The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1885-09-20
POINTS FoR THE SMOKERS.
Some Interesting information About the
Details of Cigar Making.

Some Interesting information About the
Details of Cigar Making.
ssThe shade of the cigar" said Finance
Commissioner John Edelstein, at his cigar
mandatory on Railroad avenue, near
Grove street, to one of the TATTLERs, the
other day, "dont count in the matter of
its strength or mildness. The color is all
in the wrapper. The light colored cigars
and the dark colored segars are filed with
the same tobacco; and there is not enough
tobacco in the wrapper to give the segar a
favor. John" he added, turning to one
of twenty men who were busy rolling
segars at tables in the shop, "just roll up
a couple of segars, to show this gentleman
how small part of the segar the wrap
per is"
The reporter was obliged to admit that
the little wrapping of tobacco, in which the
segar was rolled, was not sufficient to give
strength to mild segar, or tone down the
flavor of strong one.
"Its all Imagination" the Finance Com
missioner went on. "Shut your eyes, and
you can't tell whether you have o mild or
strong cigar in your mouth"
Yet, because smokers think that the
one of Mr.. Edelstein's assistants, Joseph
Earle, who has been with him for twenty
years or more, can find forty different
shades in the cigars made under Mr.. Edel-
STEMS supervision. His quick and trained
| eye can detect niceties of shade that no
ordinary eye can see. Mr.. Edelstein uses
Sumatra tobacco for wrappers. The Con-
necticut and Pennsylvania wrappers make
rough exteriors, and are used only for the
| poorer class of cigars. The Finance Com
missioner makes only the choices of his
! cigars at his Railroad avenue factory. At
his place in New York, the inferior grades
are rolled up, Mr.. Edelstein has never
seen the inside of his New York shop. 1t
| is in charge Uf a man who buys the stock,
has it made and receives so much per box
| for what he delivers at the factory in this
| city. All the better cigars are made under
Mr.. Edelstein's own supervision. When
the tobacco arrives, it is stripped ~ the
leaf is torn loose from the stem; and put
into the hands of the twenty makers at the
benches to be rolled up. The men average
probably 300 cigars day. The most rapid
of them scored 400 one day last week. The
record of others got down as low as l20 and
100. Each man reports, at the end of his
days labor, the number of cigars he has
rolled, and Mr.. Edelstein enters it on his
books. He is obliged to keep careful
daily record for the revenue officers.
If he buys tobacco he must enter
| the quantity. AT the end of each
month he must report how much he has
bought, what he has manufactured from il
the revenue laws require that l ,000 cigars
shall be made from each Is pounds of leaf
what quantity of stamps he has purchased
and what he has used and variety oil
other little details, by attention to which
the Collector assures himself that he has
collected the full tax upon the manufac.
! tured material. When the cigar makers
| have reported the result of their daily
labors. the cigars are put in large packing
boxes. Each man has his own box, and
when there is enough in any box to make il
worth the while-say 5000 or 4,000-Mr
Earle and his assistant take them out, sep
arate them according to their shades, and
put them in the regular cigar boxes-in sc
and 100 lots for ths consumer. When
they have been thus boxed, the shop mum.
Der of the man from whose pile they had
been taken is marked upon the cigar box
That shows who of the shop hands made
the cigars put into that particular box, an6
who is at fault if the cigars are not vel
made.
Mr.. Edelstein's father was cigar manu-
facturer. Mr.. Edelstein himself went into
business twenty-five years ago. He manu-
featured an excellent grade of cigar, and
his trade grew, without any solicitation OF
his part, till now it is the largest, in its line
in this city. He has no one out drumming
up custom for him but he has hands full
in supplying the demand that has come to
him almost unsought. His trade is almost
entirely in this city, and there is scarcely a
saloon in the town that does not sell his
cigars over the counter. He says it with
pride, that he has never lost customer
since he began. His ledger accounts are
with the same dealers whose names Fl cured
on his books fifteen, eighteen and twenty
years ago. Last year he made 1,600,0 OC
cigars. This year the production of his
factory will reach an aggregate of 2,00N00C
cigars. He buys the best Havana tobacco,
and, rolled in the Sumatra wrappers, il
looks unusually sleek. He is on hand,him.
self, all the time, making purchases, exam
lining stock, and seeing that the grade oil
his cigars does not fall below the standard
Notwithstanding it all, he finds time tc
engage in public movements, and even now
is one of the most active and best informed
of the city's Board of Finance.