"THE CIGARETTE."

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1387, 20 November 1918, Page 2

"THE CIGARETTE."

10 lII* EDITOR. Sir, —Your local ro the advent of cigarette .smoking in London interested me, particularly us 1 happen to be absolutely “an fait with the minutia ol the trallic from its incipiency. My late father, Deputy Samuel Weingott, was an almost historical Fleet street tobacconist and snuff merchant, and “the family” lived “over the shop,” (ho writer being the youngest child. After the Crimea, as you state correctly, British Naval and Military ollieers used to parade the Strand, Piccadilly, and Fleet street in vast numbers mostly smoking “Ficadnra Spanish cigarettes. Those were two and a. half inches long, not pasted) but turned in, each end of brown rice paper enclosing granulated tobacco grown in the Philippines and the llavannas. The British public took no fancy tor them, but an article somewhat resembling the “Picadura ' was put on the market by the great house of Lambert, and Butler (Drury Lane), and called “Los Brillantes.” This was a big, thick, clumsy cigarette, made as follows; Filler “picadura,” rolled in white rice paper arid again over rolled in ordinary tobacco leaf. This caught on quickly. My people got from abroad several cases, each holding 100,000 of the original Spanish “picaduras," and got stuck with them. Up till 1884 wo had a million or more “under the counter,” and wo boys used to take thorn to the Stationers’ Company School, and afterwards to King’s College, and give them to our mates, who invariably had a bad run after smoking a few. Next, M. Theodorides (not Theodorich) opened, as you state, in St. Winchester street, introducing the real Turkish article, and then Fribourg and Freyer, and Fribourg and Poutet, oi the Hayinarket and Bond street. All these firms are going strong to-day. 1 shall bo happy to give further particulars of (lie favourite smokes of London’s greatest lawyers, jurists, doctors, artists and actors, many of whom patronised ami made lots of fun in ilie old shop in Fleet street, where the writer was born. When her late Majesty Queen Victoria created my father (by investiture at Windson Castle) a Lieutenant of the City of London, the then Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward) smote him on the shoulder, and laughed, “Why, here’s old Bacchus with us,” a clever epigram on our name. The late Charles Dickens crossed Fleet street each evening from the Weekly Despatch oflice, bought a 2d “Trahuea” cigar (made on the premises), smoked it out sitting on a tobacco barrel, and wo children crowded round him (for he loved children), and was writing “Sketches by Jioz” at that time in weekly parts, afterwards taking the train at Ludgate Hill for his homo (now famous). —I am, etc., C. WEINGOTT, Sent. 9 Worcester street, Palmerston North, November 18.