The daily sentinel., 1907-07-17

the pleasures supplied by My Lady II
Nicotine" more than 10000 facto-
ries are kept busy all the while.
An army of 100000 workers is
employed. This signifies that the
number engaged in catering to our
smoking needs exceeds the total num-
Der of the country's authors, jour
nalists, artists. ministers, actors.
architects, electricians, and engi
neers.
One third of the number of cigar
makers are women, by the employ
ment of whom manufacturers claim
that they save much money In De-
troit, for example, most of the cigar
makers are girls, and the saving |
achieved by their employment in the
last ten years is computed at $40
O00-because men consume or carry !
away each an average of four cigars |
a day. while girls neither smoke nor |
filch the article they make.
The federal government itself has
its place in smoke-up statistics. of
each dollar you pass over the counter
for tobacco about sixteen cents is |
handed along to the internal revenue
bureau. Altogether, $4,000, ,000I
represents the revenue derived by the
government last year from manufac-
tured tobacco in all forms, exclusive
of the dribbles of millions of dollars
derived from importations of 1O0,-
900 900 cigars and millions of pounds
of leaf" from Cuba and Sumatra
and through the customs.
The internal revenue receipts from
cigars alone were S21, 100000; for
cigarettes, S400O,0O0; for pipe and
chewing tobacco, SlS,000,000. Thus
the total government revenue from
| tobacco was equal to one-third of
the total receipts of the federal post
office. In forty years tobacco has
yielded to Uncle Sam over one and a
half billion dollars.
No wonder. therefore, that the gov
ernment lends active aid to the tobac-
co industry, with lectures and soil
analyses and bulletins helpful to
growers. There is even a government
cigar resting machine in the depart
ment of agriculture at Washington
for testing and ascertaining the quail
| ity of home grown and home made
cigars This machine automatically
smokes hundreds of cigars daily, n
cigar being inserted into the machine
as into a human mouth. BY suction
| the cigar is reduced to ashes by regu-
lar puffs.
In the matter of raising tobacco,
ever since the days when in Virginia
/
led the world. We raise one-quarter
of the worlds entire crop. Russia is
our nearest competitor. but we raise
six times as much tobacco as is
| grown in all Russia and Siberia.
Our tobacco belt is 600 miles
long by 800 miles wide. Within it
are 100000 tobacco acres" in parts
of ten different Southern and middle
western states. Mostly from that belt
we supply the world with more than
500, 900 pounds of tobacco year
| ly. England being our biggest custo-
mer.
! Besides the main sum of 100000,
| 900 the American people spend an
auxiliary sum of more than $4,000
| 100000 year for conveniences for
her ladyshlp. Nicotine. in the form
of pipes, pouches, cigar and cigarette
holders and cases.
Sucn is the story in billions and
millions. of the popularity of MY
| Lady Nicotine" in the greatest tobac-
co country on earth. Despite the
opposition of moralists, the frown
of Church and the tax of the state.
the use of the fragrant weed is now
| practically universal, the Parsees, or
Fire Worshipers of India and Per
sia being the only civilized sect of
| non-smolders. Salt, alone, exceeds
tobacco in respect to universally of
use and in the United States we
spend thirty seven times as much
money for our tobacco as for our
salt.
1t is a strange weed that in such a
comparatively short time has so
strongly laid siege to the tastes of
men. Before Raleigh's time nobody
wanted tobacco because nobody knew
anything about 1t.
| Now most men use tobacco in some
| form or another. and most of those
who use it could do without food
for a meal or two better than they
could do without a smoke.
Gerald Hoover in the Scrap Book.