Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1875-08-27
Preparing Tobacco in France.

IHAvE discovered a new counterblast
against tobacco" l have found out a
way of curing inveterate smokers of their
pernicious habits. l beg to recommend
my method TO the respectable individuals
who trace all the ills of our age to nico-
tine, and | stipulate only that l be ap-
pointed an honorary member of the anti-tO-
bacco-smoking association My remedy
Is simple. The devotee of tobacco has
only TO run over to Paris, and then drive
straight to the Manufacture des Tabacs, a
large building situated on the quay, Just
beyond the Hotel des Invalides If
visit there will not cure him his case is
hopeless. HIS very first step into the es-
tablishment is enough to set confirmed
smoker against his favorite consolation.
For he is at once taken into a long, low
shed where great muscular men, naked to
the waist, are groaning and perspiring under
huge loads of the virgin leaf. Tobacco is
heaped everywhere on the floor. 1t is
piled up in dense masses against the wall,
just like sauerkraut outside novels in
Germany, and it smells as strong. Our
guide picked up first one dirty leaf and
then another, telling US this was Maryland
and that Algerian; but we could not de-
tect any variation in the nastinesS of the
smell. In the next room the process of
fermentation was going on, and another
man who was standing on the mass of
tobacco which lay foot deep upon the
floor plunged his hand into the midst of
the manure-like mixture and offered us
some of the stuff that we might feel how
ifotit was to the touch. After fermentae
ton the tobacco is left TO cool and dry,
and II Is eighteen months, so our guide
fipformed us, before it is fit for snuff In
another hall the leaves are moistened with
salt water, and in another are rows of ma
chimes worked by steam for chopping the
tobacco into shreds. Endless, indeed, are
the complicated contrivances for Sitting
and triturating the weed, and wonderful
are they to the unsophisticated mind. But
the heat OF the rooms, the quantity of the
tobacco dust in the air, the half-naked
workmen, and, above all, the oppressive
and intolerable' stencil, almost inclined
one to the belief that the great factory
was organized by the State for the special
purpose Of degrading the population to an
easily-governed condition. The place re-
minded me of somewhat similar expe-
rience once had in Italy. l had been rev.
cling for weeks in the macaroni which
they prepare better in la bella NapoIi than
anywhere in the world. One day / hap
pened to make an excursion to Amlfi, and
there in that earthly paradise, by the
shore OF sea which on that coast takes
more heavenly tints than anywhere else
on its splendid borders, / saw a field of
macaroni being troddeH by men without
shoes or stockings, and in fact without
clothing at all except canvas trousers.
After that day ate no more macaroni. -
Upstairs we reached long rooms, where
hundreds of women were making cigars.
Some were cutting the outside leaves into
strips OF about an inch wide, pointed at
each end. Others were filing the strips
with tobacco-and Oh! such tobacco!
such shreds and patches and sticks as
made one cease to wonder why French
cigars won't draw, and why they are so
noXious when they do. When the woman
had rounded one extremity into a point
she fastened it together with a black.
looking mixture, said 10 consist of flour
and tobacco, juice, and then stuck the end
into a sort of glass cup to harden while
she was making the next cigar. After a
few had been made the blunt ends were
cut of by machine and the cigar was
ready for sale. You work very fast"
said | to one woman. ~ do not think
So" replied she; 81 find that | work too
slow, for | have to make $50 cigars for
forty sous" Let me hasten to add, for
the relief of those who have read awful
stories OF the way in which cigars are
made in Havana, that there was nothing
whatever dirty or disgusting in the way
In which the cigars were made 1t was
only the contents of the leaves that were
nasty. In another set of rooms cigaHatoss
were being made, and it was very pretty
TO see the dettness with which the girls
folded the small papers so as to give each
| 9mnIlnqt oil .,,C.-
folded each paper round a pencil and
fastened up the end. These cases were
filled with equal dexterity by other women
ana then made up into bundles.
sun more interesting was il to watch the
extraordinary skill with which three
women, who literally played into each
others hands, weighed out the tobacco
cut the paper receptacles, filled them by
help OF a machine worked by hydraullc
pressure, and labeled the packets ready
for sale. AS though il were not enough to
weigh an ounce by machinery, each indi-
vidual packet is aflerward separately
tested by forewoman, who puts on one
side TO be made up affesh every packet
weighing a fraction below or above its due
apportionment OF tobacco, so every pur-
chaser OF a two-ounce packet Of Govern.
ment tobacco may be perfectly sure that
| ~ hoo hlo piOpcI Quhnuty. DuJ surely
the establishment must lose more in the
salaries of these female overseers than il
could in the dispensation of few addi.
tional grains of tobacco. No less than 1,
600 women are employed. Another room
Is nlled up entirely BY the tobacco which
Is seized on the frontier. The guide told
us IL was mixed up In certain propor-
tons with other kinds, and with the
shreds OF leaves cut from cigars" for
nothing is lost here" said he, and |
believed himi-to be made into snuff.
The tObdc de saisie Is worth nothing. he
declared, tearing up some packets with a
contemptuous air, and what he showed us
was even worse than average French 10.
bacco. So IL Is charitable 70 conclude that
II Is consideration for the public health
that makes the customs authorities look 80
sharply after the importation of the weed
from abroad. Lastly we come TO the DIG.
tail department. wherein the leaf was be-
ing made into black ropes Of various