a very different matter to the braided
velvet coats which were donned by our masculine forbears in the days
of long drooping cavalry moustaches, tightly buttoned frock-coats, and
flexible canes. The feminine smoking-jacket of to-day is worn with
entrancing little evening or semi-evening frocks, and represents a
compromise between a cloak and a coat, being exquisitely draped and
fashioned of the softest and most attractive of the season's beautiful
fabrics."

There are still many good people nowadays who are shocked at the idea
of women smoking; and to them may be commended the common-sense words
of Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, formerly of Ripon, who arrived in New York
early in 1913 to deliver a series of lectures at Harvard University.
The American newspapers reported him as saying, with reference to this
subject: "Many women in England who are well thought of, smoke. I do
not attempt to enter into the ethical part of this matter, but this
much I say: if men find it such a pleasure to smoke, why shouldn't
women? There are many colours in the rainbow; so there are many tastes
in people. What may be a pleasure to men may be given to women. When
we find women smoking, as they do in some branches of society to-day,
the mere pleasure of that habit must be accepted as belonging to both
sexes."

XIV

SMOKING IN CHURCH

For thy sake, TOBACCO, I
Would do anything but die.

CHARLES LAMB, _A Farewell to Tobacco._

The use of tobacco in churches forms a curious if short chapter in the
social history of smoking. The earliest reference to such a practice
occurs in 1590, when Pope Innocent XII excommunicated all such persons
as were found taking snuff or using tobacco in any form in the church
of St. Peter, at Rome; and again in 1624, Pope Urban VIII issued a
bull against the use of tobacco in churches.

In England it would seem as if some of the early smokers, in the
fulness of their enthusiasm for the new indulgence, went so far as to
smoke in church. When King James I was about to visit Cambridge, the
Vice-Chancellor of the University put forth sundry regulations in
connexion with the royal visit, in which may be found the following
passage: "That noe Graduate, Scholler, or Student of this Universitie
presume to resort to any Inn, Taverne, Alehowse, or Tobacco-Shop at
any tyme dureing the aboade of his Majestie here; nor doe presume to
take tobacco in St. Marie's Church, or in Trinity Colledge Hall,