ten pounds, and popped their foot into the scale
accordingly. I know that I subsequently saw
tobacco in all stages of being cleaned, and
picked, and sorted, the finer leaves being
reserved for the coverings or sheaths of the
cigars, the less choice being used to form what
magazine editors call "padding," and the
Cubans themselves, when speaking of cigars,
"las tripas"—a term not quite translatable to
genteel ears, but which I may render, in a
guarded manner, as "insides." If you offer a
Spaniard a cigar—not with a view that he
should smoke, but that he should criticise it—
he will, after expressing the preliminary wish
that you may live a thousand years, produce a
sharp penknife and slice the weed through
diagonally. Then, with a strong magnifying-glass,
he will scrutinise "las tripas," and tell you, as
confidently as any Loudan or Linnæus could,
the precise order of vegetation to which the
cigar belongs—whether it is of the superfine
"vuelta de abajo," the Clos Vougeot of nicotia,
or of some inferior growth, either from the
island of Cuba itself, or from Hayti, or Porto
Rico, or Virginia, or Maryland, or the
Carolinas, or, haply, from the south and east of
Europe; for vast quantities of Hungarian,
Austrian, Sardinian, and Bessabarian tobacco
do find their way to Cuba, and come back to us
in the guise of prime Havanas—that is certain.
A minute investigation of "las tripas" may also
lead to the painful disclosure that the cigar is
not composed of tobacco at all. The periodical
reports of her Majesty's commissioners of
inland revenue point out, pretty plainly, what vile
stuff is sometimes foisted on the public as
genuine tobacco.

You run no risk, of course, of having a
sophisticated cigar from the factory of the Hija
de Cabañas y Carvajal. Their wares are of
different qualities—just as claret is, and the
quality perhaps takes as wide a range as
Bordeaux, between Medoc and Château Lafitte.
But a Cabaña cigar—bought at Cabaña's, bien
entendu, or at any reputable dealer's in London
(no foreign cigar merchant I ever met with could
be trusted even so far as I could see him)—is
sure to be made of genuine tobacco. You are
quite safe: also, with a cigar from the Partagas
factory—and there are many amateurs who prefer
Partagas to Cabañas; with an Alvarez; with
a Cavargas; with a Lopez; with a Cealdos (of
the Guipuzcoana manufactory), and especially
with a Figaro. Some persons imagine the name
of "Figaro" to be that of a brand, or form of
cigar, such as a "Henry Clay" or a "Londres;"
but it is really that of a factory. I may mention
our "Lion" and "Romford" breweries by way
of analogy. I need not say that there are
scores more respectable traders in Havana who
make good and unadulterated cigars; but the
names I have set down are those best known,
and most popular with smokers.

On the broadest principle of classification, the
cigars which are really brought from the Island
of Cuba to Europe may be divided into three
great groups. First, genuine Havana, of various
degrees of fineness, but, from stem to stern,
sheath and "tripas" made of tobacco grown,
cured, and rolled in the Island of Cuba. Second,
cigars composed inside of United States, or of
European tobacco, imported into the island, but
with an outside wrapper of Havana leaf. Third
and last, cigars brought ready made into Havana,
from Europe, mostly from Bremen and Switzerland,
passed through some export house unfair
enough to be an accomplice in such dealings,
and re-exported to Europe. You rarely meet
with these doubly sham cigars in England; but
they form the staple of the article retailed at
extravagant prices to travellers at continental
hotels. They smoke so abominably that the
consumer usually jumps at the conclusion that
they are simply "duffers," with forged brands
and labels on the boxes; but, if he imparts this
assumption to the waiter, that functionary may
in his turn often assume an air of injured
innocence and virtuous indignation. He can tell
the complainant the name of the wholesale
dealer from whom he has purchased the cigars:
nay, he is often enabled to point out on the
box the actual government stamp, and the
amount of duty paid on the contents as foreign
cigars. I have gone down with a waiter to a
custom-house and seen him clear from the ship
and pay duty upon the cigars he has sold me,
and yet have found them afterwards to be the
merest rubbish. It is unjust to make Cuba
responsible for the prevalence of such trash.
The rubbishing cigars have been to Havana,
but were not made there. What is it the
Bulbul, in the Persian poem, remarks relative
to the rose? I think he observes that he is
not that flower, but that he has lived near her.
So Bremen, who has paid a flying visit to
Havana, may be regarded as a kind of rascally
Bulbul.

This species of fraud is too clumsy and too
slow for the great English people. We, who
are so very hard on the Americans for their
"smartness," habitually resort in trade to
perhaps the most ingenious swindles, the most
impudent deceptions, and the meanest and most
detestable "dodges," of any nation in the world.
We adulterate everything. We forge everything.
We would adulterate the mother earth
which is thrown on our coffins when we are
buried, if that fraud would pay. There is not a
petty tobacconist's shop in a London back street
without a stock of cigar boxes, whose brands,
whose printed labels—down to the bluntness of
the Spanish type and the poverty of the Spanish
wood-engravings—are cool and literal forgeries
of the Spanish originals. These brands and
labels are forged quite as neatly as bank-notes
are forged; but this is a "trick of trade" which
has not yet become felony. I have seen with
my own eyes, in a great English town, and in a
cigar factory employing three hundred men,
hands ready for heating and stamping—a kind of
chamber of horrors—where there were no less than
ninety different brands purporting to be those
of leading houses in Havana, and all of which
were false. The excuse of the people who