Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

THE MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO. hogsheads which he has purchased through his broker. He takes a pipeful or two, just as a tea buyer brews for himself a sample cup of tea, and his experience enables him to write out a formula, which is passed on to the foreman of the first department. After the payment of the duty the tobacco is removed from the bonded warehouse, the hogshead is broken open, the contents removed in wedge- shaped slabs, and the leaves are rapidly separated from this com- pressed mass by workpeople of either sex, who are known as strippers. The leaves, which are very dry and brittle, and demand careful handling, are now heaped upon the damping floor, thoroughly blended, and dis- creetly “ liquored ” by means of a watering-can, or by the application 33 CUTTING TOBACCO. of a sprayer set upon a tripod. The amount of moisture in the tobacco is determined by the simple device of weighing out a small portion before and after baking in an oven, and it is permitted by law to increase the proportion of moisture already present in the imported leaf up to 30 per cent. The moistened bulk is left overnight, and on the following day the leaves are found to have absorbed the water, and to be in a flaccid condition, which renders their manipulation easy. 1 hose leaves which possess a stout midrib are skilfully stripped, the stalk being reserved for grinding into snuff, unless the object of the manager is to produce “ bird’s- eye,” for which purpose the stalk is left in the leaf, and the sections of it impart to the mixture when cut the peculiar appearance which gives its name DRYING TOBACCO. a “shaggy” beard, h given to all finely 5 trade. to that variety of the “weed.” If “ shag ” be the order of the day, the stripped leaves are now placed in a frame, compressed to about a third of their height when loosely heaped, and passed beneath a guillotine knife, worked by hand or steam. By this means the mass is cut into those fine shreds which, from their resemblance to ve derived the name cut tobacco in the