The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-07-13
EXPENSIVE CIGARS.

A prominent tobacco importer of
this city was asked the other day
whether there was anything extraor-
binary in the gift of $2.65 cigars sent
to King Edward VII. by Baron Roths-
child. The baron, it appears, is ac-
customed to send to the British ruler
a box of these expensive smokes"
once every year.
"That's not record price by any
means, . replied the importer.
He produced a box of enormous
cigars, rich brown in color, with fancy
red bands around them. "These, {"
he said, "retailed for 81 apiece" !"
"You can get them as high as IS,
he added. ''Look at the Havana
price list here. You see this one?
It costs wholesale, without duty,
$3.50. The duty is somewhere in
the neighborhood of so per cent. The
cigar when we get il will sell for 81.
Our profit therefore will be more than
30 per cent. However, we don't
have enough demand for such cigars
to make fortune on them.
"The only time anybody buys such
a thing is when he wishes to give it
away or to use it for some specially
elaborate dinner. For instance, the
other day Wall street speculator
had a birthday, and several of his
friends came to me and bought these
$4 cigars to send to him. Each friend
bought ouly one. We wrapped up
the cigars in fancy paper and put
them in ornate, gilt lettered boxes for
shipment to the speculator. / re-
member, too, dinner given by a
broker at which dozen of the cigars
were distributed by the host.
"The guests at that dinner were in
hard luck. I know, for I saw the
effects of a So smoke on one of my
friends. l gave him one of the cigars
and watched him burn it up. The
feat required about two hours, and
when he was through he told me he
felt like a wreck. He said he'd stop
smoking altogether if he had to use
that sort of a cigar regularly. No,
it wasn't the strength--the high
priced ones usually are rather mild.
1t was the time consumed in continu-
ously putting away at the thing.
Ordinarily even the most inveterate
smoker takes a rest between cigars.
In this case there was no chance of
stopping, unless he wished to miss
part of the treat. -
The $4 cigar is about eight or nine
inches long aud proportionately bulky.
According to the dealer, its value de-
pends principally upon the length Of
the tobacco leaf from which it has
been rolled.
"Of course" he said, ssthe tobacco
is Of the best quality, but quality IN
small leaves is plentiful. The diff
Guilty is to find leaf of the size re-
quired and of the proper quality at
the same time. / Ishould say that the
leaf for this cigar measured about two
feet.
"All the finest cigars come from
Cuba. We could get long leaves up
in Connecticut, but they wouldn't be
good enough. I've no doubt that
there is much tobacco Of big sizes in
the East Indies, but there is no country
that rivals Cuba in the quality of its
tobacco crop. Undoubtedly the Roths-
child gift to King Edward came from
there"
Incidentally he told of high priced
cigarettes. The most costly, he ex-
planned, was domestic variety that
he sold for 500 a thousand, or ten
cents apiece. There was no imported
cigarette costing SO much, he said.
1.-THE $roo thousand Sort" he
explained, "do not bring that price
because of intrinsic quality, but large
ly because Of the fancy box in which
they are packed. They are larger in
size than the average, but not even
an expert could detect superiority
in quality over many cigarette cost
ing less than half as much. Men
York Post.