Gilded Age Tobacco Etiquette

The demoiselles of the Moulin Rouge and the Casino are not permitted to smoke in those temples of light amusement, and the girls of the boulevard do not smoke in the cafés.

Etiquette in Public

With regard to etiquette in the use of tobacco in public places there is not much to say, as smoke is as free as air. This is in accordance with the universal European custom. Men smoke in restaurants, cafés and at most of the hotel tables. Women do not smoke publicly. Whether or not they smoke in private is a matter for each man's experience.

I have never seen a French lady smoke. Once, in Dresden, I saw a married lady puff a cigarette after dinner in a fashionable restaurant; and once I saw two English girls, seemingly of the upper middle class, smoking cigarettes in a railroad carriage, where they were alone. Here my knowledge ends.

The demoiselles of the Moulin Rouge and the Casino are not permitted to smoke in those temples of light amusement, and the girls of the boulevard do not smoke in the cafés. At the Café Anglais, which is still nearly as chic as ever, smoking is not permitted until after eight p.m. But rules like these are resented and scarcely ever enforced. —Paris Correspondent, The Washington Star, 1892

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