The manufacture of the finished article requires highly skilled labour, and long practice gives the workman an amount of accuracy and dexterity in producing cigar after cigar, alike in shape and size, with a rapidity that is truly wonderful. After the leaves have been properly cured, they are sorted according to size and colour. The centre rib is then extracted, an operation requiring great care. Each workman is seated before a flat board, and is supplied with a bunch of perfect leaves and a pile of broken tobacco. With his fingers, he quickly rolls up some broken pieces, inclosing them in one of the less perfect leaves, forming what is called ‘the bunch.’ This he proceeds to cover with the wrapper or perfect leaf, which he has already cut with his knife to the required size. The most difficult part of the process has now to be completed, namely, closing in the point. This he does by modelling it with his fingers, quickly twisting the wrapper round it, and fixing the end with a drop of gum. With one sweep of his knife—his only implement—he trims the broad end, and the cigar is ready to be carried to the drying-room, afterwards to be sorted and packed in boxes. It is easier to know a good cigar when you smoke one than to describe the points by which a good cigar may be selected. A good cigar, however, should have a good wrapper or exterior; it should have a faint gloss, not amounting to greasiness, due to the essential oil contained in it; and it should have a fine hairy ‘down’ on its surface. In addition to this, it should be firmly rolled, and yet not be hard, or it will not draw well. When lighted it should burn evenly, and not to one side; it should carry a two-inch ash without endangering your coat, and if laid aside for three or four minutes, should still be alight when taken up again. It is worth remembering the golden rule known to the lovers of the fragrant weed, namely, when holding a lighted cigar, always to keep the burning end turned upwards, so that the smoke may escape into the air—never downwards, as that causes the smoke to pass through the body of the cigar.