THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND SMOKING PIPES.
The various kinds of tobacco and the sources of supply are exceedingly
numerous. Every country, indeed, has attempted to cultivate the plant
and reap a share of the rich harvest it yields to the planter and to
the government. Special qualities, as of wine, belong to particular
localities, outside of which they cannot, by any skill or coaxing, be
raised. A puzzling example of nature’s fickle moods in the production
of the plant was found a few years ago in Sumatra, where on one side of
a field a leaf was yielded rich in all the qualities delicate smokers
desire, and on the other side, but a few yards off, a very inferior plant
grew. So far as an experienced cultivator could see the conditions were
alike: seed, soil, and culture and aspect were the same. And as is the
case with wines, the crops vary in richness and delicacy of flavour with
the seasons of their growth, so that in some years the yield is of much
greater value than in other years, though tobacco of the ‘Comet year’ has
not yet been proclaimed in commerce. The natural properties of certain
classes of tobacco render them especially suited for cigar-making;
others are best fitted for smoking in pipes, and there are numerous
qualities which are valuable for snuff-making. National tastes and
habits again frequently determine the destination of the weed. Thus,
heavy, full-flavoured cigars and strong pipe-tobacco are in favour in
North America, while in Europe, lighter, and more brisk-burning are
sought after. By far the most valuable tobaccos in the world are grown
in Cuba, and the richest of all is found in the gardens of Vuelta Abajo
in the north-west district; after which come the products of Partidas
and Vuelta Arriba. A large portion of the tobacco is made into cigars
in the island, but considerable quantities are exported to Europe for
mixing with commoner kinds to give Havana flavour to home-made cigars.
Cuba, though no longer the emporium of the tobacco world, still ranks
first among the favoured places of the earth for the finest growths of
the plant. In culture and make-up, in classification and nomenclature
of the different kinds of tobacco, the Queen of the Antilles is, as she
has always been, a model to the tobacco-producing world. Foremost among
her thousand factories stands the Royal and Imperial of La Hondradez.
It occupies a whole square, and is looked upon as one of the sights of
Havana. Before the McKinley tariff cast gloom over the Home industry,
this factory, alone, produced nearly two millions of cigarettes daily;
and the total number of cigars exported in 1889 was about two hundred
and fifty millions. Under the McKinley tariff the exportation of cigars
declined rapidly to about one half this number, with the consequent
loss of employment for factory operatives. On the other hand, however,
the exports of unmanufactured leaf rose in like proportion. The highest
class of Cuban cigars called ‘Vegueras,’ are prepared from the finest
growths of the plant raised in Vuelta Abajo. Here, the plant growing in
its native soil attains its richest perfection. The soil is a light sandy
loam, very rich in potash and lime, and as the heat and humidity are
great it is an ideal site for the tobacco plant. In the preparation this
valuable leaf is never damped with water, as is done with the inferior
kinds, but when it is just half dry it is rolled, and thus the full,
natural and most delicately flavoured qualities are retained. Next come
the ‘Regalias’ which are treated in a similar way; but genuine Havanas
are seldom to be had in Europe. The area in which these plants are grown
is so small that it is physically impossible all the cigars sold under
these names can be real Havana ‘legitimas’; and the price they command
places them beyond the reach of ordinary smokers. So it happens that
the cigars made in Europe from any Cuban tobacco are usually classed as
‘Havanas.’
Of the many different methods of harvesting and preparing the leaves
of the plant for commerce, one of the best is said to be that recently
adopted in Florida. The latest results would seem to justify the sanguine
hopes of the planters that by-and-by they will produce a tobacco in all
essential particulars equal to Havanas. They trust mainly to a new method
of reaping. Instead of waiting, as in the old way, until the whole field
is ripe, they keep a close watch on the crop, and as each leaf becomes
ripe, which a skilled eye readily detects, it is taken from the stalk and
placed with other fully ripened ones in a broad-bottomed basket, or tray,
and carried to the curing-house. Here the leaves are sorted and sized,
strung and hung up in rows and tiers, and when all the field has been
gathered leaf by leaf, and the other operations completed, the steaming
apparatus is brought into action—hot-water pipes leading to evaporating
pans—and the proper degree of heat secured to produce the desired
fermentation. By dint of care in the regulation of the heating apparatus,
so as to secure the proper temperature in the curing rooms, and in the
collection of the leaves undergoing the process of curing at the proper
moment, the delicate aroma considered to be peculiar to the best Cuban
growths is secured in greater perfection than could be attained under the
old method of leaving the gathering until the whole field had ripened.
