While on the subject of smoking, I may as well say a few words upon cigar manufacture.  In the first place, all the best tobacco grows at the lower end of the island, and is therefore called “Vuelta abajo.”  An idea has found its way into England, that it is impossible to make cigars at home as well as at the Havana; and the reason given is, the tobacco is made up at Havana during its first damping, and that, having to be re-damped in England, it loses thereby its rich flavour and aroma.  Now, this is a most egregious mistake; for in some of the best houses here you will find tobacco two and even four years old, which is not yet worked up into cigars, and which, consequently, has to be re-damped for that purpose.  If this be so, perhaps you will ask how is it that British-made cigars are never so good as those from Havana?  There are two very good reasons for this—­the one certain, the other probable.  The probable one is, that the best makers in Havana, whose brand is their fortune—­such as Cabanos y Carvajal—­will be jealous of sending the best tobacco out of the country, lest, being forced to use inferior tobacco, they might lose their good name; and the other reason is, that cigars improve in flavour considerably by a sea voyage.  So fully is this fact recognised here, that many merchants pay the duty of three shillings a thousand to embark their cigars in some of the West India steamers, and then have them carried about for a month or so, thereby involving a further payment for freight; and they all express themselves as amply repaid by the improvement thereby effected in their cigars.  Nevertheless, many old Cubans prefer smoking cigars the same week that they are made.  At the same time, if any honest tobacconist in England chose to hoist the standard of “small profit and plenty of it,” he might make very good Havana tobacco cigars, at 50 per cent. profit, under 16s. per 100.  Thus—­duty, 3s. 6_d_; tobacco, 5s.; freight and dues, &c., 6d.; making up, 1s. 6d.—­absolute cost of cigars, 10s. 6d. per 100; 50 per cent. profit thereon, 5s. 3d.; total, 15s. 9d.  For this sum a better article could be supplied than is ordinarily obtained at prices varying from 25s. to 30s.

But 50 per cent. profit will not satisfy the British tobacconist when he finds John Bull willing to give him 100 per cent.  He therefore makes the cigars at the prices above-mentioned, puts them into old boxes with some pet brand upon them, and sells them as the genuine article.  John Bull is indebted for this extortionate charge to the supreme wisdom of the Legislature, which has established a 3s. 6d. duty on the pound of unmanufactured tobacco, and a 9s. duty on manufactured; instead of fixing one duty for manufactured and unmanufactured, and making the difference thereof depend upon the quality—­lowering the duty upon the tobacco used by the poor to 2s. 6d., and establishing on all the better kinds a uniform rate, say 6s. or 7s.  The revenue, I believe, would gain, and the public have a better protection against the fraud of which they are now all but universal victims.  But to return to Havana.