MANUFACTURE. 47 



Some of the large manufacturers of cigars 

 employ as many as 300 makers, besides mere 

 " strippers " or inferior workmen, apprentices or 

 women, whose function it is to separate the mid- 

 rib from the two halves of the leaf, without 

 damaging its texture. The cigar-maker is paid 

 at the rate of so much per hundred cigars — the 

 remuneration varying from Is. Qd. to Ss. per 

 hundred, according to the " style " or make of 

 the cisfar. The best workmen easily earn 21. 10s. 

 per week. According to information which I 

 have received on the subject, the number of work- 

 men employed varies somewhat in the following 

 ratio : 300, 100, 60, 20, 12, 6, according to the 

 extent of the manufactory. Taking the number 

 of manufacturers, as by the Directory, to be 90, 

 and the average of those numbers to be 82, we 

 get a result of 7380 workmen employed in the 

 making of cigars, snuff, and tobacco for the pipe. 

 This arithmetical guess can scarcely be above the 

 mark, considering the prodigious quantity of 

 home-made cigars in circulation — the quantity of 

 cigars imported being most strikingly dispropor- 

 tionate to that of the leaf adapted for the manu- 