It is reported from the district that the longer time expended in the
somewhat tedious operation of collecting each leaf separately as it
becomes ripe, is more than compensated by the lessened labour of indoor
work. Then there is the superior texture, colour, weight and richness
over those which the old plan yielded. There still remains, however,
for consideration, the all-important factors of soil and climate, and
whatever else in nature may go towards determining the ultimate fate of
the plant. It is thought that all the favouring conditions are in Florida
harmonized more perfectly than in any other part of the United States.
Housing and curing operations completed, the leaves being quite dry
and crisp, they are loosely tied in bundles (a leaf being used for the
purpose) of about a dozen, called ‘hands,’ and lightly packed together
for the Home market. The tobacco intended for exportation receives much
more care in the packing. Each bundle is placed carefully in a hogshead
or other large receptacle in such a manner as not to injure the leaf
in any way. In some cases the midrib—the fibre which runs through the
leaf—is removed before exportation, an operation which has given rise in
commerce to the designation ‘stripes,’ a term by which large quantities
of tobacco is known in the market. When a hogshead is about one quarter
filled a powerful lever-press is employed to compress and consolidate
the tobacco. This pressing is repeated at each successive stage of the
packing till the whole is a dense and compact mass, weighing from a
thousand to twelve hundred pounds. On arrival at the London Docks, where
immense bonded warehouses extend as far as the eye can reach, unshipment
takes place among some hundreds of other similar imports. Here it remains
until the duty demanded by the Custom House officer is paid. The period
of bondage may last three years, a small rent being charged for the
accommodation. Before releasing it from bond the consignee will unpack
the tobacco for the purpose of ascertaining whether it is perfectly
sound, or has sustained damage in course of transit; for it happens
sometimes that the material is found to be hardly worth the duty imposed.
In this case the consignee is not compelled to release it; it is left
with the Crown officials to make such use of it as they may deem fit. How
they dispose of such tobacco is remarked upon in the chapter headed, ‘The
Use and Abuse of Tobacco.’
In looking over the various sorts of tobacco presented by the
tobacconists to the consumer we need not touch upon the delicate ground
of ‘vested interests.’ It will suffice our present purpose if we notice
merely that from the same hogshead a selection and classification is made
of the leaves according to the shade of colour, and that the lightest
coloured (the mild) ones are reserved for less liquoring and pressure
than is given to the darker coloured leaves. ‘Returns,’ for example, is
the product of the lightest leaves and less pressure. A large quantity
of water used in the process of liquoring has the effect of darkening
the colour and giving strength to the flavour of the tobacco. By extreme
watering and pressure is produced the kind so dear to the sailor called
‘pigtail,’ as well as the less pungent ‘sag,’ of which there are two
sorts, fine and common, the difference consisting of the fineness or
coarseness of the shreds into which the leaf is cut. These and many
other odd circumstances in the manufacture give the different degrees of
strength and flavour sought for by the varying tastes of smokers.
In the opinion of experienced smokers a new cigar is never good; like
wine, the weed requires age to bring it to perfection—the highly prized
excellences, a mild, cool aromatic smoke. Curiously enough, the marks
of a mite on the outer leaf are the true signs of matured years, when
the cigar is fitted to regale the jaded senses and dispose the most
obdurate of men to relax into sociality. But these seductive touches by
an invisible hand are well known to the manufacturer, and are sometimes
artificially produced by means of acid. Fancy or experience has suggested
different kinds of cigars for different seasons of the year, or climates.
The Havana is thought by connoisseurs to be the most agreeable for
summer or hot countries, and for winter or cold climates a principe is
preferred; while the thoughtful and imaginative are assured that there
is no leaf like the Manila. And as regards the Manila there is something
to warrant the suggestion. The tobacco of Luzon when mixed with that of
the Gapanian plantation is considered to make the very perfection of all
cheroots. Its excellences consist in a delicate flavour combined with
a slightly soporific quality: properties which render it so pleasantly
alluring to the imaginative, and which to some smokers suggest the use of
opium in its preparation; this, however, is not so; to the climate and
soil alone are due the grateful pleasures of this most solacing smoke.
There are three different and distinct growths of the tobacco-plant in
the Philippines. A strong, aromatic tobacco is grown in great abundance
in the province of Cagayan in the island of Luzon, and the district of
Gapan in Pampanga produces a leaf of a very mild and agreeable flavour,
while from Bisayas a tobacco much inferior to either is raised. In the
manufacture of the poorer kind it is a common practise to use a leaf
of the best as an envelope wrapped round, in order to impart to it a
better appearance. From the first planting of tobacco in the Philippines
until July, 1881, the entire industry had been in the hands of the
Spanish Government, who visited illicit production with severe pains and
penalties. Yet, notwithstanding the vigilance of the mounted police who
scoured the country districts to strike terror into the lawless, the
natives living far up the mountain glens of Ylocos and Pangasinan, though
leading the roving life of huntsmen, contrived to cultivate patches
of the tobacco-plant, for which they always found a ready sale to the
traders who at the proper season visited the neighbourhood.
