RELATIVE VALUE AND SIZE. 265 



wrappers that make the difference. To assort the colors a 

 very, correct eye is required, and those who do this part of the 

 work make better wages than those who make the cigars. 



" The value of cigars does not increase in direct ratio with 

 their size, for owing to the difficulty in getting good wrap- 

 pers for the larger kinds, the expense of their manufacture 

 is much increased. Upon one occasion, in Havana, a man- 

 ufacturer received an order for a thousand cigars intended 

 for the Queen of Spain's husband, Don Francisco de Asis, 

 which he agreed to make for $1,000. They were delivered 

 in due time, and packed in a richly-mounted cedar chest, 

 were sent to the royal recipient. They were magnificent 

 cigars, of the cazadores size, all of the same color, and so 

 smoothly made as to look as if they had been turned out of 

 hard wood instead of rolled tobacco. They were placed on 

 exhibition for a few days before they were sent to Spain, 

 and a gentleman who saw them, wishing to make a present to 

 some dignitary, asked the manufacturer to make him a 

 a like number at the same price. To his surprise, the order 

 was refused. The manufacturer said he could not do it for 

 the money. His explanation was that it was not the actual 

 cost of the tobacco and labor of making them, but it was on 

 account of the trouble and expense met with in selecting the 

 wrappers. He said he had to pick over thousands of bales 

 before he could secure a sufficient number of the proper 

 length, color, and fineness. 



" Some two years ago there was a story of a Cuban cigar- 

 dealer in Broadway, who selected cigars for his more favored 

 customers by ear. It was said that he put the cigar to his 

 ear, and listened intently for a moment, and by the cracking 

 of the tobacco was enabled to judge of its quality. This was 

 a good advertising dodge, but in practice it was all nonsense. 

 None but that wily Cuban ever heard of such a mode of try- 

 ing a cigar. In the Island of Cuba that which we call a 

 cigar is called a tabaco (a tobacco) and when it is required to 

 discriminate between the manufactured and unmanufactured 

 article it is called tabaco torcido, or rolled tobacco. This, 

 however, is only necessary when used in the plural. In 

 Mexico a cigar is called a puro, and in Peru* and some of 

 the other Spanish American countries it is called a cigarro 

 puro, in contradistinction to the cigarro de papel^ or cigarette. 



* Ballaert says that the consumption of cigars in Peru is enormous. " An old fisherman 

 on being asked how he amused himself when not at his labors, replied, ' Why I smoke ; and 

 aa 1 have consumed 40 paper cigars a day for the last 50 years, which cost me one rial each 

 will you have the goodness to tell me how many I have smoked, and how much I have 

 expended for tobacco ? ' " 



