, woman, and child who is not accustomed to it ”

“ The baggage smoking-car reeked with strong tobacco, the clouds of smoke shifting with the air currents, and dimly through the haze could be seen several men. Three of these were playing cards near the baggage-room door, while two more lounged in a seat half way down the aisle and on the other side of the car. Across from the card-players, reading a magazine, was a fat man, and near the water cooler was a dyspeptic-looking individual who was grumbling about the country through which he was passing. ”

“ Always at morning, noon and night, comes the inevitable box of parporos, and everybody at the table smokes and drinks their coffee at the same time. On the cars are fixed little cups for cigar ashes in every seat. Ladies frequently take out their part parporos, and hand them to the gentlemen with a pretty invitation to smoke. Instead of having a smoking car as we do, they have a car for those who are so 'pokey' as not to smoke."
Throughout the German States the custom of smoking is universal and tobacco enters largely into their list of expenditures. ”

“ The coaches were built on the American plan, and every carriage was a smoking-car; for the use of tobacco is well-nigh universal in Japan among both sexes. Barely had a lady folded her legs under her on a bench across the aisle than she drew out a pipe in appearance like a long lead pencil, the bowl of which held much less than the smallest thimble, and a leather pouch containing tobacco as fine as the hair of the head. ”

“ There was the usual gambling to be seen on steamers and in hotels, the usual betting and bookmaking, the usual drinking, the usual games at euchre, and, in short, the usual everything.
The traffic-manager of every railway tries to stop smoking, or at least to surround smoking with so many discomforts that it will stop itself. In New South Wales, for instance, you read at every station, “Any person found smoking on the railway premises is liable to a fine of £2.” Still you get a smoking-carriage. ”

“ There is a general notion, principally among ladies, that the smoking-room of a sleeping-car is a place of extraordinary hilarity and indecorous enjoyment. They have visions of men sitting around in their shirt-sleeves playing poker, drinking out of pocket-flasks, and exchanging amid clouds of smoke stories that would make even the porter blush. But, alas, it is not thus.
Our own experience of Pullman smoking-rooms is that they are the dullest holes on earth. The smoke is there all right, dense clouds of it. ”

“ The road is so steep that often the bearers set their burden down in the shadow of the bank-side, and fling themselves at full length on the ground beside it, thriftily passing from man to man the slow-burning wax match 250 for their paper cigarettes. I remember more than one such smoking group, with a solitary mourner, hat in hand and eyes on the coffin, yet he, too, with cigarette in mouth, standing patiently by. All who pass make the sign of the cross, and even the rudest peasant uncovers his head. ”

“ I cannot help having this sensation, for instance, about the arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. There are no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go behind the curtain and smoke. ”

“ And yet smokers are treated in our parlor cars as a privileged class, for, while ordinary travellers are entitled to but one seat, smokers get two seats for one ticket. Not infrequently a smoker will engage a seat in a parlor car and leave it empty during the greater part of his trip. He uses the additional seat provided gratuitously for him in the smoking section of the car, or in a special smoking car, while a delicate woman or an invalid, who fain would occupy and gladly pay for his seat, is debarred from doing so. ”

“ It has also proven by tests in the laboratory that the nicotine in a fairly mild cigar will reduce a man's muscular power from 25 to 40 per cent."
Were it not for the tobacco habit, we would need no smoking car. Suppose women had a vice that required them a separate apartment from the men when they travel. Even in the cars where the women travel there are rooms fixed up in luxuriant style while poor mothers with their babies have to sit upright and smell this rank and poisonous odor. But of course women have no redress, or are made to think they have none. ”

“ Occasionally a specimen of the primeval driver is met with, and even now the habit of cigarette smoking when in charge of a car is supposed, by the younger and less intelligent men of the profession, to confer an air of knowledge coupled with disdain. ”

“ The demands made by smokers upon public conveyances increase materially the capital required to equip railroads and other means of communication. Smokers are never charged an extra fare for the inconvenience and expense which they cause, although special cars or parts of cars are provided for their use. On some of the smaller railroads, where the traffic is light and a single car would be ample to carry all of the passengers desiring to take a certain train, the train regularly includes a smoking car, thus adding 100 per cent. ”

“ The next ten minutes is spent in feverishly collecting gear, with which you stagger through the night to your disgusted steed, who, when he has realized what is in store for him, behaves as though he had never seen you, nor your saddle, nor the helio stand, nor anything that is yours in his life before, this being his habit in all moments of emergency. Then you take a few frantic tugs at your cigarette before the "No smoking" order is passed down, and ride out into the unknown. ”

“ They had been going along at a brisk pace for several miles when they heard the purr of another motor car in back of them, and glancing back saw a handsome-looking blue auto creeping up to them. A flashily dressed young man, smoking a cigarette, was driving it, and three girls were sitting in the tonneau. The blue machine overtook them steadily, and soon was abreast of them. ”

“ Smoking is not prohibited even in the first-class cars, so that the American ladies in the cars had to endure the smell of various kinds of Japanese tobacco, in addition to the heat, which was rendered more disagreeable by the frequent closing of the windows as the train dashed through many tunnels. ”

