18 TOBACCO LEAF. 



ing, smoking and snuffing, a tremendous increase ten 

 times as much as was returned for internal revenue tax- 

 ation three decades ago. The cigar output is also ten 

 times larger and bids fair to soon reach five billion a 

 year, while eight billion cigarettes have been made in a 

 single twelve months. 



The development of the cigar making and tobacco 

 manufacturing industry in the United States has like- 

 wise been rapid. It employs about 150,000 people in 

 about 12,000 establishments, against only 25,000 em- 

 ployees and 2000 factories in 1860. The wages now 

 paid are ten times as much as then, materials used cost 

 five times as much, while the annual product of these 

 factories represents seven times the value of 1860. In- 

 deed, these tobacco products in 1890 exceeded in value 

 the total of the printing and publishing trades. The 

 people pay more for tobacco than for newspapers, books, 

 or other literature almost as much as for foot wear, and 

 about twice as much as they pay for sugar. With a to- 

 bacco factory product valued at $200,000,000, the last 

 census affords this comparison with the values of the 

 product in other manufactures : Boots and shoes, $220- 

 000,000; carpentry, $281,000,000; carriages and wag- 

 ons, $114,000,000 ; cotton goods, $268,000,000 ; woolen 

 and worsted, $225,000,000 ; liquors, $300,000,000 ; flour 

 and mill products, $514,000,000 ; slaughtering and meat 

 packing, $433,000,000; sugar refining, $123,000,000. 



Government revenues from the tobacco industry 

 have kept pace with this marvellous growth, although 

 the rate of taxation has been downward. Almost $50,- 

 000,000 of revenue was obtained by the federal govern- 

 ment from tobacco in the fiscal year 1891. Two-thirds 

 of this vast sum was derived from the direct or internal 

 revenue taxes on domestic leaf, and the balance from 

 duties on imports (Appendix). Until internal revenue 

 taxes were reduced by the law of 1883, tobacco yielded 



