Both tobacco and paper are now ready to be given out to the "rollers." Let us go down and watch them as they come pouring in. Both sexes and all ages have representations here. Each one awaits his turn, and then receives, after it has been carefully weighed, his or her allowance of tobacco, some five thousand papers, and a large wooden hoop. The hoop serves as a rude but very accurate gauge, its circumference being of such a size as to properly encompass five thousand cigarettes of such size as will contain the entire amount of tobacco issued. A slight excess of both tobacco and paper, say sufficient to make forty or fifty cigarettes, is usually given, intended for the personal consumption of the employee. When their work is completed and returned to the factory, they receive in exchange therefor a small copper check payable on demand. So common are these checks in Havana that a few years since--possibly it may be so still--they were constantly given to one at the various stores, and were commonly received as current coin.
Physically the cigar and cigarette makers are a sorry lot. The continual odor of tobacco, their constant labor, with bodies bent over tables, calling into play no muscle, no exertion, indeed, whatever, excepting the exercise of their fingers--this cannot fail to have its effect. The cigarette makers are injured, too, by the inhalation of an almost invisible dust arising from the small particles of tobacco. The compensation received appears very small. Four or five cigarettes a minute is accounted good work, and even at this rate two days' steady labor is required to fill a hoop, for which they receive less than two dollars.
The larger number of cigarettes manufactured at Havana are made by machinery which is exceedingly ingenious, and has proved thoroughly successful. The cigarettes made by machinery are not only more tightly wrapped, but also manufactured at a much reduced cost. Each machine is capable of making thirty cigarettes per minute, 1,800 per hour, or 43,200 per day, thus replacing the labor of fourteen men, presuming them to be capable of working ten hours per day. For such persons as prefer making their own cigarettes, pressed packages of tobacco, with little paper books containing the envelopes, are sold. The tobacco is so neatly put up that were it not for the accompanying book, one would almost fancy it to be a package of the most delicate French chocolate. As illustration of the consumption of cigarettes it may be of interest to state that three million cigarettes are made in the Honoradez factory each year, while it is estimated that in their manufacture over six million dollars is annually expended in the city of Havana alone. The Cuban, indeed, is much more of a cigarette than a cigar smoker; the cigarette is his constant companion. Even after dinner the cigarette seems to be preferred. I remember once, at a very charming dinner party, being quite astonished--for it was shortly after my arrival in Havana--to find myself and the host the only cigar smokers. The rest of our number, some six or seven, all Cubans, took to their accustomed cigarette with a unanimity which has always led me to believe that my good host himself felt called upon by his sense of politeness to do violence to his own preference.