Since the monopoly was abolished, private enterprise, stirred by the
wholesome stimulus of competition, has developed and improved the
tobacco industry very considerably, with the help of large numbers of
diligent hard-toiling Chinamen. This important branch of commerce in
Manila provides employment for twenty thousand women and sixteen thousand
men. The men are employed almost wholly in making cigarillos for Home
consumption; while to the women is allotted the more important task of
cheroot-making for exportation. Here the great factories are situated,
each of which affords accommodation for about a thousand work-people. The
men and women work in separate factories; those for the women are divided
into long rooms along the whole length of which are ranged low tables.
At each table a dozen young women are seated, presided over by an old
woman whose duty is to try and maintain order among the girls and see
that there is no waste of material, for to each table a certain quantity
of tobacco is weighed out. If the proportionate number of cigars is not
produced, woe betide the hapless one: on pay day deductions for waste
come into the reckoning.
But however interesting the workers and their work may be, the visitor
seldom cares to prolong his stay where a thousand voices are in full
chatter and stone hammers are incessantly beating, on wooden tables,
leaves of the plant in readiness for the lissom fingers of the girls who
roll them up into cheroot form. These women of weeds earn good wages—from
eight to ten dollars a month—which amply suffices to get them all the
comforts they need and leave a fair margin for dress, of which they are
as proud, if not as prodigal, as the gayest of their European sisters. A
novel use for cigars was found in the Philippines some years ago. Copper
money being very scarce, quite inadequate to the daily requirements,
cigars were passed from one person to another in lieu of coin, to the
small satisfaction of the one in whose hands they had from friction
become unsaleable.
It is noteworthy that even tobacco-leaves, the avowed destroyers of
insect life, should themselves be the prey of some form of the ubiquitous
microbe. Besides the mite just mentioned that speckles the outer leaf
of old cigars, a more ravenous one has been discovered working its will
on Indian cigar-leaf. In a recent issue of _Indian Museum Notes_, Mr.
Cote gives an interesting account of the works and ways of an insect
that drills tiny round holes in tobacco-leaves, so small indeed that
they had escaped observation until the havoc wrought awakened alarm.
The pest tunnels its way through the leaf, irrespective of strength or
flavour, even the Trichinopoli is not beyond its taste. And it multiplies
so rapidly that much valuable leaf is soon rendered worthless for
smoking. Its method of working has suggested the name of weevil. The
Indian tobacco industry, therefore, has now to reckon with a new and
unscrupulous competitor in the form of the ‘cigar weevil.’ It would be a
boon to long-suffering humanity and a triumph for the bacteriologist if
he could manage to set one tribe against another of these evil-doers, to
their mutual destruction. If they are like living things in the natural
world they will have their foes and their struggles for existence. The
old lady’s belief that microbes have pink eyes and ravenous teeth may
not be perfectly accurate, yet judging from their insidious attacks on
unsuspecting mortals we are warranted in assuming that they have other
very effective means of combat. The spectacle of internecine warfare
going on in their little world, as revealed under the microscope, would
afford from its novelty an exhibition worth going miles to see.
The tobacco-plant is not now cultivated in England. James the First
thought it shameful that so pernicious a plant should be permitted to
take root in our rich and fruitful soil, and caused an edict to be issued
prohibiting its cultivation within the British Islands. The King’s
apologists find reason for the prohibition in his Majesty’s concern
for the interests of the young colony of tobacco planters settled in
Virginia. Be this as it may, Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) on economic
grounds condemns the enactment, saying, ‘Home cultivation of tobacco has
on this account most absurdly been prohibited through the greater part
of Europe which necessarily gives a monopoly to the countries where its
cultivation is allowed.’
To the impoverished treasury of Charles the Second its importation was
made to yield revenue at a rate equivalent to about thirty shillings
a pound weight of our present money, and through the agency of his
ministers enacted in ‘Laws and Regulations concerning Tobacco’ (15 Car.
II. c. 7. 12. Par. II. c. 34.) that, ‘Tobacco is not to be planted in
England on a forfeiture of 40s. for every rood of ground thus planted.’
