Of Interest to Smokers.
By Editor
A GENTLEMAN describing himself as “one of the people fond of a good cigar,” assures the New York Times that a prominent physician told him that from the practice of cigar-makers wetting the wrapper with their saliva and biting the end of the cigar into shape, a loathsome disease was spreading, and that he knew of several cases. “Somewhat alarmed,” he continued, “I managed to visit a number of factories. Two-thirds of the cigar-makers, I found, daub the whole end of the cigar with their saliva. Thinking that Cuban workmen might not do it, I visited places where they were employed, and found that not only did they use their saliva to make the wrapper stick, but that most of them, before wrapping, bit the end of the cigar into shape with their teeth. As the physician informs me that many of the cigar-makers have sore mouths from disease, it is a dangerous as well as a beastly habit.” This is horrible, if true; and we fear it is true to some extent. From personal observation we know that cigar-makers in Cuba do manipulate their work with a touch of saliva. Not many of them do it, we should judge; but some do, and these nasty workmen are probably the very fellows whose mouths are most likely to communicate disease. Those cigars, moreover, which look the neatest at the smoking end, and therefore the most admired by young smokers, probably owe their attractive symmetry to this disgusting manipulation. Yet it is a fact that the most inveterate smokers are found among young men who must be aware of the prevalence of this filthy practice. Almost all those who manufacture cigars, or who deal in cigars, also smoke cigars. We don’t quite see how they do it, but they do.—Buffalo Express.