Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-04-12

the world. Cigars equal to our nickel cf-
| gars are sold for 1 cent in silver or half a
cent gold. Our ten centers" would bring
| less than cents in Manila and fair CT
| gar can be had for cent. Our soldiers
! usually buy their cigars by the thousand,
and but few of them, including the officers,
| pay more than l cent smoke.
| Cigarettes are fully as cheap. They are
| put up in packages of thirty, and the low
est-prlced package sells for cent The
very best IS worth cents American, so
| that seven of the best coffin pegs" cost
| you only l cent
| The Filipino cigarettes are manufactured
almost exclusively for the native trade.
Many are hand made, one factory turning
| out "a 100000 cigarettes every week, or so
| many that within month 1t could give
| smoke to every man. woman and child In
| our country and have twenty millions to
spare.
| and the cigarette tobacco is almost black.
! II Is pure tobacco and not doctored with
| sweets and 1avoring extracts, SO that it Is
| said it can be smoked with less injury to
| the nerves The cigarettes of both coun
| tries of the same size and shape, save
that only one end of the Filipino cigarette
| Is open, the white paper at the other end
being turned in. You always light the closed
end
Among the Cigar Girls of Manila.
Manila exports about two hundred million
cigars every year 1t has enormous facto-
RES, employing thousands of hands, and it
Is said to have the most expert cigar
| makers of the world The, best of these
are girls. Our Filipino cousins have long.
Slender fingers, which they use with
swiftness and skill which our best cigar
rollers have not They roll all cigars by
hand, and the greatest care is taken in
making and classifying the finer grades
Let us visit one of the large cigar facto-
ries. We find them all over Manila They
are situated in the heart of the CITY
and one of the biggest is just next door to
the leading hotel. The building is of
three stories. with oyster-shell windows and
with floors which could be used for making
pianos, the wood is so fine. The factory
covers three or four acres. 1t has MANY
| large rooms some of which are three hum
| dred feet long. These rooms are filled with
workmen. The factory employs 5000 hands,
| and the most of the 5000 are of the fem:-
| nine gender.
An Acre of Women.
We enter the building and walk up the
| stairs. The rich smell of the tobacco floats
| down, and titilating dust comes into our
| nostrils We pass through wide door and
| find ourselves right in the midst of an acre
| of women. About one thousand F'ilipnos of
| all ages are sitting about us handling to.
bacco with their long yellow fingers. They
are dressed in white, and their dark faces
SHINE out over the snowy handkerchiefs
| tHey nave pinned around their shoulders.
| All wear decollette dresses, and those who
have thrown off their neck covering on &C.
| count of the heat, look. as II dressed for Il
ball. Here and there a dress has been
| pulled to one side and a mahogany Shout
| der shines out. All are In, their bare feet
| and we can see the shapely ankles and the
| urturned soles and toes OF those who are
| working about us. They are sitting at long
| tables not quite a foot high. Some are on
| stools, but most have their legs bent under
| them; others sit that their knees rise
| above the tables, In what seems to us a
| most uncomfortable way. III
They work rapidly. Notice this pretty
maid at the right. She picks up a leaf of
| tobacco from that pile before her. She
spreads 1t out upon the table and pounds
| It with stone to make 1t lie fiat To this
| leaf she adds another, then another and
| 30 on until she has enough for a long black
cigar. She now rolls this rapidly around
IN her delicate fingers and then. putting
1t between her pearly white teeth, she bites
ON its, end, kissing the cigar. as it. were,
before she lays It away. That should be a
| smoke for q king and that Is how the girls
make cigars in Manila
You must not think, however. that all OF
che cigarmakers are beautiful nor that all
nave sweet lips. OF pearly white teeth.
Among them we see many gray-haired old
women, with fangs as black as the tobacco
they bite. and some, we shudder to notice,
chew the betel at intervals during their
| work.
The Wages Are Low.
L