BEHIND LOCKED DOORS
Many firms have started with small capitals, but surely the smallest is half a pound of tobacco! It seems incredible, yet that small quantity of tobacco popularised the cigarette habit in England and built up a great industry.
A poverty-stricken Russian fled —a refugee—from his homeland to London 45 years ago. He was Abraham Drap> kin, the cigarette pioneer, who died recently. Other Russians, equally poor, fled with him, and for a living they began to make cigarettes at a time /hen the ready-made article was alnost unknown in England.
Young Drapkin bought, with almost is last coins, half a pound of tobacco, naking his cigarettes by hand and caching the trade to his friends. They .ad to gum a piece of parchment to he table on which to Toll the tobacco, nd, fearing their landlord would obect, worked with the door locked. Becoming suspicious that a conspiracy was afoot, the landlord brought two policemen, who burst open the door and evealed the "plot."
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Bibliographic details
Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3182, 6 January 1928, Page 6
Word Count
167BEHIND LOCKED DOORS Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3182, 6 January 1928, Page 6
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