Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-01-18
HOTELS.
Z B B TIT HI U s E.
WASHINGTON. D. @.

Havana for less than half the price one
would have to pay in the United States.
That is, one will buy for ten cents cigar
that would cost him in Washington twenty
or twenty-five cents, and for five cents a
cigar he would pay ten or fifteen cents for
at home Then there are cigars cherootS
sold for one or two cents. The Ordinary re-
tail price for package of cigarettes is five
cents. The cigars affected here are of the
largest sizes, six or eight inches in length,
and some OF them an inch in diameter. In
one factory visited special lot of cigars.
two thousand in all, were being made with
great care, to I'LL an Older for Queen Vic
tora.
The queen does not smoke them. They
are intended present for the
new Emperor of Russia. The very finest
them cost dollar each here at wholesale.
The men who make these cigars are paid
thirty cents each for the making of them.
They are made with the greatest care,
every bit Of leaf in them being selected and
especially treated and the rolling and wrap
ping being done by the most Skillful OF
cigarmakers. Ore of these men engaged in
making these dollar cigars viii not make
more than twenty Or thirty in a day. He
is supplied with certain amount of tobac-
co when he begins work in the morning,
and when he turns in the product Of his
days labor at night must account for all
the tobacco The cigars are carefully in
spected and If any defect, the slightest
crack or any variation in color is diScov-
ereQ IN a cigar IL is rejected. Inc cigar
maker is paid only for the perfect cigars.
In the best factories the rejected cigars are
not sold at all, but smoked up by the en-
ployes
very finest quality are made the rejected
cigars are boxed and sold as seconds" In
all the factories the cigarmakers are priv
ileged to smoke all they want of their own
product. and 10 take pocketful of cigars
with them when they go out at night. OF
course this is in part at their own expense,
for they are paid for the cigars they turn
in. One will see cigars for sale at the
stands here for as much as 50 cents or 81.
Some of them are packed separately in
glass tubes, SO as to preserve their elusive
would cost 81 in the United States, and a
man who smoked half dozen Of them
day ought to pay pretty big income tax.
For the United States.
The greater part in fact, practically all
of the tobacco leaf raised in Cuba and not
used by the Cuban cigarmakers is shipped
to the United States. At certain seasons of
the year the Havana hotels viii be filled
with tobacco buyers from the states. Some
of them deal through the brokers in Ha-
vana but some who know the country and
the language go out into the tobacco dis
trict and buy tobacco directly from the
planters. often buying a promising crop
before it is picked. The tobacco buyer has
to be good Judge of tobacco. He goes
down into the very center of the bale of
tobacco he is examining, extracts some
samples and tests them in different ways.
OF course, the first test is that of smell.
The Cuban tobacco has strong and Pc
cuiar odor. A little variation one way or
the other makes the tobacco good or bad.
After smelling it the buyer is likely to roll
rudely constructed cigar out Of the leaf
and smoke 1t. He will inhale the smoke,
and endeavor to determine exactly the
flavor. He will examine the ash carefully
Nlaosa-
co-that is, try TO find out how long it will
hold fire. 1t is great annoyance to a
smoker who is talking or writing, or other
wise engaged, to put his cigar into his
mouth ard find that it has gone out. No
cigar ever tastes good after it has once
gone out, and a fine Havana cigar is posi-
lively rank when it has met such cataS-
trophe So one quality sought for is that
of holding fire. If a sample smoked by
the buyer will keep lighted four minutes it
is considered very good. Some VIII burn
for five minutes, and even longer, without
being pulled.
The buyers who come from Cuba, OF
some of them, will tell you that from the
tobacco they ship to the states just as good
cigars are made as those made in Havana
from the same quality of tobacco. This,
however, is not the case. The establish
ment of immense cigar industries at Tam
pa and Key West is an acknowledgment of
the fact that cigarmakers know that the
nearer they get to Cuba the better the to-
bacco can be worked. The proprietor of a
large American establishment having
factory in Tampa for working Havana to-
bacco and one in Pennsylvania for handling
the domestic tobacco told me that the to-
bacco undoubtedly lost some of its fine
ness when worked up out of Cuba When
taken to America, before being made into
cigars, the tobacco has to be resweateG,
and it loses something in the process. Here
the climate is such that when handled in
the factories it is kept in prime condition
without artificial aids. Still, the American
manufacturer said. the difference between
the Cuban and American-made cigar would
hardly be perceptible except to the finest
taste American cigarmakers, he said,
We're even better workmen than the Gu
bans One trouble he complained of was
that the American consumer insisted on
having cigars of a light color. believing
them to be mlder and better, when, as a
matter of fact, the most deiicately Favored
and finest tobacco is dark. ii. Il. u.
A Scottish Rite Banquet.
III, tor,