In Italy, as in France, the Government is the only cigar-peddler. Italy
has three or four domestic brands: the Minghetti, the Trabuco, the
Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a modification of the Virginia.
The Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three dollars and sixty
cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in seven days and enjoy every one
of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I don’t remember the price. But one
has to learn to like the Virginia, nobody is born friendly to it. It
looks like a rat-tail file, but smokes better, some think. It has a
straw through it; you pull this out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise
there would be no draught, not even as much as there is to a nail. Some
prefer a nail at first.
_FROM_ “CONCERNING THE JEWS” (1898)