In a Spanish Tobacco Factory.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 406, 28 September 1889, Page 5

In a Spanish Tobacco Factory.

The great tobacco factory at Seville is one of fcho first .-ights the stranger is taken to see. Everybody in Spain smokes cigarettes. Little boys begin at the age of eifhb, and from that time the cigarette is rarely absent from a Spaniard's lips. Many of them die smoking. Th.c consumption of cigarettes is naturally enormous, and the bulk are manufactined in Se\ille. The (lovernment factory gives daily employment to about 7,000 peoplo, and of these only a hundred or two are men, When you enter the enormous rooms crowded with girls dressed in bright colouis, the tovp d'<dl is> striking in the k extreme. In one immense low-vaulted room there are 1,500 girls. They sit in endless rows — about twenty girls to a vow — on either side of the room, all at little tables, all rolling cigarettes. There is a blaze and blur of colour, a babel of tongues. Every girl has a gay handkerchief about her neck — every girl has a bright flower stuck in her hair. All along the walls hang the gay outdoor dresses of the little cigarette-makers. As I vyalk blushing and nervous down an endlees avenue of flashing eyes, I grow almost giddy. It is a sea of women's faces, an undulating ocean of flower-deoked heads. One has to pick one's way carefully down the central avenue, for itis blockaded all along the line with cradles. The married cigarette-makers are allowed to bring their babies with them to tho factory. They rock the cradle with one foot, while their busy fingers roll the cigarette. Tho girl? earn good wages. At many of the tables whole families are working together. But the hours are long, and the atmosphere awful. Thedampwarm odour of the tobacco in the Jong low-roofed rooms is in itself almost stupefying. But there is no ventilation, and the atmosphere is absolutely indescribable. Many ot the girls smoke cigarettes at their work. I was very glad to light one myself long before I had done the round of the factory.— G. R. Sims.