Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1895 — MAKING CIGARETTES [ARTICLE]

MAKING CIGARETTES

How the Industry Is Conducted in the Mammoth Factory at Seville. One of the sights of Seville which no tourist misses is the cigarette factory, in which the government employs nearly 2,000 women and girls. The showing about of visitors is accordingly looked upon as a regular source of income by the porter and matrons. After getting permission to enter, you are placed in charge of a matron who shows you through her own department and Then passes you on to another, and so on until your stock of pesetas and half pesatas. put aside for fees, is exhausted^ The matrons accompany The visitors, not in order to prevent the girls from flirting with them (nothing could do that), but to see that ho tobacco; picadura or cigarettes may disappear. Before entering each room a bell is rung to warn the girls, who are in great deshabille on account of the sun, to put on their wrappers, and as the door opens scores of round arms and pretty shoulders are seen disappearing while several hundred pairs of coal-black eyes are fastened on you. The passages are lined with cradles and the poor young girl mothers to whom they belong implore you with eyes and hands for a penny for the Murillos of the future lying in them. These girls are more frank than subtle*in their flirtations. There is not one in the crowd who will not be immediately conscious of a man’s gaze fixed on her, nor will she be the first to turn her eyes away. She will wink and even throw a kiss from a distant corner at the rich Inglese (all foreigners are supposed to be wealthy). They are a merry lot, on the whole, these poor girls, the quickest of whom make only 2 shillings a day, for which they have to toil ten to twelve hours.They are allowed to smoke if they* wish, and many make use of this privilege! They are remarkably deft at rolling the cigarettes, but not all seem eager to make as many as possible, for some are idling and others are sleeping; but no one cares, as each is paid according to the number she twists up, aided only by a piece of specially made cartridge paper and a small tin affair on her little finger.