Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1905 — Burma’s Monster Cigars. [ARTICLE]

Burma’s Monster Cigars.

One of the curiosities of Burma la • cigar of monstrous anil alarming appearance, which every one smokes jfrom an early age. “The indigenous article is a monster eight inches long,” writes V. C. Scott O’Connor in bia book, “The Silken East.” “It bonsists of chopped wood, tobacco, molasses and various herbs wrapped in the silver white skin of a bamboo. So wide In diameter Is it that it completely fills up the mouth of any young damsel who tries to smoke it. For presentation purposes this long cheroot is often wrapped at one end in a coat of purple or gold paper. It accumulates a formidable mass of fire at the lighted end and requires some skill in the smoking. But the Burman infant acquires this skill before lie can walk and while he is still at the breast. No one thinks of smoking such a cigar through. Two or three long puffs, the lips of the smoker thrust out to meet the Circle of the cigar, and it is put down or passed, on to some good fellow sitting by.”