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to determine which is most deserving of admiration-the solid masonry, with the tiled roofs, dormer-windows, and antique wooden ornamentations of which they are composed, or the embellishments and adaptations to the wants and conveniences of the employers and employés observable in every department of the immense place. If it may be truly said, as no doubt it can be, that the manufactory is externally the most attractive of its kind, so, internally, it may be said that it is without a rival. A private office comparable in elegance and quaintness with the one fitted up in this colossal manufactory has probably never been seen, and nearly as much may be said of the provision made both for the comfort of the firm's numerous operatives and the mechanical appliances by which, in conjunction with manual labor, their celebrated goods are produced. Every serviceable modern mechanical invention for individual or industrial use adapted to its purposes is to be found in this place some of the implements employed being original with, and most of them owned or controlled by, the firm. Whatever is regarded as valuable among new discoveries in their line, the firm make a point to possess, and, if possible, control, regardless of expense; their aim, from the inception of their house in 1846, being to conduct their processes of manufacture in most instances in an original way, and in all instances as different as possible from the processes of other people. To this reliance upon their own ingenuity and resources, it may be, the firm owe something of their remarkable success in business; but not all. Other circumstances, each inhering, also, in themselves, have contributed to the same end. The proprietors, Messrs. William S. Kimball & Co., have become the foremost tobacco and cigarette manufacturers in the world, by seeking to make and succeeding in making the finest goods of these descriptions known to the tobacco trade in either hemisphere. Their productions have received eight first-prize medals at the great universal or international expositions, including Vienna in 1873, Philadelphia in 1876, Paris in 1878, Sidney in 1879, and Melbourne in 1880. They are sold and consumed all over the globe, and were among the first-probably the first of their kind exported to foreign countries from the United States. People who saw the magnificent and varied display of tobaccos and cigarettes made by the firm at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition,

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in 1876, will remember the exceptional good taste in which the exhibit was presented, and the cleanliness and purity of the goods. Yet they were taken from the current stock of their manufactory at the time. What was then so prominently noticeable as a feature in the character of their productions was only the result of a system that is as dominant in their establishment to-day as it was five years ago. They consume in their manufactures only the choicest material, and supplement this practice with such rare skill in workmanship and neatness in manipulation as to uniformly insure products of the finest quality and excellence.

Even where the tobaccos in the crude state are assorted, moistened, stripped, cut, and granulated,-operations almost invariably involving a considerable amount of litter, the floors in this place, with their manifold contents, from the little instruments wielded by hand to the mighty machines that convert in an instant vast masses of leaf into threads rivaling in tenuity the most delicate gossamer, or particles scarcely larger than the shining atoms of sand upon the sea-shore, appear so bright and tidy that an epicure might dine amid the surroundings without offense to his gastric sensibilities.

In each department, novelties and surprises are encountered, in means and methods, that are to be met with nowhere else, and if space were available, a separate page might be here appropriated with propriety to descriptions of the various rooms and subdivisions of the edifice. The great apartment in which the cigarettes are made, packed, and stamped is especially noteworthy, both on account of its magnitude and the business conducted in it. It is forty-five feet in width and three hundred feet in length, and is filled continuously with skilled operatives engaged in the pleasant occupation of making and preparing cigarettes for the market.

This firm originated the plan, now popular with society gentlemen, of making cigar ettes bearing the monograms, names, initials, or crests of private individuals; as, also, special styles for clubs, secret societies, dinner parties, college classes, and fashionable festivals of all kinds. They were among the first to popularize and make available for cigarettes the rich tobacco grown in the best producing districts of Virginia, and which is now so highly esteemed for cigarettes. The firm's most

widely celebrated brands of cigarettes are the "Fragrant Vanity Fair," the "New Vanity Fair," and the "Three Kings," the latter embracing in their composition Turkish, Perique, and Virginia tobaccos, which

are to be found in combination in no other cigarette. The "New Vanity Fair" brand is specially adapted to the taste of those requiring a very mild and sweet-flavored cigarette. The catalogue of brands, both of tobacco and cigarettes, is almost endless, but of the latter one especially worthy of mention is "Kimball's Catarrh Cigarettes," another article which this firm was the first to produce. These cigarettes possess medicinal properties which make them favorites with consumers affected with "hay fever" and kindred ailments, while, at the same time, they are exceedingly palatable to smokers generally. They seem to be a pleasant remedy for many of the nervous disorders to which our busy brain-workers are subjected. All their goods are rich in quality and of unusual flavor and fragrance. The "Orientals" is a superb new brand of cigarettes which the firm make of genuine Turkish tobacco, and which are equal, if not superior, to the best imported Turkish cigar

ettes.