“ A car, driven by a man smoking a cigarette, comes up. It is followed by a cab, from which alights an old gentleman, also smoking a cigarette. The car pulls up at the gate of the ‘depository,’ a little house in the grounds arranged for the reception of people who have died too late to be buried that day. The guardian of this house, cigarette in mouth, flings open the doors, speaks to the gentleman, and then calls for somebody to come. A man with a cigarette in his mouth now approaches. He and the car-driver lift out the coffin and carry it into the house and lay it on the trestles. ”

“ LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA. AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”
It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to ask the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” ”

“ In the streets, friends do not like you to smoke when with them, and there are very few public conveyances in which tobacco is comfortably possible.
In trains there is a most conspicuous neglect of smokers. I found, for instance, on my journey from New York to Chicago, that the only place I could smoke in was the end compartment of the fourth car from my own. That is to say, let it be as stormy and dark as it may, you have to pass from other car to the other half the length of the train, and when you do get to "the smoking compartment" you find it is only intended to hold five passengers. ”

“ One may smoke in a railway-carriage, in spite of by-laws, if one has first obtained the consent of every one present; but if there be a lady there, though she give her consent, smoke not. In nine cases out of ten, she will give it from good nature.* *In America, cars are especially provided for smokers, and no gentleman will violate etiquette by smoking in any other. ”

“ Some of the passengers were drinking, some were playing cards, and all were smoking until the air was stifling. I never object to cigar smoke when there is some little ventilation, but when it gets so thick that one feels as if it is molasses instead of air that one is inhaling, then I mildly protest. It was soon this occasion, and I wonder what would be the result in our land of boasted freedom if a Pullman car should be put to such purposes. I concluded it is due to this freedom that we do not suffer from such things. Women travelers in America command as much consideration as men. ”

“ Go where we will, in crowded streets or country lanes, boys of the tender age of from nine or ten years upwards are almost constantly met with, smoking paper cigarettes, who were they better advised would prefer toffy, as was the case a few years ago. Surely every one knows that children cannot go on smoking tobacco with impunity, without, in fact, doing themselves life-long injury. ”

“ Under a
typical cigarette fire scenario, the smoker falls asleep in bed or on a
sofa with a burning cigarette, the ash smolders, then bursts into
flames often in the middle of the night--a time when everyone is least
prepared.
It is common knowledge that smoking is considered one of the nation's
leading causes of preventable death, but it's less widely known that
cigarettes are the leading cause of fatal fires. ”

“ But this debility is often the fault of the operators themselves, who sit bent over their desks, smoking villainous cigarettes or strong tobacco, who ride in street cars when they should gladly seize the chance to walk briskly, and who, I am sorry to say, drink intoxicating liquors, which appear to tempt sedentary persons with peculiar power.
Ben Mayberry had none of these baneful habits. He lived a long distance from the office, and although the street cars passed within a block of his home, I never knew him to ride on one, no matter how severe the weather might be. ”

“ One effective weapon is the sign on a ferryboat or street car: "No smoking allowed on this side," or "Smoking allowed on three rear seats only." Public halls and vehicles in increasing numbers either prohibit smoking altogether or put smokers to some considerable inconvenience. ”

“ Till it be done, passengers will break the law, guards will be bribed to wink at an infraction of their duty, and non-smoking wayfarers will be subjected to the annoyance of travelling in carriages redolent of stale tobacco. We always boast of being the freest country in the world, but there is no country except England where the public would submit to such an interference with their tastes and habits as is daily practised upon our great smoking community in its journeyings by rail. ”

“ I pressed the button alongside my berth, and a moment later the porter was peering in at me through the curtains.
"Look here, John," said I in a stage whisper, "this is a little too much! Somebody in this car is smoking cigarettes, and I think it's a condemned outrage. With all these ladies on board it seems to me that you ought to insist that the man who can't restrain his passion for cigarettes should get off at the next stop and take the first cattle car he finds running to where he thinks he is going." ”

“ Smoking in the street is also objected to, exception being made when on the front platforms of cars, when a gentleman should make it his duty to see that the smoke does not prove disagreeable to ladies in the car. ”

“ Smoking was a high crime on board the Young America—not in the relation of the practice to the ship, but to the student. It was condemned, not simply because it would be offensive in the cabins and {234} steerage, and on deck, but because it was a bad habit for a boy to acquire. The adult forward officers, the cooks and the stewards, were allowed to smoke on the forecastle at certain prescribed hours; but it was a punishable offence for a student to smoke at any time or in any place, whether on board or on shore. ”

“ A very usual cause of overheating is a slipping fan belt; an adjustment is provided by which the belt can be tightened when it works loose.
ENGINE SMOKES
Black smoke indicates that the mixture is too rich; blue smoke is a sign of too plentiful lubrication. Oil that is too thin, or that is of a poor grade, will cause smoking; good quality oil of the grade recommended by the manufacturer should always be used.
Broken piston rings, or rings stuck in their grooves, will be the cause of smoking because they will permit an excess of oil to pass by them. ”

“ The third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs; but they were clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. A fourth class were like our cattle cars, only not so good, for ours are well ventilated, whereas these were close, and were filled with dirty people, standing up, and getting what air they could through one or two little windows. Yet these people were generally smoking, their poverty compelling them to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make them give up tobacco. ”