132 The Soverane Herbe 



into paper packets steel machinery has superseded 

 feminine fingers, though a considerable amount is 

 still done by hand. Nothing mechanical is more 

 pretty than this neat and unerring packing and 

 enfolding of tobacco at the rate of sixty packets per 

 minute. 



At a table before the machine sit three girls, 

 weighing out tobacco into half-ounces, ounces, or 

 two-ounces, according to the calibre of the machine. 

 Almost instinctively the girl picks up the right 

 quantity of tobacco, weighs it on the scale, and with 

 accurate aim shies it into one of an endless chain 

 of little buckets travelling up and round. The bucket 

 carries the tobacco up to the top of the machine, 

 and turning for the descent, drops its burden into a 

 funnel. Through this the tobacco falls on to one of 

 a series of paper wrappers coming from the other 

 end on an endless band. Metal fingers and clutches 

 turn up the paper over the tobacco, which, drifting 

 onward, other clutches neatly fold, tuck in the ends 

 with inhuman precision, and drop out the packet 

 complete. The packing-machine is uncanny in its 

 steel skill ; one gazes at the process with awe and 

 wonder. 



Here mention may be made of the practice and 

 penalties of adulteration. It is as old as the habit 

 of smoking. Ben Jonson declaimed against tobacco 

 • sophisticated to taste strong ' by the addition of 

 sack-lees, oil, muscadel and grains. In those days, 

 when tobacco cost los. per pound (multiply by 

 three for modern value), smokers were fain to eke 

 it out by adding a quarter of a pound of coltsfoot 



