Yet another floor, and we are introduced into a long chamber with rows of long tables, at which a hundred Chinese workmen are engaged in counting the already twisted cigarettes into bundles of twenty-six, and enveloping them in their ornamental labels or covers. To accomplish this operation with necessary speed, much practice and dexterity in the handling is required. The coolies—a thousand of whom are employed on the establishment—are, however, great adepts at the art, and patient and plodding as beasts of burthen. But among the celestials there is one master-hand who distinguishes himself above all the others by his superior skill. Piles of loose cigarettes and gummed labels are before him. Into the former he digs his dexterous fingers, and he knows by the feel alone whether he has the prescribed twenty-six within his grasp. By a peculiar shake he humours the handful into its tubular form, and with another movement wraps it lightly in a paper cover, which he leaves open at one end and neatly tucks in at the other. He is so rapid in his work, that we can scarcely follow him with our eyes, and the whole performance, from beginning to end, looks to us like a conjuring trick. Our guide tells us how many thousands of packets per day are in this way completed by these useful coolies.
'Arriba!' Another flight leads to the 'picadura' department, where tobacco leaves are prepared for cigarette making. The aspect on all sides reminds us of a room in a Manchester factory. We wade carefully through a maze of busy machinery. There are huge contrivances for pressing tobacco into solid cakes hard as brickbats; ingenious apparatus for chopping these cakes into various sized grains of 'picadura' or tobacco cuttings; horizontal and vertical tramways for forwarding the latter to their respective compartments. Near us is a winnowing chamber for separating particles of dust from the newly cut picadura. We enter by a spring door which closes after us with a bang, and everybody is immediately seized with a violent fit of sneezing. Particles of escaping tobacco dust float in the air and tickle our olfactories. We are actually standing within a huge snuff-box! After inhaling a wholesale pinch of this powder, which leaves us sneezing for the next quarter of an hour, we clamber to the heights of the establishment, and find ourselves in the printing and paper cutting departments. Here artists are engaged in preparing lithographic stones and wood blocks with various picturesque designs for cigarette labels. Gilders are illuminating labels, and cutters are shaping paper into their cigarette and label sizes. Further on are printing offices, where all the letterpress and lithography required in the establishment is accomplished. This is far from an insignificant item in the manufactory, for, besides the pictorial and letterpress covers, there are the Honradez advertisements to print; circulars, pamphlets, together with dedicatory dance music, and an occasional local newspaper. We linger lovingly about this interesting department, and, before we leave, the foreman of the printing office presents each lady member of our party with a piece of Cuban dance music, upon the cover of which is printed a few words of dedication, accompanied by the lady's own name in full. Whilst wondering at the magic by which this mark of attention has been quietly accomplished, we descend to the ground floor, and are again met by the courteous proprietor, who presents each gentleman visitor with a newly-made packet of cigarettes upon which, lo! and behold! are our names. It is pleasing to see one's name in print, and when it is witnessed on an ordinary Havana cigarette packet, the charm is greatly augmented.
Before taking leave of our civil host, we are invited to comment upon what we have seen, in the visitors' book, and you may be sure that our observations are not unfavourable to the courteous proprietor and his interesting exhibition. Susini & Son have published a thick pamphlet containing a list of names and remarks of distinguished visitors to his establishment. It is a curious work in its way, for the epigrammatic effusions are varied, amusing, and composed in at least half a dozen languages. Some of the authors have chosen a poetic style of commentary, while others content themselves with matter-of-fact prose. A well-known signature is here and there recognisable among these cosmopolitan productions. A famous Italian opera star has rhymed in her native lingo; a popular French acrobat—possibly one of a company of strolling equestrians—has immortalised himself in Parisian heroics. M. Pianatowsky, the Polish fiddler, has scrawled something incomprehensible in Russian or Arabic—no matter which; while Mein Herr Van Trinkenfeld comes out strong in double Dutch. Need I add that the immortal Smith of London is in great force in the book, or that his Queen's English is worthy of his world-wide reputation?
We are in the act of quitting the Honradez establishment, when it suddenly occurs to one of us that, after all that has been said and seen, we have failed to watch a cigarette in actual process of manufacture. What! have we presided at a performance of 'Hamlet' with the hero omitted; or are the component parts of cigarettes planted in the ground to sprout out ready-made like radishes?
I return and ask for information on this subject.
'Perdonen, ustedes,' says our hospitable friend, 'I had forgotten to tell you that our cigarrillos are rolled by the presidiarios.'
What's a 'presidiario'? A 'presidiario' is a convict, and convicts in Cuba are sentenced to eternal cigarette-making in lieu of oakum-picking. The government contract with the manufacturers for this purpose, and—voilà tout!
Anxious to 'sit out' the whole cigarette performance to the very last act, I ask and obtain permission to visit the town jail. In one of the stone apartments of this well-regulated building are groups of convicts dressed in white blouses and loose trousers of coarse canvas. Amongst them are Africans, Congos, mulattoes of many shades, Chinese—Chow-chows as they are called—and sun-burnt whites, who are principally insubordinate Spanish soldiers and sailors. Each has a heavy chain dangling from his waist and attached to his ankle, wears a broad-brimmed straw hat of his own manufacture, and incessantly smokes. Before him is a wooden box filled with picadura and small squares of tissue paper. Great nicety is required to roll a cigarette after the approved fashion; the strength or mildness of the tobacco being in a great measure influenced by the way the grains are more or less compressed. A smoker of course finds a tightly-twisted cigarette more difficult to draw than a loosely twisted one.
The presidiario does not seem to object to his hard labour, but doubtless prefers it to other kinds of perpetual rolling on a wheel. He employs no sticky element to secure the edges of his cigarette, but tucks the ends neatly in, by means of a pointed thimble which he wears on his forefinger.
Ponder well over this, ye Havana cigarette smokers! and when next you indulge in a whiff from your favourite luxury, remember that a pickpocket has had his hand on your picadura!