This restriction however was ‘not to extend to the planting of tobacco
in Physic Gardens, in quantities not exceeding half a pole, and also,
on forfeiture of £10 for every rood of ground.’ These prohibitory
measures remained in force until April 1886, when English farming being
in _in extremis_ the Government granted permission to grow the plant
in the United Kingdom, under certain precautions and restrictions for
the purpose of safe-guarding the revenue. Several land-owners in Kent,
Norfolk and Essex, tried their prentice hand in the new husbandry,
notably, Messrs. James Carter & Company of Bromley, whose first
crop seemed to give fair promise of future success. Their sanguine
expectations however were short-lived. What with hampering restrictions
on the one hand and our fickle climate on the other, it soon became too
apparent that English agriculturists must not look to the Indian weed for
the much needed succour. The crops raised proved to be unmarketable. The
cultivation of the tobacco-plant in these islands is no longer authorized.
The Home manufacture of cigars from foreign leaf however increased by
leaps and bounds, and now affords remunerative employment for many
thousands of work-people in London alone. There are also large tobacco
factories in the chief seats of industry and commerce throughout the
kingdom. This is due in great measure to the heavy tax levied upon
foreign made cigars imported into this country, namely, six shillings on
every pound weight—_i.e._, double the sum charged on tobacco in the leaf.
This great difference would seem to afford the unscrupulous an incentive
to fabricate spurious high-priced cigars under foreign names. Looked at
in this light it may be a question worth the consideration of the Board
of Customs whether or not it would be well to lessen the difference
between the two rates of duty—to raise the one and lower the other—with
advantage to both the consumer and the revenue.
Our gossip about the Indian weed may now be brought to a close with a
few words about its co-partner, the pipe. For even tobacco-pipes, like
all other products of men’s ingenuity, awaken interest all the more
engrossing when little else remains to tell the story of those who made
them and used them. They carry the imagination back to those shadowy
palaces of the Incas and Aztecs, where equally shadowy potentates
smoked out of pipes made of precious metals, or of highly polished and
richly-gilt wood. Pipes indeed, present features highly interesting to
a much larger class than to professed ethnologists. The wide region
over which they are found, buried in mounds and tumuli extending from
the north-west coast of America to the plains of Patagonia, tell us
how universal was the habit of smoking on that vast continent; while
similarity of structure suggests a common origin. Curious specimens
have been found in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, and in
the great Mississippi valley, varying from the simplest forms made out
of baked clay with a plain cylinder or urn, to others of a class, very
uniform in type, cut out of porphyry in a single piece. These latter have
a slightly convey base measuring about four inches in length, and one
inch broad, with the bowl on the centre. A fine hole pierces the pipe
from end to end of the base to the bottom of the bowl, the opposite end
being obviously designed for the smoker to hold in the hand. Others are
remarkable for a fine display of artistic skill in the carving of birds,
mammals, reptiles and human heads, often fanciful and grotesque, but
always vigorously expressed. In Mexico elaborately moulded and ornamented
pipes have been found, along with others of a type almost identical with
our common clay pipe. And in British Columbia pipes are occasionally
met with in the possession of the native Indians, moulded and carved by
themselves in almost every variety of fantastic form, and with tracery
that would do no discredit to modern art. These are for the most part
made of blue slate-clay, and have intricate pierced work carried through
the tube. In old Indian grave-mounds Messrs. Squier & Davis, in the
course of their explorations in 1846-7, found pipes cut into the form
of human heads, the features on which were singularly truthful and
expressive; and what was still more remarkable was their strikingly
Mongolian type, a circumstance which lends support to the hypothesis that
in the remote past the American continent was peopled from the eastern
part of Asia. Some of the pipes found in these mounds represented animals
peculiar to the lower latitudes. On one pipe the otter is shown in the
attitude of holding a fish in its mouth: on another the heron has seized
a fish; the hawk is grasping a small bird, and with its beak is in the
act of tearing it to pieces. Almost every bird and animal common to the
country is found boldly carved on the pipes of the aborigines of America.
The material for pipes mostly sought after by the natives is the
beautiful and easily wrought red sandstone of the Coteau des Prairies.
The calumet, which plays an important part in their civil and religious
observances, is made from this source, chiefly on account of the legend
respecting its origin and the origin of smoking, mentioned in the first
chapter. One can hardly help seeing in the handiwork shown in the make
of these curious smoking instruments points of contact with the social
condition and intelligence of the makers. From the short nostril tube of
the Caribs to the feathered peace-pipe of the continental tribes is an
advancement in the social scale, such as we see in the difference between
the hole in the ground for a bowl made by natives of central India,
who use a leaf for a tube, and the richly adorned chibouk of the Turk.
