CIGARS. HISTORICAL AND GENERAL 

 FACTS 



When the Spaniards landed for the first time 

 on American soil they found the natives smok- 

 ing the rolled-up tobacco leaves, that is a cigar. 

 For a cigar is nothing more, four centuries 

 having made little change in the Cuban cigar. 

 The word cigar is most probably derived from 

 the Spanish word cigarer to roll. Other deri- 

 vations are given, but this seems etymologically 

 the correct one; and we will rest content with 

 it. In Spanish America to the present day the 

 custom of smoking tobacco in the rolled form, 

 either as cigars or cigarettes, prevails, rather 

 than the custom of smoking in pipes which was 

 the method of the northern aborigines from 

 whom the English colonists adopted it. Smok- 

 ing was introduced into Spain in the cigar form 

 and into England in the pipe fcrm. Cigars, 

 however, at the present time, both in North and 

 South America, form the principal item in the 

 tobacco account of the people; we shall there- 

 fore enter somewhat fully into matters con- 

 cerning their manufacture, etc. 



Although, as stated, it is in the cigar form 

 that smoking was introduced into Spain, it was 

 not till about 1790 that cigars were used 

 generally in Europe. A factory for the manu- 



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