A noted brand of fine-cut chewing tobacco manufactured by this firm is the "Peerless," which for thirty years has enjoyed an extended reputation, it being the only brand of fine-cut that has received eight first class prize medals. Their fine-cut chewing tobaccos are the only varieties of the kind that have ever been sold in France; and both in France and Great Britain, their Vanity Fair tobaccos and cigarettes are sold under the title "Excelsior."

The wrappers enveloping all the firm's brands of cigarettes are first-class ricepaper, made in France expressly to their order. In smoking the cigarettes manufactured at this establishment, consumers are assured against adulterations of any kind, their component parts being immaculately pure from first to last. This is a fact that will inspire attention in view of the prevailing enormous consumption of cigarettes in this country, and the circumstance that so many of the brands of the same class of goods, issuing from other prominent houses, are tinctured in every part and fiber with opium and deleterious narcotic compounds of one kind and

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ing, sedative quality, it is the practice of some manufacturers to employ both valerian and tincture of opium liberally, instead of securing the same results by the judicious selection and combination of pure leaf tobacco of varying degrees of natural flavor and strength; and, as a consequence, serious physical disorders are induced in many persons, not otherwise indisposed, by the habitual use of cigarettes adulterated with these insidious drugs. In the cheap, common, and unwholesome cotton and linen paper with which many of these fashionable luxuries are covered, an appreciable element of danger is perceptible in tracing the effects of its combustion on the membranes of the human throat and nasal organs.

The injury that has been and may be done to our young men, who are now such liberal consumers of cigarettes all over the land, by absorption, in their practice of smoking, of the numerous poisons with which many of the cigarettes found upon the market are impregnated, can hardly be estimated.

The growth of the manufacture and consumption of cigarettes in the United States within the past five or six years is one of the marvels incident to our industrial progress. Formerly only foreigners smoked cigarettes here; now, natives and foreigners. alike enjoy them. They are consumed by the hundreds of millions all over the American continent, and millions of our domestic product find their way to the marts of trade in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the fiscal year 1880, 408,701,365 cigarettes were made in this country, of which this firm made onequarter of the quantity; and in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881, 567,386,982 were made here, whereof they were the manufacturers of more than one-fourth. To the development of this new and great branch of national industry no firm has contributed so much as the one whose name graces this sketch.

In the immediate future, a notable expansion in the consumption of fine cigarettes by our people may be confidently anticipated. Within five years the production has advanced from about 160,000,000 to a quantity approximating, as will be observed in the returns for the past fiscal year, 600,000,000. This is an extraordinary growth of a domestic pursuit, and has no parallel, unless one can be found in the domestic cigar industry, which has latterly To invest their cigarettes with a sooth-progressed in a similar ratio. The relish

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now evinced for cigarettes may henceforward check in some degree the expanding movement of the cigar interest, and if producers generally were more eager than they are to cater to the æsthetic inclination of cigarette smokers, there can be little doubt that such a result would be realized. The smoking of cigarettes is both a passion and a fashion, and on this account is likely to be enduring. At first it was thought the practice would be ephemeral, the habits of American consumers of tobacco predisposing them, it was inferred, to stronger and more highly concentrated forms of the article. But experience has demonstrated that it only needed to be palatably and tastefully prepared in the lighter condition peculiar to the best brands of cigarettes to secure permanent approval and popularity. Cigarettes are neat in appearance and generally pleasing to the sight, and can be smoked in social circles, where cigars and pipes would be forbidden, without objection. It is this latter circumstance that makes them a favorite, and insures their continuance as one of the minor indulgences of modern social life. There is something fascinating, moreover, in the flavor of good cigarettes, which attaches their votaries to them as no other thing, perhaps, devised for the gratification of the human appetite does or can do. Once habituated to their use-to their delicious fragrance, and the gentle, harmless stimulus they impart to the brain and bodymen and women alike become passionately fond of them, and refuse to relinquish their charming idol for any substitute that can be offered.

