Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1899-12-07
THURSDAY. DEC. 7. 1859.
About the Stogie.

The Wheeling stogie fever has reach
ed Chicago in virulent form and is
spreading with rapidity strange even
in the tobacco trade, where the spec
tacle of brands of tobacco, cigars or
cigarettes leaping into sudden popu-
larity of frequent occurrence. AT
the present time the demand for sto-
gies is so enormous that local dealers
find it difficult to supply the demand
and manage to secure goods from the
manufacturers only after waiting
sometimes for a week. One down town
dealer said yesterday that he had a
standing order in Wheeling for $4,000
stogies or any part of the number, but
this, Notwithstanding, could not get
them fast enough. In the tobacco
trade estimates of the daily local con-
sumption of stogies range from $4,000
up to 125,O0O. Many fashionable to-
bacconists, who discourage most
brands of cheap cigars, have been OBJ
liged to lay in stocks of stogies. Humid
reds of smaller shops, even those in
the remote suberbs, some of the own
ers Of which did not know until re-
Gently what stogies are, have Joined
the procession of dealers in response
to urging from their customers.
In Plttsburg and Wheeling, the ma
tive heath of the stogie family, all
classes, from capitalists to laboring-
men, smoke stogies, and have done so
for years. 1t is within the last few
months, however, that the vogue has
spread to other cities East and West.
In Chicago practically the same uni
versatility of favor is developing which
has long characterized the Pittsburg
and Wheeling territory, from the Chic
ago smokers of stogies are men who
are able to pay 90 cents apiece for
cigars as we'll as others to whom the
nickle paid for three stogies is of con-
sideration. Indeed, downtown tobac-
conists say they have customers who
buy half a dozen rich imported high
priced cigars to smoke after dinner
and with the purchase of handful of
stogies to smoke on the street, less be-
cause they are cheap and more because
there is something about the taste of
stogie that is agreeable.
Just when and under what circum-
stances the designation stogie was in
vented is lost in the mists of disputes
to which the current popularity fthe
stogle has given new life. In the
early part of this century the Govern
ment built road across the Allegheny
Mountains from Baltimore. Over that
National Pike, as it was then and is
yet known, a vast traffic was carried
on between Western Pennsylvania and
the seabOard in immense vehicles call
ed Conestoga wagons. The drivers
early formed habit of picking up ma
tive grown tobacco on their western
trips and rolling it into long slen-
der rough cigar. Just now strenuous
claims are made in Pennsylvania
towns that the Conestoga cigar was
the progenitor of the modern stogie,
and that the latter's name is only an
of the original title.
There are perhaps a dozen different
kinds of stogies on the market, some
of them made by machinery, but the
best entirely by hand. In it's highest
development, the stogie is longer and
than choice panatella cigar.
1t is built Tobacco grown in Ohio,
and West Virginia. The
weed is subjected to certain amount |
OF soaking in licorice water and then |
is rolled loosely into the shape in |
which 1t Is sold, the same kind of to- (
bacco being used for filler and wrap
per. The soaking process leaves the |
stogie damp and soft, but the moisture |
rapidly disappears and the stogie be- |
canes hard. If a smoker gets hold of |
one that has reposed long enough to |
lose all its moisture he will wish he |
hadn't, for the stogie will be about as
rank and bitter a smoke as can be
bought in a days search. In its best |
condition the stogie isn't strong. Its |
odor, while not that of an imported |
cigar, is not disagreeable, and as |
smoke it is satisfying to a great many |
men,