of the best as an envelope wrapped round, in order to impart to it a better appearance. From the first planting of tobacco in the Philippines until July, 1881, the entire industry had been in the hands of the Spanish Government, who visited illicit production with severe pains and penalties. Yet, notwithstanding the vigilance of the mounted police who scoured the country districts to strike terror into the lawless, the natives living far up the mountain glens of Ylocos and Pangasinan, though leading the roving life of huntsmen, contrived to cultivate patches of the tobacco-plant, for which they always found a ready sale to the traders who at the proper season visited the neighbourhood. Since the monopoly was abolished, private enterprise, stirred by the wholesome stimulus of competition, has developed and improved the tobacco industry very considerably, with the help of large numbers of diligent hard-toiling Chinamen. This important branch of commerce in Manila provides employment for twenty thousand women and sixteen thousand men. The men are employed almost wholly in making cigarillos for Home consumption; while to the women is allotted the more important task of cheroot-making for exportation. Here the great factories are situated, each of which affords accommodation for about a thousand work-people. The men and women work in separate factories; those for the women are divided into long rooms along the whole length of which are ranged low tables. At each table a dozen young women are seated, presided over by an old woman whose duty is to try and maintain order among the girls and see that there is no waste of material, for to each table a certain quantity of tobacco is weighed out. If the proportionate number of cigars is not produced, woe betide the hapless one: on pay day deductions for waste come into the reckoning. But however interesting the workers and their work may be, the visitor seldom cares to prolong his stay where a thousand voices are in full chatter and stone hammers are incessantly beating, on wooden tables, leaves of the plant in readiness for the lissom fingers of the girls who roll them up into cheroot form. These women of weeds earn good wages—from eight to ten dollars a month—which amply suffices to get them all the comforts they need and leave a fair margin for dress, of which they are as proud, if not as prodigal, as the gayest of their European sisters. A novel use for cigars was found in the Philippines some years ago. Copper money being very scarce, quite inadequate to the daily requirements, cigars were passed from one person to another in lieu of coin, to the small satisfaction of the one in whose hands they had from friction become unsaleable.