CIGARS AT 12s 6d EACH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2232, 10 December 1896, Page 47

CIGARS AT 12s 6d EACH.

n What price that for a giant 1 " was the reply I received from Mr Weingott, the wellknown amber expert, when I asked him the Other day. if he had any very long cigars in stock. And " giant " just about described the colossal article he handed me for inspection. I teßted it with a taps measure, and found it i was 9£in in length, 4in round the waist, and j turned the scales at a shade over an ounce. "It's a big mouthful," continued Mr Weingott, when I finished the weighing and measuring operations ; " but it's made of the yery finest tobacco, and, if you want a really big smoke, I can thoroughly recommend it. I don't sell these long cigars singly; but you can have a box of five for £2 103." X said I should, like to consult my bankbook, and to hear some further particulars pf their history^efore I decided to invest in toy " giants." I had seen these huge smokes In tobacconists' windows from time to time, but had always imagined they were only for prnamenfc, like the big bottles in a ohemist's shop, and told Mr Weingott bo. " Of course they're not in general uce," ho Kaid j " but there ia a sale for them, especlJfcU; among city magnates, but they are only

smoked for swaggers, not for pleasnre. I'll tell yon when there is the chief demand for them ; it's In time of some financial crisis. After the Jameson raid, when South African shares were • stamping,' you could ccc dozens o£ merchants in the city with these bulky Bmokes in their mouths. With every puff they seemed to say, • Well, I'm not bard hit, or I shouldn't be smoking cigars at £50 a hundred.' " It's a curious thing, by the way, how the price of these cigars varies. Their actual coßt price is 7s 7d each'; but in some shops both in the city and West End— their price of £1 each. ' In others, identically the same cigars-are sold for Ids, and even 12s 6d, each. I had 'rather an odd adventure with these very cigars you're looking at a few weeks ago. An old customer of ours came into the shop one morning, and told me he wanted my help in a piouß f rand he was perpetrating. "He ia a well-known banker, who prides himself on his cigars, and it appeared that some American friends with whom he was doing business were dining at his house that night. They were all keen smokers, and had apparently been bragging about the price and quality of their cigars. My customer wanted to no One better than his Yankee frienda. but

didn't see the point j)f paying a couple of hundred pounds for his little bit of swagger. This is where I came in. " The same afternoon, while he was in the oity, I took up to his house in the West End several oabinets of these huge cigars and other expensive smokes. The next morning, when I went to fetch them away, I found only 17 cigars had been used out of the 250 I had lent. " ' I had 17 guests,' said the banker. • They took one apiece, but didn't attempt to smoke them. The look of the oigar was enough for them ; but they confessed that they had never seen anything of the sort in America, so I was satisfied, especially as they carried away the impression that I get through a few hundred of these oigars every month.' " But this shows you what an amount of humbug there is in the oigar trade, or rather among the people the cigar trede makes its living out of. You may take my word for it that the best cigar in the world can be had for a shilling. Above that price you're paying for some peculiarity in the shape or leaf, and not for any superiority in the quality of the tobacco. You know the story that has gone the ronnds of the press so often that Mr Chamberlain never smokes anything under ass cigar. He is not one of my customers ; but I haven't the faintest doubts from what I know of other Cabinet Minister, and their smokes, that this story is the purest invention."