The difficulty of obtaining tobacco is probably the reason why everybody, male and female, used it at that time.

I know from my own experience that when I was at West Point, the fact that tobacco, in every form, was prohibited, and the mere possession of the weed severely punished, made the majority of the cadets, myself included, try to acquire the habit of using it.

I failed utterly at the time and for many years afterward; but the majority accomplished the object of their youthful ambition.
Under Spanish rule Mexico was prohibited from producing anything that the mother-country could supply.

This rule excluded the cultivation of the grape, olive and many other articles to which the soil and climate were well adapted.

The country was governed for "revenue only;" and tobacco, which cannot be raised in Spain, but is indigenous to Mexico, offered a fine instrumentality for securing this prime object of government.