record, 1959, these outlets disposed of tobacco goods 

 with a wholesale worth estimated at about $247 million. 

 Of this total, very close to $208 million was represented 

 by cigarettes and over $25 million by cigars. Smokers' 

 articles, pipes, snuff, chewing and smoking tobacco had 

 a wholesale value of around $13.5 million. 



Americans, collectively, are the largest consumers of 

 tobacco in any part of the world. As is almost universally 

 true, their preference runs chiefly to cigarettes. More 

 than half the adult population of the United States find 

 a constant pleasure in the quick, light smoke offered 

 through cigarettes. The people of Illinois join extensively 

 in the custom. In 1959, for instance, smokers in the state 

 bought 1 billion 323 million packages of cigarettes. 



Tc 



obacco benefits treasury departments 



On each package they paid a federal tax of 8 cents. 

 They thus made a substantial contribution to the $1.8 

 bilHon collected nationally by the Internal Revenue 

 Service on cigarettes during the 1958/59 fiscal year. 



The federal excise is only the initial assessment of a 

 threefold tax on cigarette smokers in Illinois. For, in the 

 same period they paid $39,122,000 into the Illinois treas- 

 ury. This was the gross tax on cigarettes alone. There 

 is an additional charge to smokers, represented by the 

 state sales tax and some local sales taxes. 



The state excise on each 20 cigarettes was first estab- 



