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The Cigarette In Diplomacy

The Cigarette In Diplomacy image
Parent Issue
Day
25
Month
November
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

An attaché of one of tbe legations n Washington said to mo the other day: "Diplomaoy conldn't get along without tbe cigarette. For hnndreds of years ambassadors osed the snuff box as a discourager of impulsiveness and etaper. Yon can't think of Talleyrand, for instanco, without his precious snnff box. Reca]] the paintings and prints of the pictnresqne old felow ; he eeemed to be always offering a piDoh of snuff to some other smirking chap. When passions became strained, or things tbat ought aot to be eaid were ikely to be foroed ont by a sly reinark of one's adversary, or an unexpeoted ituation developed, tbe passing of nuff always gained time. Tbe cigarette does the same business now. The cigar is too big and too heavy for many meD, but the oigarette is dainty aud harmless. and if It does anything, it steadies the nerve for the time. It is a graoefnl thing to offer ; it affords a chauoe for a polite smile; it helpa a fellow to get an impassive faoe; and most of all it makes him careful in speech. Why the world never will know how often even war has been averted by the cigarette. There is always a war of diplomats before the open war of nations, and that little roll of tobáceo has again and again daring the last ten years been a spell of peaoe among ambassadors when irri tation had got the better of tbem aud any moment migbt hear the irrevooable words whioh wonld precipítate war. All the sensitiveness of. a whole nation is sométimes tingJing in the person of its one ambassador during a oritical nterview, aDd I could teil yon strange sories, were I at liberty, whioh I have athered among the diplomatic corps of arious oapitals of how international nger has been sootbed by the smoke

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News