Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-05
A TRIP IN THE BALKANS.
Region Where Turkish Cigarette Ma
terial is Provided

I From the United States Tobacco Journal
| Up in the heart of the Hohe Tatra. the
| summer country of the Carpathians Hun
| gary's giant mountain chain), 1t was my
! good fortune to encounter the architect OF
| one of the great bridges spanning the Dan
| ube at Budapest and his wife, a charming
| English woman. We drove out into the
mountains to an ice cave the Magyars are
especially proud of, and before we had
gone very far the lady. one of the arts
tocracy of the capital. drew from her waist
a little box of cigarettes and proceeded
first to offer me one and then her huS-
band. and finally to take one herself. That
is the custom in Hungary, and to the query
of the visitor from abroad. they give the
counter-question that If it is proper for
men to smoke, why isn't it also for wo-
men,
Such is the tobacco habit in Hungary.
and yet Hungary is hardly a tobacco land,
compared to the countries of the south
Bulgaria, notably-and there. curiously
enough, women do not smoke, but with the
men the cigarette is as much an article
of actual food is the potato or the
Turkish coffee, the national beverage in
the Balkans
In fact, southern Bulgaria Is one vast to-
bacco land. From Sofia the capital one
drives through broad tobacco fields into
villages that are brown with the leaf The
houses in these towns are built of a rough
concrete over lathwOrk, with heavy beams
inserted, they are in old German towns
and now and then the plastering painted
over in red or yellow, pink and blue. On
the upper, projecting story a balcony is
built, where Balkan Juliets await the song
or, better, the flutes, of their Romeos but
these are only incidentals to the street pic
ture. Over every inch of house wall from
corner to corner. across the balcony, and
even over unused windows, are stretched
strings of tobacco leaves, threaded through
q 10 IA txan iriS ht,n
and then hung across the home. Not only
over the home; but every garden in south
ern Bulgaria Is inclosed by walls, likewise
coated with adobe and fitted with a pro-
jecting cave of scarlet terra Gotta and on
these hang more tobacco, with an occa-
sional strand of ripening red peppers or
mangos, by way of color relief. House
walls, garden walls, do not suffice and So
running out into the pastures, extend pure
~ and simply for the purpose of hanging
on these more tobacco.
The beauty of this tobacco land cannot
be described. 1t is study in brown, from
the artists point of view. To the COM
mercial man it represents a small fortune
Ii certainly speaks well for the honesty
of the people of these villages, too-for in
the Balkans there 10 farm houses as
we understand the term, every one living
in villages-that the tobacco is not stolen
as 1t easily could be-
Some idea of the magnitude of the to-
bacco industry in southern Bulgaria can
region around DupnitZa alone. Dupnitza Is
a hamlet famous the home of landau
sky, leader of the band kidnapping Miss
Stone. and In the heart of the tobacco
country. Unlike most of the European
states Bulgaria does not yet possess a
government tobacco monopoly. although
there are hints of its being taken under
advisement by the Administered ton, and so
| great companies send commissioners into
outlying villages of given district about
some central town, who arrange for the
purchase of the crop, and to its bring
| ing in between January and April At
| DupnitZa one of the two companies alone
| garnered 100000 kilos (for the metric sys-
| tenn is employed throughout last year. and
100000 the year before The tobacco here
| is of three sorts. and the average price paid
the peasant is 40 cents the klo, or the
| equivalent of full days wage to the aver
age man. This tobacco is stored in great
| maya zines. of which there are five at the
town in question. where some 400 of the
| village girls employed in sorting and
! preparing either for manufacture for
| export. These girls receive all the way
| from 30 cents to 81 a day, according to ex-
pertness.
| Strangely enough. although tobacco Is
| smoked at all times and in all places. one
! could hardly say it is used to excess. and
| although boys start at tender ages with 1t,
| there no visible effect. At twelve
| years children begin to work in the Dup
| nitZa factories and acquire the habit at
| once.