The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-06-02
EXPENSIVE CIGARS.
Cost 81 to s., but Arc Only Smoked IN
S.eciai Cccseic.c


Special Cccseiovs.
A prominent tobacco importer OF tn;
city was asked the other day whether
there was anything extraordinary il
the gift of $50 cigars sent IT, -,
Edward VII. by Baron RothschilG
The baron, it appears. is accustomed
to serd to the British ruier box OF
these expensive smokes" once every
year.
That's s,ot a record price by any
means" replied the importer.
He produced a box of enormous CT
CARS. rich brown in color, with fancy
red bands around them. These" h.
said, "retailed for 81 apiece.
"You can get them as high as So
he added. Look at the Havana price
list here. You see this one? 1t costs
wholesale, without duty, $50. The
duty is somewhere in the neighborhool
of so per cent The cigar when we
get it will sell for 81 Our profit t.
fore will be more than 30 per cent.
However, we don't have enough de-
mand for such cigars to make for
tune on them.
1.-The only time anybody buys such &
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 Spectator had
birthday, and several of his friends
came to me and bought these $4 cigars
to send to him. Each friend bought
only one. We wrapped up the cigars
in fancy paper and put them in ornate.
gilt lettered boxes for shipment to the
given by n broker at which a dozen
Of the cigars were distributed by the
host
1.-The guests at that dinner We're n
hard luck l know, for I saw the eff
fects of Sd 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 wreck He said he'd stop smok-
ing altogether il 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 continuously putting
away at the thing Ordinarily even
the most inveterate smoker takes II
rest between cigars. In this case there
was no chance Of stopping, unless he
wished to miss part of the treat"
The 81 cigar is about eight or nine
inches long and proportioHately bulky.
According to the dealer, its value de-
ponds principally upon the length CT
the tobacco leaf from which it has
been rolled
'Of course" he said, 1.-The tobacco is
Of the best quality, but quality in small
leaves is plentiful. The difficulty is to
find a leaf of the size required and OF
the proper quality at the same time. l
should say that the leaf for this cigar
measured about two feet.
"All the finest cigars come from
Cuba. We could get long leaves up il
Connecticut. but they wouldn't be good
enough I've no doubt that there il
much tobacco of big sizes in the East
Indies. but there is no country that
rivals Cuba in the quality of its tobac-
co crop Undoubtedly the Rothschiid
gift to King Edward came from there"
Incidentally he tod of high priced
cigarettes. The most costly he ex-
planned. was n domestic variety that he
sold for 500 thousand. or ten cents
apiece. There was no imported cigar
cite costing so much. he SAID
tsFhn 500 fbnucanI sort la
planned, do not bring that price be-
cause of intrinsic quality. but largely
because Of the fancy box in which they
are packed. They are larger i'll st.:a
than the average, but not even an ex-
pert could detect a superiority in quai-
ity over many a cigarette costing less
than half as much New York Post.