The flavour of Manilla cheroots is peculiar to themselves, being quite different from that made of any other sort of tobacco; the greatest characteristic probably being its slightly soporific tendency, which has caused many persons, in the habit of using it, to imagine that opium is employed in the preparatory treatment of the tobacco, which, however, is not the case. The cigars are made up by the hands of women in large rooms of the factory, each of them containing from 800 to 1000 souls. These are all seated, or squatted, Indian-like, on their haunches, upon the floor, round tables, at each of which there is an old woman presiding to keep the young ones in order, about a dozen of them being the complement of a table. All of them are supplied with a certain weight of tobacco, of the first, second, or third qualities used in composing a cigar, and are obliged to account for a proportionate number of cheroots, the weight and size of which are by these means kept equal. As they use stones for beating out the leaf on the wooden tables, before which they are seated, the noise produced by them while making them up is deafening, and generally sufficient to make no one desirous of protracting a visit to the place. The workers are well recompensed by the Government, as very many of them earn from six to ten dollars a month for their labour, and as that amount is amply sufficient to provide them with all their comforts, and to leave a large balance for their expenses in dress, &c., they are seldom very constant labourers, and never enter the factory on Sundays, or, at least, on as great an annual number of feast-days as there are Sundays in a year. During the years of 1848 and 49, the Government were not in the habit of selling leaf-tobacco for export, but they have again resumed the practice of 1847, which, however, is likely to be stopped soon again; how soon, it is impossible to say--probably just when the caprice of the director of tobacco inclines him, as he is an influential person, generally, in his own department. The denominations of cheroots were changed in January, 1848; when the description formerly known as Thirds was and still is called Seconds, and the manufacture of a new sort known as Firsts was begun. The weights of new cigars when sent out of the factory are as follow:--Firsts 1500, Seconds 3000, Thirds 4000 to the arroba; the weight of the arroba when issued by Government from the factory being actually 1 pound 9 ounces over the current weight,--this allowance being made to meet the loss of weight which cigars always experience during a long sea-voyage, which, although it diminishes their bulk, is said materially to improve their flavour. All cigars for the use of the country-people are made in the Havana shape, and are prohibited being exported, probably from their desire to keep the name of Manilla cheroots up to its proper status, as the Havana-shaped cigars are seldom equal in flavour to those made for exportation.