Cigarettes supply a general want. The majority of smokers are not those who desire a long smoke or a strong smoke, but those, rather, who covet a short and mild smoke. Professional and business men, young and old, are usually too busy to afford the time, if they had the inclination, to worry in business hours through a "Reina Victoria" or the contents of their pet meerschaum, every time the yearning for a puff of tobacco-smoke comes upon them. They must have, instead, something easily lighted, quickly consumed, and thoroughly satisfying; and, to meet all these requirements in perfection, there is nothing so well adapted as a good cigarette. A few balmy whiffs can be taken from it and the natural longing for the nicotine stimulant appeased without perceptible effort or loss of time, while the residuum left in a hurry can be thrown away without even the most parsimonious

individual running any risk of remorseful prickings of conscience for opportunities wasted and money thrown away, as might be the case if an expensive cigar had been brought into requisition for the discharge of the same duty and summarily consigned to the street. How well the economical aspect of cigarette-smoking is understood and appreciated, both as to time and money, is a point that is made very clear to the casual inquirer by a visit to any fashionable place of resort where these factors for any reason enter into the calculations of the masses there assembled.

Cigarettes in former years were mainly made in Havana, Cuba, and Seville, Spain. Those which reached the United States were chiefly for the use of Spanish or Cuban residents here, and the few Americans who, through travel in Spain and Cuba, had acquired a liking for them. For the most part, they were composed of Havana leaf tobacco, granulated in an irregular manner. In form they were similar to those made at present in this country,-a paper wrapper, duly labeled, enveloping each one, and a hundred bundles of from ten to twenty cigarettes each bound together, constituting a merchantable package. Comparatively few imported cigarettes, in the aggregate, have ever been disposed of here, the home productions of the last decade far exceeding all those before consumed by our citizens, native or foreign. When our domestic manufacturers of capital and skill embarked in the trade, they discarded, as a rule, the material and primitive modes of manufacturing and packing prevailing abroad, and introduced new varieties of tobacco and new methods of preparing it for use. With their ready capacity of adapting means to ends, they discovered at once, in novel combinations and appliances, means not only to utilize to the satisfaction of consumers various native tobaccos possessing the inherent qualities most admired by connoisseurs of cigarettes, but of making these articles in every way equal, and, in most respects, superior to those made by their old competitors. their old competitors. Having perfected their processes of manufacture, they devised effective methods of packing and embellishing their goods, the beautiful manner in which cigarettes, with their exquisitely lithographed and printed coverings, are now placed in dealers' hands, and by them exhibited for sale, being one of the most attractive and pleasing features of the tobacco commerce of the present day.

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IT has become a trite saying, that this is a new era in industrial arts. To economize in the expenditure of time and the waste of energy, is the common problem which has had so many specific solutions within the last fifty years. For instance: to be able to sew three times as much in the same time, with less exhaustion, was the object which led to the invention of the sewingmachine, and the immense industries due directly to the supply of machines, and indirectly developed by the application of this new factor to the arts. Again, to be able to travel three times as far in the same time, with less wear and tear, was the object the accomplishment of which led to our great system of railroads.

It was a long time after the first practical single-stitch, rotary-feed sewing-machine was in use before the fine examples of mechanism which now go under the same general name were adapted to almost every phase and condition of our needs. It was a long time after the first rude tram-way, and even after the first railway carriages, before the Pullman palace car and the Wagner sleeper were wrought out, and before the wonderful locomotives which make the circulation of Grand Trunk lines were perfected. It has taken a long time to perfect that specialized

form of velocipede known as the bicycle. The parallelism between this and the other instances does not end here. As was the case with them, its first introduction was hailed with smiles and doubt. It required to be greatly specialized before its full benefit and significance were acknowledged. It furnishes the object of a large industry, and contributes greatly to the development of other industries; and it enables the user to make threefold use of his time, and a large saving of his energy.

