Vatican Newspaper In 1867 Had Female Cigar Smoking Writers and Cosmetic Ads

This is pretty fasicnating. See The first woman to write for the Osservatore Romano
Smoked cigars and wrote for the Pope

She wrote a "soap opera" for the Pope's Newspaper!! We also learn:

...A reading of our newspaper from a century and a half ago reserves many surprises: ads for cosmetic balms and hair dye, Russian stocks, second-hand carts, steam boat rides on the Nile and Upper Egypt, lotteries to finance missions and charity works and serial stories which aimed to attract new readers and make them faithful to the paper. Glancing through the minute and sometimes wobbly print of the Osservatore of the 1800s, the lively and quick prose of the author stands out in stories where the bad guys mercilessly employ their wicked plans and the good ones confront the troubles of life with courage and a spirit of sacrifice, “sublime in content, firm in pain;” two-dimensional characters, without real artistic value, who, however, manage to capture the attention of the reader through a freshness of dialogue and a solid narrative. ...

Hair dye? Soap Operas ? for readership and ad revenue? The Vatican always so practical.