The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1884-09-05
Cigars And Smoking in Cuba.

In Cuba. II you ask for cigars in
English in tobacco shop. you will get
cigarets. They call cigars tobacco;
cigarets are called cigarros. Cigars
are exceedingly cheap there. The
famous Henry Clays, which in this
country command so cents and are not
then sure to be genuine, sell there for
$40 hundred. You can get very
good cigars for four or five cents; and
the favorite with gentlemen of taste,
the great black Brevas, sell for from
six to eight cents singly. These Breyas
are certainly delicious on top of a
hearty dinner. They are not pretty.
They are rough, coarse, badly made
in appearance, and are usually twisted
little awry. But, as the Irish say,
they have the real stuff in them.
Russia, which in all the markets of
the world, is the most tasteful buyer
and carries of the best of everything,
manages to get all the best Brevas.
America could have them. but America
Is not good buyer. She considers
the looks of things rather than tho
quality. They tell the most astonish-
ing stories about cigars in Cuba, in
vesting them with brains, stomachs,
and nerves. Every Cuban will positive
ly assure you that if you let cigar get
old and dry. you run risk of its
having acquired disease, vices and bad
habits. They say it may get obstinate
and smoke crooked; it may have
drunk in bad odors and made itself
sick. They positively assert that
al, oin tho anI
in that condition are not fit to smoke.
But sea-sickness greatly improves them
and in ten days or two weeks after
they have been landed they are Sc
greatly improved rs to be worth half
as much again rs they were before
they went to sea. The consequence is,
that the Cubans in New York who had
cigars sent to them from home are
envied by their friends in Cuba, and |
heard of at least one case of Il man in
Havana who has all his cigars sent ON
voyages up or down the coast and
back again before he smokes them or
offers them to his friends.
Cigarets are sold at two packages
for five cents in Cuba. The Cubanas
are tho best. The Cubans open the
ends. unroll them, and roll them up
again. In the Honradez factory the
new American and French machinery
for making ready-rolled cigarets has
been introduced. The machines turn
out 800 pretty little cylinders of paper
loaded with tobacco every hour. But
l did not see any Cuban smoke one. l
asked an old smoker why this was. and
told him that cigaret-smoking was
never popular in this country until the
trick of making them all ready for use
was put into practice. ''Well," said
he. '.they will never be popular here.
We like to unroll the cigaret and see
what it is made of; and we like to roll
it up again so As to be sure it is rolled
just right" 1t really seems to me a
mercy that this case. for the people
would smoke themselves into solid ma
hogany if il were not or this practice.
The time they take to unroll and roll
their cigarets is the only rest their
bodies get while they are awake.
While walking along the streets of
Havana as you glance into the open
houses you will frequently see in the
big, cool Railways man seated by n
little table rolling cigarets. He will
be pleased to have you walk in and
look ut him. He has heap of small
pieces of straw paper and mound of
black, flaky tobacco, and his hands
twinkle in the rapidity of their move
ments. He wears a strengthening
brass thimble on one finger, and by a
poke and dab with this he folds and
presses in the ends of the paper on
each cigaret. Thus are the workmen
of the cigaret factories scattered all
over the city. Each man gets GER
tain number of sheets of paper and a
certain weight of tobacco sufficient for
the manufacture of 5000 cigarets q
day-the usual product of an active
mans spare time. The paper and
tobacco are weighed before he gets
them, and he must bring back cigarets
of exactly that weight. These work
men are the hall porters in the private
and business houses, and earn a little
extra sum in this manner.
The highest-priced cigars that I saw
In HAVANA sold at wholesale for $50
hundred. They were jet black and
very smoothly made. Each one was
wrapped in silver foil. The value of
them seemed to lie in the variety of
perfect leaves of the great size required
for their manufacture. -NeU YORK. San.