Cigarettes 199 



white of the finished leaf is obtained by an electric pro- 

 cess, which also cleanses it of all possible impurities. 



That the age of chivalry has been succeeded by 

 that of calculators and economists is particularly true 

 of cigarette-making. Spain, still half shadowed by 

 poetry, being fifty years behind these prosaic times, 

 may still shelter a Carmen — wild, fascinating and 

 savage — making cigars ; or Russia a Vjera, of the 

 ' Cigarette-maker's Romance.' But the smoker of 

 to-day cannot, watching the puffs of his cigarette 

 float lazily upward, see in them a picturesque maiden 

 of romantic life as its maker. In America, England, 

 and France the romance of the cigarette is no more ; 

 the overwhelming majority of the cigarettes smoked 

 are scientifically made by cold steel with metallic cer- 

 tainty, not fashioned by the lithe, dainty fingers of a 

 maiden with a history aglow with the adventures of 

 love and hate. 



Many cigarettes are still made by girls in English 

 factories, but they are not Carmens or Vjeras, and 

 even their labour is being superseded by the quicker, 

 cheaper work of machinery. Seated at a long table 

 with others, the girl takes a pinch of tobacco from a 

 box, deftly rolls it in a sheet of rice-paper, imprisons 

 the yellow weed with a dab of starch, and adds the 

 cigarette to the growing pile by her side. With 

 amazing accuracy each cigarette is of the same size 

 and weight. 



The cigarette-making machines are among the 

 most wonderful products of human ingenuity and 

 mechanical skill. With a single exception they are 

 of American invention. 



