The Galaxy, April, 1877 Part 7

Sales are then and there arranged, immense sums sometimes being offered in advance, by way of retainer, for a specially likely plantation. The Vuelto Abago district is the favorite one, the planters there holding a position not unlike that occupied by the proprietors of the "Sea Island" plantations in days when "cotton was king." The ability to control the market so as to bring to their own manufactories the choicest tobacco is the main secret of the success of the larger houses, not, as is frequently supposed, any particular superiority in the workmen.

The princ.i.p.al cigarette factory is, as is well known, the factory of M.

Susini, "La Honoradez," "Honoradez" signifying in Spanish, honesty, the motto of the house. It consists of a series of irregular buildings, covering an area in s.p.a.ce about equal to that occupied by the usual Broadway block. On the upper floor of the princ.i.p.al building we find a lot of tobacco, which has just arrived, and is being prepared for inspection; the first requisite being to remove from it any leaves that are either dead or in any way injured. The tobacco lays loosely scattered over an immense wooden tray, which is kept continually moving, by means of machinery, from one end of a table to the other.

Around this table are seated some twelve or fourteen Cuban workmen, all good judges of tobacco. Each one throws aside such leaves as he deems unfit for use, while the slow but yet continual motion given to the tray brings each imperfection successively before the eyes of all. The next step is to free the tobacco from any particles of sand or earth that may adhere to it. This is done by moving the tray by machinery, until it is over a large bin, into which the tobacco is allowed to fall, being subjected in its pa.s.sage to a powerful current of air induced by means of an immense fan, likewise worked by machinery. One step more, and a very simple one--that of drying--and the tobacco is ready for a change of form. The tobacco is dried by simply exposing it on the roof, for a few hours, to the heat of the sun. For cigarettes it can scarcely be too dry, or for cigars too damp. A Cuban would not think of smoking other than a damp cigar. In the factories one sees the workmen smoking cigars they have just rolled, and no native could understand why one should smoke dry cigars in which so much of the natural flavor has been lost.

Thus far the process has been entirely one of cleansing or of freeing from impurities. The next step is that of cutting the leaves into fine particles in order to adapt the tobacco for cigarettes. The scattered leaves are first collected and subjected to powerful hydraulic pressure, from which they come out looking for all the world like a pile of snuff-colored brick. The moulded tobacco next goes to the cutting machine, falling from thence into a sieve, the meshes of which pa.s.s only such pieces as have been reduced to the proper size. The remainder is pa.s.sed into a hopper, and thence goes for a second cutting. One step more, and the tobacco will be issued to the "rollers." Some half a dozen Chinese enter the room, each carrying with him a small vessel containing an aromatic liquid, with which the loose tobacco is carefully sprinkled. The preparation of this liquid is not known. It is doubtless the desire to keep it secret that leads to the preference of Chinese over native labor.

Before following the tobacco furher, let us look at the remaining portion of the cigarette, the wrapper. The original envelope for the tobacco was doubtless composed of leaves, the followers of Columbus carrying back to Spain accounts of the strange custom existing among the natives of San Salvador, the smoking of tobacco wrapped in the leaves of the palm, which was doubtless the primitive cigarette. In France to this day new straws are much used, but generally paper has become the popular envelope. This paper must be specially manufactured.

Most of it comes from Barcelona, where the making of cigarette paper const.i.tutes an important industry. All of that used at the "Honoradez"

factory, after inspection, is carefully stamped with the name "Susini."

By unrolling any of this brand of cigarettes this mark can be readily seen, and serves as the readiest means of detecting counterfeits. A portion of the paper is sprinkled with various preparations to give to it the flavor of tea, licorice, or such other taste as may suit certain consumers. This explains the variation in the color of the wrapper, which is sometimes straw-color, sometimes brown, but more usually white, the latter color distinguishing the paper which has not been artificially flavored. In the cutting machine the paper is rapidly converted into the proper size for envelopes, while another machine close at hand is turning out little bits of pasteboard for such of the cigarettes as are to be made with a mouthpiece.

