288 FEMALE CIGAR-MAKERS. 
beams running parallel from end _to end, where the gathered 
tobacco leaves were hung to be thoroughly dried by the sun. 
“Then Wilkins conducted us for some distance along the 
river bank; we jumped into a boat and romred peters half 
a mile, landing by the side of a little shop-like building, 
where we heard the hum of voices and the commotion of 
many busy persons. We entered and found ourselves in a 
long, low room, having wide tables ranged along the 
walls ; here, working rapidly, were rows of chatty country 
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— 
MAKING CIGARS. 
girls, who, as they worked, laughed and talked, and now 
and then hummed a verse of some familiar ballad. 
Neatly packed piles of the dried and cured leaf lay upon 
the table before them. 
“‘Hach was armed with knives and cutters, and we watched 
the quick transformation of the flat leaves into the smooth 
and compact cigars. The tobacco grown upon the farm was, 
we discovered, only used as wrappers for the cigars. The 
good farmer imported, for the interior filling, a fine tobacco 
from Havana. Strips and little pieces of this the girls 
placed in the centre of the cigar, wrapping the Connecticut 
tobacco in wide strips tightly about it, then pasting each of 
the last with some paste in a pot by their side. It seemed to 
be done almost in an instant; the Havana slips were laid 
