The Solitary Cyclist: Peculiar Persecution

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: The Solitary Cyclist: Peculiar Persecution
Author: gardnerhill                        
Word Count: 60                     
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: Peculiar only for the time and place.

***

Watson set down his pipe. "Peculiar, Holmes?"

The sleuth gestured with his cigarette. "Very much so, Watson. John Vincent Harden, the well-known tobacco millionaire, is being sued."

Shaking his head, Watson fished for a cigar. "Some of those ridiculous medical quacks who keep claiming it causes lung cancer or some such, no doubt."

Holmes opened the snuffbox. "Worse. 'Second-hand smoke'."

Comments

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Interesting!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

This was in the time before hospitals were handing out free cigarettes to returning WWI soldiers. Yeah, a whole different attitude back then.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Holmes continued, "And they'll never convince me that you can solve a three pipe problem in any other way."

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

"Well?"

Bubbles float up around the sleuth. "Very funny, Watson."

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

A very different time ^^"

But that is such a clever idea and twist from you regarding what Harden was being persecuted about.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Next the female employees in his cigarette-rolling factories will be wanting HALF a man's wages. The nerve!

[debriswoman]

Yes, Watson...of course...

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Remember in THE KING'S SPEECH (late 1930s) that some of the royal doctors had recommended smoking as a way to deal with the king's stammer. A whole different attitude toward tobacco back then.