When this delicate mechanism of steel and rubber was first brought to the port of Boston, in 1877, the customs officers, entirely unacquainted with it, pronounced it a machine which it undoubtedly is in a generic sense, just as a dog-cart is a machine; but as there was no obvious adaptation for the attachment of a horse, it required the intelligence of the Department of Justice at Washington to determine that it was nevertheless a carriage. In these four years, however, this new-comer has made its way into almost every city and town in the United States, has sought an entrance through nearly every custom-house on the borders of the country, and has quietly but surely taken its place among the factors of our modern life. An article in the pages of this maga

zine more than a year ago, was a revelation to some of the capacities for enjoyment afforded by the use of the bicycle. Some spectacular occasions, like the races at a thousand fairs, or the annual parade of the League of American Wheelmen in Boston, with its subsequent festivities in Music Hall, have given to many a fair idea, by inference, of the extent of its use. There is frequently, by inuendo, or by direct assertion, an expression of opinion on the part of some even now, that this use of the bicycle, though attended with many appearances of stability, is likely soon to wane and disappear. If it were merely a fashion in sports, and were dependent upon the interest that might be excited in races, or the pleasure that could be derived by the few thousand uniformed club members who make it their pastime, there might be some reason in the apprehension; but the underlying fact that the celérifère which the Baron von Drais invented as "an aid to walking," and which the distinguished Faraday found worthy of a philosopher's patronage in his day, has become in its modern specialized form a practical means of locomotion, will prevent any such untimely disappearance. The English postman has long used it on his rounds. The Massachusetts business agent finds he can visit the factories of New England with its aid more rapidly and less laboriously that the railroads and stages enable him. The New Jersey physician makes it aid him to save lives, and the Illinois doctor of divinity makes it serve him for both domestic vacation and foreign tour, with equal tenderness to his health and his purse. This practical vehicular use of the bicycle is likely to keep it in our public highways so long as it is necessary for men to move about from place to place. Another reason for its perpetuity, and one which is less recognized, lies in the fact that there are already large investments of capital and endowments of business enterprise and industrial energy devoted to its manufacture and distribution.

When Attorney-General Devens and Secretary Sherman were instructing the collectors of ports that the bicycle was " a carriage," Colonel Albert A. Pope, the president of the Pope Manufacturing Company, was taking the measure of its capacities, as the subject of American manufacture. Satisfying himself on the roads of Newton, Massachusetts, first, and by a visit to Coventry, and other English bicycling centers, especially for the purpose, that it was worthy of the attention which a busi

ness man of sagacity and enterprise might bestow, and would in time reward the investment of the requisite amount of capital, he entered upon the American manufacture of the new vehicle upon a large scale. He not only directed the energies of that corporation to the business, but he enlisted the coöperation of of the Weed Sewing Machine Company, whose works at Hartford, Connecticut, are noted for turning out some of the best machine work in America. The relations of Colonel Pope and the Pope Manufacturing Company to this new industry are such that a better idea can be given of the manufacture by some description of their works than in any other way. They did not attempt to construct an entirely new machine, or yield to the almost universal Yankee temptation to invent something better than the English have made; but they adopted the more prudent course of taking a good model already tried and popular. Some of the difficulties encountered may be referred to. Tubular steel perches had not been made in this country, nor anything like them. The same was true of the semi-tubular rims for the wheels. Round rubber tires, and the proper cement for holding them to a metallic rim, were unknown here. In a bicycle there are something more than three hundred parts, which have to be constructed together in a mechanism weighing between forty and fifty pounds, although steel and rubber are both heavy materials; capable of many motions; to be subjected to strains; wherein friction must be reduced to the minimum; and gracefulness of contour and elegance of finish must be combined with accuracy of adjustment. And for all this there was not a mechanic skilled in the art, nor a piece of machinery adapted for it. The company started with a view to making every part of the bicycle by machinery, so that the parts should be interchangeable.

The facilities of the Weed Company were enlarged by additions to their buildings and machinery, and the two companies made ample preparations. They secured and kept up the services of designers and model-makers. They drew upon the best experience at home, and the best literature of the subject, and the examination of the best machines made abroad, and have continued to improve upon their adopted style.

The first bicycles were brought out by them in the summer of 1878, and were known as the "Columbia Bicycle." The principal variation, and their lightest model,

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