The snuff is manufactured in Smyrna, as follows:
The conscientious manufacturer uses Persian hookah tobacco (tumbeki) and the fragments of country tobacco-leaf coloured with black ink. These tobaccos, ground as fine as possible and mixed with grape molasses, are put in a covered barrel to ferment. Two or three days later the snuff is taken out and spread in the sun to dry partly, and then rubbed with the hands and passed through iron wire sieves to be granulated.
The product is afterwards scented with powdered orris root, tonka beans, and geranium oil; the superior qualities are scented with essences of roses and jessamine and put up in packages.
The adulterated article is manufactured in the same manner with the addition of the above-named substances.
The only persons using genuine snuff in this city are the Catholic priests, who import it directly from France, Italy, Spain and Holland, and enjoy the privilege of paying no custom-house duties.
CHAPTER VIII.
IMPORTS, DUTIES, VALUES, AND CONSUMPTION.
A comparison of the taxation of the chief nations of the world for the consumption of tobacco has been published in the Imperial Statistics of Germany. Of the countries where the sale is a Government monopoly, France last year stood first, the gross duty, with profits, amounting to 7s. 1½d. per head of the population annually, the net revenue from the article being 5s. 8¼d. per head. In Austria the gross was 5s. 5¾d., the net, 3s. 5d.; in Hungary, the gross 3s. 3½d., the net 1s. 7d.; in Italy, the gross 3s. 11d., and the net 2s. 8¼d. In Great Britain, the duty and licenses brought in 4s. 10¾d. per head of the population for the year, and in the United States 4s. 4½d. In Germany, on the other hand, where the duty was very light, the average was no more than 7¾d. per head of the population.
The duties on unmanufactured tobacco are 3s. 6d. a lb. when it contains 10 per cent. or more of moisture; 3s. 10d. a lb. when it contains less than 10 per cent. of moisture. Snuff containing no more than 13 per cent. of moisture, 4s. 10d. a lb.; 13 per cent. and upwards, 4s. 1d. a lb. Cigars pay 5s. 6d. a lb. Cavendish of foreign manufacture pays 4s. 10d. a lb.; that manufactured in bond, 4s. 4d. Other sorts, including cigarettes, pay 4s. 4d. a lb.
The approximate relative values in the London market are as follows:—Maryland, fine yellow, fine, and good coloured, 7–9½d. a lb.; colory, 5–7d.; light-brown and leafy, 5–(7½)d.; ordinary and brown, 4–4½d. Virginia: Fine Irish and Scotch spinners, 7–10d.; good and middling, ordinary light and dry, 6–10d.; fine black sweet scent, and middling do., (6½)–(7½)d.; part blacks, 5–6d.; ordinary and heated, 3–5d.; mixed parcels, ordinary and good, middling and fine, (5½)–(6½)d.; stripped leaf, 4d.–1s. Kentucky: fine long light leaf, 7–11d.; good to middling do., (5½)-(7½)d.; fine and middling blacks, 6–8d.; ordinary and mixed, 2–5d.; stripped leaf, fine, light leafy, middling and ordinary, (4½)–11d. Negrohead, 11d.–1s. 6d. Cavendish, 4½d.–1s. Amersfort and German, 2¾d.–1s. 6d. St. Domingo, 5–(7½)d. Havana, Cuba, and Yara, 1s. 2d.–6s. Turkish and Greek, (2½)–9d. E. India, Japan, and China, 2–9d. Java, 5d.–2s. Colombia (New Granada), 5d.–2s. 6d. Manilla, 8d.–4s. Manilla cheroots, 4s.–7s. 6d. Havana cigars, 5–40s.
Imports, Duties, and Values.—Our imports of tobacco in 1879 were as follows:—