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 s.e.xes 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 circ.u.mference being of such a size as to properly encompa.s.s 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 ill.u.s.tration 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.

In connection with the manufacture of cigarettes, nothing strikes one with more astonishment than the many industries which form accessories to a factory. The printing and lithographic work, a large quant.i.ty of which is required for the paper bundles or tasteful pasteboard boxes in which the various packages are put up, is all done by the employees, and even a photograph gallery is at hand for such persons as may desire their own likeness to accompany each package. So cleverly is all this work executed, that until very recently the bank notes and lottery tickets, both of which are largely circulated, were here printed.

Rather odd to our American ideas, it must be confessed, is the spectacle of bank notes and lottery tickets being printed side by side--that too in a cigarette factory.

Boxes of tin, of wood, of all shapes and sizes, as well as kegs for exportation to distant points, are made within these same walls, where moulders, machinists, blacksmiths, tinmen, printers, lithographers, engravers, painters, and carpenters, are all furnished with work. Two hundred out of the twenty-five hundred employees are Chinese, and for them is provided a separate dormitory, kitchen, and even bathrooms.

THE HARD TIMES.

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR CHEAP LABOR?

"WANTED.--

_Work for a thousand starving Immigrants!_"

Such is our advertis.e.m.e.nt. _Cheap labor!_ that is the boon our "society" seeks. We wish to "develop our resources"; and as rapidly as possible, for in that lies all blessedness--real "sweetness and light."

Has not this delightful gospel been preached to us from pulpit and forum now full fifty good years, and does any one doubt its divine origin? Yes; I fear there is now and then to be found one of those antiquated infidels who scorns our "cheap cotton" and holds fast to manhood; who sniffs at our great new factory and says, "Give me a _man_!"

It is some two years ago that one of these benighted men told me--I pity him--he told me he had been into our beautiful Berkshire county to enjoy the delicious air and the delightful mountains. He went to North Adams, which lies so calm and basks so peacefully in the embraces of its sheltering hills. He said that when the noonday bell clanged out, a living torrent of men and women, boys and girls, poured forth from one of the gorgeous temples which have been there raised for the worship of the new G.o.d. In that temple were created cheap shoes. He said these men and women, boys and girls, were haggard, old, squalid, dirty; they showed traces--so it seemed to his jaundiced eyes--of drink, hopelessness, lechery, and vileness. He asked who they were. He was told--and they said it with glee--

"_That is our cheap labor!_"

And where does it come from--from the homes of New England? Oh, no!

From Ireland, from Germany, from Portugal, from China, from Canadian-Acadie, that pastoral spot of which poets sing!

"Vileness, filth, baseness!" he said. "My G.o.d, has Berkshire come to this!"

It was a very foolish thing to say, and his calling upon his antiquated G.o.d was not only foolish, but useless. His G.o.d is not the G.o.d now.

He took a ride through the winding roads and wooded hills of that delightful land. His driver proposed to take him round by the "Limestone brook" to show him the new factory.

"And what do they make there?"

"Why, didn't you know? They are grinding up the white limestone, and they send away tons and tons on't every day."

"And what is it used for?"

"Used for? It's used for mixin'. They make three grades: the sody grade, and the flour grade, and the sugar grade."

"The deuce they do!"--that was a foolish exclamation. "Do you mean that they use this to mix with flour and sugar?"

The man laughed pityingly. "Of course they do. It makes 'em healthier.

Flour and sugar is healthier and goes further with a little of this 'ere limestone dust mixed in--you see. It's cheaper too. This stuff is sold for fifty cents a hundred, and flour, you know, costs six dollars a hundred. Don't you see?"

The benighted infidel did see, and he indulged in some internal e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns; but he fled from the simple and sincere hills of Berkshire, and sought a solace in the coa.r.s.e vulgarity and vice of Boston.

