The National tribune., 1881-09-17
SNIDE CIGARS,

of music in inland and California cities to push
off his goods and devotes all his time and sagacity
to inventing some means Of putting slave in
the working cigar makers place He accom-
plishes this through the tenement-house system.
Instead Of setting up factory with the proper
machinery and holding toward his laborers a
system of neutrality and humanity, he first pro
ceeds TO constitute himself landlord of the
workman. He rents an old and filthy house in
a crowded and diseased quarter, say for $4,000 a
wear. and then cuts it up into tenement rooms.
for which he charges rent to families sufficient
to pay his own rent as cigar maker, and also to
leave him profit He thus pays nothing for
his factory, but makes its occupants, the cigar
makers and their families, pay his rent. He es-
tablishes in this building a den or office, from
which the work is given out and where the cigars
are received. He avoids the revenue law for
malities to a great degree in this way The
floors of the tenement houses are generally
twenty-five feet wide by sixty feet in length, and
there will be half dozen families on every floor
of this area
Enter one of these little apartments of about
twice the size of a street passenger car and you
will find it contains a cheap cooking-stove, worth
81 or So three or four wooden chairs, long bench
against one side Of the wall to work the cigars
upon, and the wooden eating table on the oppo-
site side Out Of this little den open one or two
small bedrooms, in which are common bed-ticks
stuffed with bunches OF straw and a straw pillow.
There the whole family sleep and live working
fourteen hours out Of the twenty-four, and i'm
pressing in the job every person in the family.
During the winter when the smallpox is rife, the
y0dOyyC kent fast md he IIacp repl<S with
bad air. filth, cooking fumes, and tobacco dust.
The family has no other place to go, and their
only resort after working from daylight till eight
or nine O'Clock in the evening, is to send out for
beer, which they drink till it compels sleep. They
eat principally cheese and sausage. All night the
floors are covered with tobacco, which has been
wetted down. and must dry during the night, in
order to be ready for the cigar-makers hands next
day. Here. perhaps, lies child with the scarlet
fever and another with the measles. These chill
dren tread upon the tobacco lie upon it, and COM
nit the offices Of nature anywhere around, as ii
covers the whole floor and next morning the in
dustrious cigar roller picks up the decoction and
proceeds to make cigars for the million.
In order TO make 81 a day in these tenement
houses, it is requisite to complete 200 cigars,
which Will take man and his wife and two
children fourteen hours Of steady work. The
children strip the tObacco-that is pull the leaves
off the stem. The women prepare the "bunches >
OF tobacco, which constitutes the cigar-fllers,
The men roll the cigars. Instead of these 700
cigars coming out of a well cleansed, fumgated
and aired factory they come saturated with every
kind Of dirt and every seed of disease. 1t is gen
orally Bohemians who make these cigars. They
worked under the lash, perhaps, in the great gov
eminent cigar factories of Austria, and make
protest against the way they are crammed into
American tenement houses. No other business
is carried on in the living apartments Of people
in New York except a very little tailoring
A necessary feature of the tenement house
system is cheating the revenue. 1t is done
regularly that it is a well-knOwn fact that in the
vicinity OF these tenement-hOuse factories the
small cigar dealers cannot sell their goods, the
neighbOrhOod being supplied with crooked or
smugged cigars, The milkman comes in the
morning about four o'clock, before a revenue
officer or anybody else is stirring He appears to
take the milk into the house, and these Bohe-
mians are very clannish and will only have milk
from their own folks. He comes out with his
pockets stuffed with cigars, which he conveys to
the saloon near at hand, or perhaps to the shop
Of the proprietor Of the tenement, who. perhaps,
acts as the butcher or grocer underneath so as to
secure his rent and his provision bill the first
thing For some reason, too, these Bohemians
require a great deal Of vinegar, and the vinegar
man goes in with his double load Of vinegar, and
comes out well crammed with cigars. SO with
the sausage yender.
Itmay be asked how the cigar makers can cheat
the turnishers Of the tobacco but this is not diff
cult. It is almost impossible to accurately settle
upon how many cigars given amount OF tobacco
will make. 1t is generally assumed that from
twenty-five to thirty pounds Of tobacco Will make
one thousand cigars, but almost any cigar roller
possesses the knack Of making his cigars lighter
and getting from two hundred to three hundred
more than the thousand out of his quantum Of
tobacco The Government derives annual
revenue Of S14000000 from the domestic manu-
facture of cigars and it is believed that the SNUG
Cling through the tenement house system amounts
to figure small in particulars, but in the aggre
gate immense.
The effect on the clean and decent manufacturer
of such competition as this is to make him dock
the proper wages of his workmen few weeks /
ago | went through the tenement-hOuse dens OF
George Bence. in Avenue + and in Second street, I
reeking places: scarcely better the fine five
story double tenement houses Of Sutro and New
mark, in Seventy fourth street. Men doing any