The Russellville Democrat., 1884-01-31


A Young man with neatly brushed
hair and light-blue necktie stood be-
bind q cigar stand in q fashionable and
well-known cafe Up town the other day.
Ii wa very duh, as the Wall street men
had not begun TO drop in on their way
home, and the ioungers had wandered
out on Broadway. In the case were
cigars of every variety, from the ordlna-
nv ten-cent kind to wicked and power
full looking things ten inches long
1.-THE law compels us to sell the ci-
gavs out of the boxes Just as we buy
Them" said the clerk, feeling for the
sprouts Of budding mustache. 'For-
nerly we had set of beautifully pol
ished rosewood trays, but we had to
throw them aside.
Every box bore small Illuminated
card on which was the retail price OF the
cigars. These cards were 10, 10, 20, 20,
80, As, 80 and so cents, and two boxes
were marked 81 and $3.50 apiece re-
spectively. There were no cigars miss
ing from the Ascent box, though the
50-cent one was almost empty. Tho
clerk said that II man bought high
priced cigar he preferred to pay the OK
ira five cents, and get one for half q
dollar rather than forty-five cents.
"At one time we thought it would
add tone to the stand, said the clerk,
ito take off all price tags, but we found
it wouldn work. Customers can not
remember the names of cigars and re-
.or; 10 the figures for Identification.
Besides, the Ignorance of the prices
often led to awkward situations. A
man would stop at the stand on his
way out with some friends and say:
Gimme some cigars.
"What kind?'
well, he would look about blindly
for time and finally order half a dozen
of the kind that struck his fancy. II
they happened to be the eighty cent or
dollar variety, he would pay the bill,
but he would never buy of us again.
SO we put the tags back again.
Do you sell many cigars at dollar
apieceP"
1.-The sale is very uneven. Some
times the box will lie for weeks I'M
touched, and then again there will be a
sudden rush on them. | have smoked
a dollar-and-a-half cigar" said the
clerk, with proud smile.
Ibid you enjoy itP'
"Not for cent. 1t was given to me
pnc night by prominent broker who
and felt generous. He bought fifty of
them, ard handed them to whoever he
met. took mine home, and after din
ner on Sunday invited some friends in
and l smoked it. Well, s'pose m
not up in extra fine cigars, for didn't
get BIT OF com 'ort out of that one. 1t
was 50 strong that it par he'd my throat
and left an unpleasant taste.
.tDon't you consider 81 and $3.50
apiece purely fancy prieeson
"Well, don't know but they are a
BIZ spectacular. A cigar can he so good
and 10 better. Ga the highest-priced
wholesale list the most expensive cigar
is the Para la Nobleza, which sells to
the trade for S413 thousand. This is
a little over forty-one cents apiece.
They are reta'led Mt any price above
fifty cent. We can't sell them at fifty,
because, singularly enough, every body
who buys a fifty-cent cigarexpects three
for dollar
What men buy very high-Priced
cigarsp'
. Nearly all of our customers buy as
high as thirty cents, and we sell hun
dreds of fifty-csnt cigars The pur-
chasers of the very expensive ones are
a few men whom could count off on
my fingers. They buy them because
they are 80 very expensive, and not be-
cause they like the flavor. suppose
that II we had cigars at So apiece, there
would be purchasers ~ Y. Sun.