RELATIVE VALUE AND SIZE. 965 
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 ¢abaco (a tobacco) and when it is required to 
discriminate between the manufactured and unmanutactured 
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 cegarro 
puro, in contradistinction to the cigarro de papel, or cigarette. 
be sumption of cigars in Peru is enormous. “ An old fisherman 
on pe prenates ‘amused himself when not at his labors, replied,‘ Why I smoke; and 
as | have consumed 40 paper cigars a day for the last 50 years, which cost me one ne a 
will you have the goodness to tell me how many I have smoked, and how muc! ave 
expended for tobacco?’” 