But I am neglecting to say what our _society_ proposes to do; and when I have told you _of course_ we shall expect you to subscribe.

"The Cheap Labor Society" proposes to introduce from Africa and China, in batches of one thousand each, as rapidly as possible, able-bodied men who will work cheap.

"To _develop the resources_" of the country is the end and aim of all honorable men. In other words, we want cheap men so that we may make cheap shoes, cheap hats, cheap mutton, and--cheap women.

We who are now here--_we_ do not wish to work at all. Work is a _curse_. The Bible has said so, and every n.o.ble-minded man has said so, and the clergy has said so, and we know it is and must be so. But yet there are people existing in the depths of Africa and China who it is believed will work rather than starve; and these we propose to bring as rapidly as our means will permit.

We head our appeal, as you see, "Work wanted for a thousand starving men," because we know that we can get more work out of men who are just on the edge of starvation than from any other, and in that way we shall "develop our resources" most effectively and rapidly.

It is quite true that we already produce more cotton cloth and more boots and shoes than we can possibly sell; but we know--for have we not political economy to teach us?--that when we get them cheap enough, say to one-half their present starvation prices--every man, and every woman, and every child will wear two shirts, and two hats, and two pairs of shoes; and thus we shall have in a superior way that blessedness of which poets write--the making "two blades of gra.s.s grow where one grew before." Now, I ask any liberal-minded man if "two pairs of shoes in place of one" is not higher and n.o.bler than two blades of gra.s.s? That goes without talking.

If work be indeed the curse of curses, why, let the sons of Ham (Africa) and the sons of Shem (Asia) do it; for it is well known they are accursed, and have been since the days of "good old Noah"; besides which, having colored skins, we know just how to mark the helots; can import them as fast as needed; can put all labor upon them, and can thus keep our own j.a.phetic skins and hands clean and white.

Deferring to a not wholly extinct public opinion, which is now and then announced by some orator to some small schoolboys, in words like these, _Labore est honore_, and in the vernacular, "_Labor is honorable_," I am compelled to deny it clearly and distinctly. Almost all know it, but it may be best to say to those who do not:

If labor is honorable, why does every man refuse to hoe in his garden, to make his fire, to raise his food? Why does every woman refuse to cook her food, to make her clothes, to take care of her children? Why do every father and every mother take special pains to so bring up and educate their children that they can do no sort of hand work? Why is it that high schools, and academies, and colleges are held as the most majestic of blessings, except that they are intended to wholly unfit boys and girls for the _necessary work of life_?

Why is it that those who do no work are always called "upper cla.s.ses,"

and those who do much work are called "the ma.s.ses," unless it is so?

Being so, let us agree to import "the ma.s.ses" as rapidly as we can.

Permit me to here lay down another corner-stone: As cheapness is a boon, of course cheap labor is a boon; if labor, even at a dollar a day, is a blessing, it follows that labor at half a dollar a day is a greater blessing; and if we can only get it to a quarter of a dollar a day, will not mankind be four times as happy as when it is at a dollar a day? And then, oh blessed time! When we get it down to one cent a day shall we not be standing just in the portals of Paradise?

Let all men take heart, for we approach that time. I learned last summer, in the lovely State of Connecticut, that the Messrs. Sprague were hiring able-bodied men to work eleven hours a day, sometimes in water and mud, at rebuilding their great Baltic dam, for eighty-three cents a day, and that thousands more were ready to rush in. I may recall to mind the dark ages, when ignorance prevailed, and men boasted of a land (if there was one) where

All the men were brave and all the women virtuous.

_All_ of that kind! Then there could have been no cheap labor, and the boon which we now know to be the greatest vouchsafed to man could not be enjoyed. There have been times when strong, honest men and strong, honest (and permit me to say clean) women were thought to be the fruition of a perfect and Christian civilization--when cheap cotton was not thought to be the "one thing needful."