The Manufacture of Tobacco 133 



(still patronized by juvenile smokers — the first trial 

 of many a veteran) to half a pound of tobacco. 



Adulteration is strictly forbidden and heavily 

 punished. By Act 5 and 6 Victoria, ^^300 is the fine 

 for using any substance whatever but water in the 

 manufacture of tobacco, cut or cigars ; ;^200 is the 

 penalty for dealing in adulterated tobacco or for 

 having in a factory sugar, honey, molasses, treacle, 

 leaves of herbs or plants, powdered wood, weeds 

 (ground or unground), roasted grain, lime, sand, 

 umbre, ochre, or any substance capable of being used 

 to adulterate or to increase the weight of tobacco or 

 snufif. 



To-day the adulteration of tobacco may be said 

 practically to have ceased. Leaves of every tree and 

 plant steeped in tar-oil and tobacco-juice have been 

 at various times found in tobacco, together with peat- 

 earth, bran, saw-dust, and various meals, with alum, 

 lime, saltpetre, and red and black dyes. 



A few years ago a man summoned for manu- 

 facturing cigars without a license escaped conviction 

 by pleading that his cigars were not made of tobacco, 

 but of cabbage-leaf and brown paper. Cigars have 

 been found to be made of 75 per cent, lime-leaves, 

 10 per cent, tobacco-steeped paper, 11 per cent, 

 tobacco and 4 per cent, gunpowder. 



Adulteration of tobacco may now be said to belong 

 to the past. The annual Report of the Government 

 Laboratory furnishes proof conclusive of the purity of 

 tobacco. Of ninety-five samples of tobacco analysed 

 only twenty, all of foreign manufacture, proved to be 

 adulterated. It is in the matter of moisture that 