This view affords us a glimpse of primitive man struggling to adapt his
surroundings to his needs, according to the degree of intelligence to
which he has attained.
The ordinary pipe so extensively used in England is made from white
clay, found chiefly at Purbeck, in Dorsetshire, and Newton Abbot, in
Devonshire. But, in recent years, the heath briar-root of France for
pipes has come largely into use. Perhaps no material for pipe bowls
stands in higher favour than meerschaum—a fine, white clay consisting
chiefly of magnesia, silica and water. The best kinds are found in pits
in the Crimea and along the peninsula of Heracleati in Asia Minor. It
is soft and porous: the finest specimens are almost transparent. When
first taken out of the pits it makes lather like soap-suds. The workmen
employed in digging it up say that if left for long lying about it
forms itself into froth. Thus the foam of the sea of past ages, driven
by the winds into sheltered cavities and hollow places of the earth,
comes at last to render service to St Nicotine; and in our meditative
moods is brought vividly before the mind the fabled birth of the goddess
of love, laughter and beauty. According to the old Greek myth it was
just off the coast of Paphos (Cyprus) that Aphrodite arose from amid
sea-foam that covered the mutilated body of old, sleepy, Uranus, who in
a drowsy moment had rolled down the cliff into the sea. Springing thus
into being she was seen by the three daughters of Zeus (the seasons) who
carried her to Olympus, and all the gods admired her for her beauty.
There are connoisseurs who fancy that the meerschaum pipes coming
from this region impart to the tobacco a peculiarly delicate flavour.
Constantinople is the great mart for the sale of meerschaum, as Vienna is
for its manufacture into pipes. The material is so extremely difficult
to manipulate that the uncertainty attending its successful manufacture
gives a high value to the better kinds. The meerschaum is soaked in water
for twenty-four hours and then turned in a lathe. In this process the
clay often proves to be too porous, and is on this account rejected: this
will happen as many as seven times out of ten.
FOOTNOTES
[1] On the title-page is a picture of a bi-forked hill with a tall
Virginian tobacco plant growing in the cleft. A scroll bears the motto,
_Digna Parnasso et Apolline_. There is an excellent copy of the work in
the long-room of the British Museum.
[2] In 1904 the maximum limit of moisture was fixed at 32 per cent. The
moisture naturally present in the kinds now imported averages 14 per cent.
[3] Possibly hebenon is here employed for henbane, a name sometimes
applied to tobacco by writers in Jacobean times. William Strachey, in his
Historie of _Travaile into Virginia Britannica_ (1610), speaks of the
tobacco-plant as ‘like to henbane.’ John Gerard in his description of the
plant calls it ‘henbane of Peru.’ French writers of the same period had
an unlimited vocabulary for tobacco, and among their names for it may be
found ‘Peruvian henbane’ (_jusquiame de Peru_). If this view be admitted,
then we have in ‘hebenon’ the only reference to tobacco the whole of
Shakespeare’s works contain.
[4] _Japan and her People._ By Andrew Steinmetz, 1860.
[5] Adams died full of honours in 1620, and was buried on the summit of a
little hill at the end of an inlet called Goldsborough.
[6] _Stirpium Adversaria Nova._ Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, by Mathias
de L’Obel, Botanist, London, 1571. Another edition was published at
Antwerp in 1576.
[7] The Queen could not brook the least defection of a courtier from
absolute devotion to herself.
[8] “The Witches’ Frolic,” _Ingoldsby Legends_.
[9] This work first appeared anonymously in 1604, and it is doubtful
if an original copy is extant. Dr. Richard Garnett courteously informs
the writer of these lines that there is not one in the British Museum.
Professor Arber, however, has preserved a copy of it in his English
Reprints. Arber says, ‘How early its royal authorship was avowed I
know not, but it was generally known long before its insertion in the
collected edition of the King’s works’ in (1616).
Since the above was written Mr. Thomas Arnold, of Hong-Kong, has informed
the author that he possesses a copy—the only one extant—of the original
edition, supplied to him by the late Mr. Bernard Quaritch, of Piccadilly.
[10] It is difficult to speak of James I. in measured terms. The reader
is referred to Sir Anthony Weldon’s _Court and Character of King James_
(Smeeton’s reprint, 1817). Raumer, ii. p. 200, says of James: ‘He was a
slave to vices which could not fail to make him an object of disgust.’
Also, Winwood’s _Memorials_.
[11] Published at Antwerp, 1659, and translated by I.R. Dedicated to the
Merchants and Planters of Tobacco.