The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-18

NNNNANN from one district near Havana known as Vuelto Abajo, and the quality of that often varies on different plantations and in different seasons, Much tobacco IS raised In other districts which Is not of a superior kind, and has not the rlch flavor that makes fine Havana cigars sought after in all parts of the world. A good deal probably most, Of the very highest grade tobacco is secured Tn Havana for the makers of famous brands of cigars. Some of the owners of big cigar factories have plantations of their own and options on the product of other plantations, famed for the quail ity of their leaf.
 But many of the cigars sold there at a low price are just as rank as any pro- duced in the United States, and worse, because they are stronger. one does not get very pleasant impression from a vist to a cigar factory. In the large factories the plumbing and sanitary ar engagements are unusually bad, and the buildings are filled with bad odors, which, mingling with that of the to- bacco, have anything but a pleasing effect. Two or three hundred men will
 be at work in poorly ventilated room
 that does not afford proper breathing space for more than one hundred. Neat ness and cleanliness are not conspicuous characteristics either of the men at work rolling cigars or of the hundreds of girls and children engaged in strip ping cigars. If one wants to enjoy thor oughly a fine,Hanava cigar, if he has ever visited one of the factories he will A. bn nru n visit from his mind.
 The fine grades of cigars sell at retail in Havana for less than one-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 cigar he
 would pay ten or fifteen cents for at home. Then there are cigars or cher-
 oots sold for one or two cents. The
 ordinary retail price for a package of cigarettes is five cents. The cigars af- fected there are the largest size, six or
 eight inches in length, and some of them
 an inch in diameter. In one factory special lotsNo cigars are made. Recent ly an order from Queen Victoria for 2,O00 cigars was filled The Queen does not smoke them. They wer intended as a present for the Emperor of Russia.
 The very finest cigars made in Havana
 go to England Some of them cost $1
 each in Cuba at wholesale. The men
 who make these cigars get thirty cents each for the making of them. They are
 made with the greatest care, every Dit of leaf in them being selected and spec I1,o Ji,,rr xr,y,o ping being done by the most skilful of lcigarmakers.. One of these men engaged in making these cigars will not make over twenty or thirty in day He is
 supplied with certain amount of to-
 bacco when he begins work in the morn- | ing, and when he turns in the product of his days labor at night must account for all the tobacco The cigars are care fully inspected, and if any defect, the slightest crack, or any variation in color 1 is discovered in cigar. it is rejected. The cigarmaker is paid only for the perfect cigars. In the best factories 1 the rejected cigars are smoked up by the employees. Tn some factories. where cigars not of the very finest quality arc
 made, the rejected cigars are boxed and l sold as seconds" In all the factories i the cigarmakers can smoke all they want of their own product, and to take | a pocket full 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 1 stands there for as much as eighty cents
 or $1. Some of them are packed sepa- 1 41Jxx +,,t~ tN 1 their elusive Cuban flavor. A cigar costing $1 in Havana would cost $2 in the United States.
 \ The greater part, in fact, practically
 all, of the tobacco raised in Cuba and
 not used by the Cuban cigarmakers, is shipped to the United States. At cer- 1 tain seasons of the year the Havana | hotels will be filled with tobacco buyers l from the States. Some of them deal | through the brokers in Havana, but I some who know the country and the | language go out into the tobacco dis l tricts and buy directly from the plant
 CTS, often buying a. promising crop be-
 fore it is picked
 i The tobacco buyer has to be a 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
 peculiar odor. A little variation one way or the other makes the tobacco good or bad. After smelling it, the
 buyer is likely to roll a rudely con-
 structed cigar out of the leaf and smoke | it. He will inhale the smoke. and en- deavor to determine exactly the flavor. | He will also examine the ash carefully,
 and test also the combustion of the to- l bacco, that is, try to find out how long 1t will hold fire. It is a great annoy anca to a smoker who is talking or
 writing, or otherwise engaged, to put his cigar into his mouth and find that it has gone out, and a fine Havana met such a catastrophe. So one quality
 sought for is that of holding fire. If a sample smoked by the buyer will keer lighted four minutes it is considered very good. Some will burn for five min- | utes, and even longer, without being puffed.
 The buyers who come from Cuba, ol
 some of them, will tell you that from
 the tobacco they ship to the United
 States just as good cigars are made a;
 those made in Havana from the same
 quality of tobacco. This, however, is not the case. The establishment of i'm.
 mense cigar industries at Key Wes and Tamna is an ar1<nnyyle ledo nt