Cigars 189 



would appear that Cuba supplied all the world's 

 cigars. As a matter of fact, only the best and most 

 expensive cigars come from the Pearl of the Antilles, 

 and can truly claim the title of Havana. More than 

 half the cigars smoked in this country are of American 

 growth and manufacture. Of every loo boxes im- 

 ported, 45 come from the United States (including 

 Mexican cigars), lo from the Philippines, lo from 

 British East Indies (Borneo, etc.), 8 from France, 6 

 from Belgium, 6 from Holland, 3 from Germany, and 

 the remaining 1 1 boxes from Cuba, the Channel Isles, 

 Spain, the West Indies, Hong Kong, and other 

 countries. 



The Americans import Cuban tobacco for use as 

 the wrapper, the body of the cigar consisting of Mary- 

 land or Ohio leaf. These cigars are all dubbed 

 ' Havanas,' to which title they have as much right as 

 a cigarette to be called paper because its cover is 

 paper. A good cigar consists of the same tobacco 

 throughout, but the filling is usually of a tobacco 

 inferior to that of the wrapper. 



Of cigars not Havanas, those made of Mexican 

 tobacco are rapidly gaining in popular favour. 

 Cheroots (the word is frequently and incorrectly 

 applied to cigars), which are square at both ends, 

 come from Manila and Burma principally. The 

 peculiar softness of Manila tobacco is due to the leaf 

 being beaten between two stones. Until the American 

 annexation the manufacture of tobacco in the Philip- 

 pines was solely in the hands of the Spanish Govern- 

 ment. Indian cigars are beginning to occupy, in the 

 estimation of stay-at-home English, the position they 



