The Russians also are great lovers of the weed

The Russians also are great lovers of the weed. A writer says:--
"Everybody smokes, men, women, and children. They smoke Turkish tobacco, rolled in silk paper--seldom
cigars or pipes. These rolls are called parporos. The ladies almost all smoke, but they smoke the small,
delicate sizes of parporos, while the gentlemen smoke larger ones. 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. A writer says of smoking in Austria:--
"We have been rather surprised to find so few persons smoking pipes in Austria. Indeed, a pipe is seldom seen
except among the laboring classes. The most favorite mode of using the weed here is in cigarettes, almost
every gentleman being provided with a silver box, in which they have Turkish tobacco and small slips of
paper, with mucilage on them ready for rolling. They make them as they use them, and are very expert in the
handling of the tobacco. The chewing of tobacco is universally repudiated, being regarded as the height of
vulgarity. The Turkish tobacco is of fine flavor, and commands high prices. It is very much in appearance like
the fine cut chewing tobacco so extensively used at home."
The cigars made by the Austrian Government, which are the only description to be had are very inferior, and
it is not to be wondered that the cigarette is so generally used in preference.
The smoking of cigarettes by the ladies is quite common, especially among the higher classes. In no part ofthe world is smoking so common as in

South America; here all classes and all ages use the weed. Smoking is
encouraged in the family and the children are early taught the custom. A traveler who has observed this
custom more particularly than any other, says of the use of tobacco in Peru:--
"Scarcely in any regions of the world is smoking so common as in Peru. The rich as well as the poor, the old
man as well as the boy, the master as well as the servant, the lady as well as the negroes who wait on her, the
young maiden as well as the mother--all smoke and never cease smoking, except when eating, or sleeping, or
in church. Social distinctions are as numerous and as marked in Peru as anywhere else, and there is the most
exclusive pride of color and of blood. But differences of color and of rank are wholly disregarded when a light
for a cigar is requested, a favor which it is not considered a liberty to ask, and which it would be deemed a
gross act of incivility to refuse. It is chiefly cigarritos which are smoked.
"The cigarrito, as is well known, is tobacco cut fine and dexterously wrapped in moist maize leaves, in paper,
or in straw. Only the laborers on the plantations smoke small clay pipes. Dearer than the cigarritos are the
cigars, which are not inferior to the best Havanna. Everywhere are met the cigarrito-twisters. Cleverly though
they manipulate, cleanliness is not their besetting weakness. But in Peru, and in other parts of South America,
cleanliness is not held in more esteem than in Portugal and Spain."
The Turks have long been noted as among the largest consumers of tobacco as well as using the most
magnificent of smoking implements. The hookah is in all respects the most expensive and elaborate machine
(for so it may be called) used for smoking tobacco. A traveler gives the following graphic description of
smoking among them.