814 CULTURE, MANUFACTURE, ETC., OF TOBACCO. 



fictitious value on the cigar ; very good ones may be 

 manufactured of the same leaf, at home, for one half 

 the money. The buyer of foreign cigars consoles 

 himself for his heavy tax, by a belief that the best 

 leaves of the crop have been selected at the planters', 

 before the shipment of any elsewhere. 



In both these processes we have noted the rejection 

 of the leaf-stalk (except in the manufacture of bird's 

 eye) ; these stalks are laid in a chaff-cutting machine, 

 and cut into short pieces, which are then packed in bags 

 and sent to the snuff-mills, to be dried and ground to 

 powder. Almost all the snuff ground for the London 

 traders is done at the mills at Mitcham in Surrey. 

 The Scotch snuff is the purest ; being made from the 

 powder of the stalk, its light colour is owing to its never 

 being sodden in water, or subject to " liquoring," or 

 scenting. It is pure tobacco in its simplest form. 

 Next to this comes Irish high-dried, and Welsh snuff. 

 Other snuffs are darkened by mixtures and scents ; and 

 have a large variety of names, as already noted and 

 partially explained in our previous chapter. " Prince's 

 mixture " is generally considered in the trade to allow 

 of most unfair mixing ; all portions of damaged tobacco, 

 the sweepings of the tobacco warehouse, &c, are incor- 

 porated in this. It is impossible to hinder small frag- 

 ments of tobacco from falling on the floor of the manu- 

 factory ; and the workmen's feet are always carefully 

 scraped into a box, which afterwards helps to fill the 

 more elegant box of the snuff-taker. The " smalls," or 

 fragments which fall to the bottom of tubs or canisters 



