Lighting three cigarettes in a row with one match was common practice among smokers until the advent of lighters.
It was especially practical to outdoorsmen or soldiers who needed to ration their matches.
“Three on a match” became bad luck during the Boer War (1899-1902).
Commonwealth soldiers discovered the hard way that an enemy sniper would train his sights on a match when it was struck and then focus and fire by the time the third man lit his cigarette.
