The Portland daily press., 1897-03-25
TOBACCO SMOKING.
One Million Tons Year Goes Up in Smoke
in All the Countries of the Globe.

Spain is not wealthy country and her
four per cent bonds guaranteed by the
government and protected by the securi-
ty of public property and the revenues
from customs and local taxes are selling
at SO cents on the dollar. But the people
of Spain last year land not the male in
habitants of the Spanish peninsula ex
olusively) smoked s3l, 600, 600 worth of to-
bacco an average of $3.50 for each inhab-
liant. The total consumption of tobacco
In Spain In year for cigarettes (Which
are very popular) cigars and snuff is
twenty thousand tons, the same quanti-
ty that Ia consumed In Italy, country
with nearly twice the population of
Spain. The Spaniards are greater smo-
kers than the Italians, as these figures
show, and they use, too. it may be adj
ded, much better quality of tobacco,
or more properly speaking, they use more
of the better quality. One-third of the
to bacco used in Italy is raised, 30 to
speak, on the premises. and its excellence
Is not such that there is large foreign
dem and for it,.
The consumption of tobacco in the
United Kingdom amounts in year to
about 25, 700 tons, and in France to 40, 900
tons, disparity which is much greater
than the difference in population, and
has been steadily growing of late years.
At the beginning of the present century
more tobacco was used per capita in
England than in Hrance, but gradually
and steadily the French per capita con-
sumption has increased, owing some
think, to the fact that for more than
eighty years the sale of tobacco in any
form in France has been u government
monopoly the profits from which have
and the business of which has been
greatly ] stimulated by legislation. An
enormous quantity Of tobacco, amount
| ing in a year to 75 900 tons, is consumed
| in Germany, and the Germans, 1t is to
he observed, are rather pipe than cigar
cite smokers, out tobacco in germany
being the chief item of demand. &c
| many raises about 40 per cent of the to-
bacco which its people use and imports
the other 60. Germany is the country
of pipe smokers, as the United States
are, beyond all other countries, the land
OF cigar smokers. And when the figures
of foreign countries are compared with
those OF Tue UnlUeQ states the extent OF
the American consumption may be
| judged readily. There we're collected as
revenue last year by the Treasury De-
partment taxes on tobacco to the amount
of $50. 900, 0OO-S12, 500, 600 on cigars,
81, 600, 600 on cigarettes, $3.50, 900 on snuff,
and the balance. SIS, $50, 600. on smoking
| and chewing tobacco. The American
product of tobacco amounts ia a year to
| IS, coo tons, or about one-quartr of the
whole tobacco product of the world. The
exports of American tobacco are about
| 1870, 600 tons, of which Holland, Belgi-
UNI, England and Germany are the chief
consumers The imports of tobacco into
the United States, chiefly from CUBA
and from the Dutch possessions, amount
to IS 600 tons in year. Since the be-
ginning of the Cuban war the amount of
| tobacco imported has decreased. Hol-
land uses In proportion to its population
more tobacco than does any other coun-
try in the world the average oonsump-
tion being 100 ounces year for each in
habitant. Belgium averages go, Turkey
10. and the United States about go. AL
though the habit is no longer SO general
ly diffused as, it once was the United
States hold the upenviable position of be-
ing first among the nations in the
amount of chewing tobacco used,