What Queen Victoria, who hated tobacco and banished it from her presence and from her abodes as far as she could, would have thought and said of the extent to which cigarette-smoking is indulged in now by women, is a question quite unanswerable. Yet Queen Victoria once received a present of pipes and tobacco. By the hands of Sir Richard Burton the Queen had sent a damask tent, a silver pipe, and two silver trays to the King of Dahomey. That potentate told Sir Richard that the tent was very handsome, but too small; that the silver pipe did not smoke so well as his old red clay with a wooden stem; and that though he liked the trays very much, he thought them hardly large enough to serve as shields. He hoped that the next gifts would include a carriage and pair, and a white woman, both of which he would appreciate very much. However, he sent gifts in return to her Britannic Majesty, and among them were a West African state umbrella, a selection of highly coloured clothing materials, and some native pipes and tobacco for the Queen to smoke. Many royal ladies of Europe, contemporaries of Queen Victoria and her son, have had the reputation of being confirmed smokers. Among them may be named Carmen Sylva, the poetess--Queen of Roumania, the Dowager Tsaritsa of Russia, the late Empress of Austria, King Alfonso's mother, formerly Queen-Regent of Spain, the Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy and ex-Queen Amélie of Portugal. It is, of course, well known that Austrian and Russian ladies generally are fond of cigarette-smoking. On Russian railways it is not unusual to find a compartment labelled "For ladies who do not smoke." The newspapers reported not long ago from the other side of the Atlantic that the "smart" women of Chicago had substituted cigars for cigarettes. According to an interview with a Chicago hotel proprietor, the fair smokers "select their cigars as men do, either black and strong, or light, according to taste." How in the world else could they select them? It is not likely, however, that cigar-smoking will become popular among women. For one thing, it leaves too strong and too clinging an odour on the clothes. One of the latest announcements, however, in the fashion pages of the newspapers is the advent of "Smoking Jackets" for ladies! We are informed in the usual style of such pages, that "the well-dressed woman has begun to consider the little smoking-jacket indispensable." This jacket, we are told "is 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."