Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

Evening Star, Issue 4234, 21 September 1876, Page 3

WHAT DO YOU SMOKE, SIR? It appears, according to the ' Scientific American,' that even cigars manufactured in Havana are now composed by no means entirely of tobacco, but to a considerable extent of "a kind of brown straw wrapping paper," prepared specially for the purpose in New York. Sheets of this material are saturated with the juice pressed from tobacco stems, and are then passed through a sort of printing machine, which gives them the exact appearance of tobacco leaves; so much so, indeed, that the paper thus prepared is largely used for the "wrappers" or outer coverings of cigars, and is, in fact, said to be regarded by the makers as "an improvement on the natural tobacco-leaf," inasmuch as it is " much stronger, more economical, and easier of manipulation." In view of a further expression of manufacturing opinion to the effect that " this tobacco-flavored straw paper also makes afilling for cigars superior to the genuine leaf, impossible to detect, and leaves a nearly white ash, just like that of the best quality of tobacco," some surprise may, perhaps, be felt that the cigar-makers in Havana think it worth their while to use any tobacco at all in the production of their wares, but it may be so far reassuriug -to learn that, after all, " the delicate films of paper are interlapped with broken leaves of real tobacco." However, the quantity of this prepared straw paper imported into Havana is reported to be very considerable. It is sdid that no Havana steamer leaves New York without taking quantities of it, the amount on each occasion varying from 5,000 to 30,000 reams.—' Pall Mall Gazette.' Th» entir« assets of a recent bankrupt were mow 7 and let him keep them,