Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

THE MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO. 37 workers, the most skilled of whom do not aim at a larger daily output than 1,500. A more rapid process is the “ push ” principle, which consists in rolling the proper quantum of tobacco in a linen strip, and transferring it to the paper cylinder by means of a short wooden rod. Many workpeople turn out 2,000 each clay, and at the rate of 3s. per thousand their earnings reach the respectable total of about 35s. per week. But the bulk operatives—the skilled mechanic, the feeder, and the girl who removes the finished product to the packing tables. The addition of cork tips and other refinements is sub- sequently made by hand. The manufacture of snuff is a vanishing industry. For this purpose the stalks of the leaves and other by-products are pounded in a mortar, or disintegrated in a machine which tears the material to fragments, and of the cigarette manufacture is performed by steam or electrically driven machinery, which forms an endless roll of tobacco that is guided into a groove upon which there runs a strip of paper a mile long, and as it advances is pasted, cut into lengths, and in some instances packed into cartoons, with mouth- pieces, tinfoil, pictures, and the like, both cigarette and cartoon having been printed with the name, trade-mark, and other an- nouncements of the manufacturer during the journey through the machine. Some of these machines are capable of manipulating as many as 200,000 cigarettes per day, and they require the attendance of but three devices are adopted for the production of free ammonia, which imparts its peculiar pun- gency to the article. Tonquin bean and other aromatic ingredients are added accord- ing to the nature of the blend. The details of some of the processes of tobacco manu- facture are shown in the excellent series of photographs, for which we are indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. R. and J. Hill, Limited, of Shoreditch. The most recent figures available as to the extent of the industry are to be found in the supplement to the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Fac- tories and Workshops. According to this