[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
ft
SIR; I have been an habitual smoker for over forty years. expect to continue being one. But I never have my mea served in a smoking-room, nor do I sleep in one ; which is ab I never smoke where other people must needs eat, or in the room corridors of an hotel. The principle is, I think, recognI
in all decent clubs; in my own, no smoking is ever allow in the members' dining-room ; in the strangers' dining-roo
it is not allowed till after 9 p.m., and then only with t express consent of everyone still remaining in the room. El in France (where the practice of smoking at meals is all to have originated) one may see in the smaller and non-Esgh hotels the notice : " Priere de ne pas fumer pendant la serrke Yet in England and in France you may any day sec EDO men and English women, who would probably be aggrieved their behaviour were called in question, not merely Pt°
their smoke over other people's food," but even walking into the dining-room with cigars or cigarettes alight, before sitting down to table at all. It is all part of the post-War ignorance of decent manners. I wonder what would have happened to a subaltern twenty years ago if he had lighted his cigarette before the Mess President gave the word after dinner ; or whether, to-day, the people above-mentioned make a practice of lighting up before a private dinner, at which they may be guests, is half over.—I am, Sir, &c., A.
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