ariety of shapes. In both Manilla and Havana the custom
of smoking is universal and one rarely meets with any of the male sex
without a cigar between his lips.

A writer speaking of the universality of the custom says:

"In Havana, the custom of smoking is a universal one. There,
young and old indulge freely in the use of the weed,
dividing their attention pretty equally between the cigar
and the cigarette. Even the ladies of the better class in
many instances indulge; though not to so great an extent as
is commonly reported."

"Smoking in Cuba" says an American writer, "is like the
habit of making shoes in Lynn, Massachusetts, everybody
smokes!--in the house, and by the way; in the cars, and on
horseback; everywhere, and at all times. You meet whole
regiments of youngsters, from six to eight years of age,
with black beaver hats, tail-coats, and canes, each with a
cigar, nearly his own size, in his mouth. You feel like
putting the miniature dandies into the water of the next
fountain basin, which shallow as it is, would fully, suffice
to drown the largest of them."

[Illustration: Wenches smoking.]

You have a right to accost any one smoking in the street, however much
may be his superiority or inferiority to yourself, and to ask a light
for your cigar; even negroes hatless and shirtless, thus address
well-dickied gentlemen, and _vice versa_. Refuse to take a cigar with
a Cuban, and you refuse his friendship. The negroes cannot work at all
without their quota of cigars; "and looking out of the windows of a
room in that magnificent hotel '_El Telegrafo_,' the writer remembers
to have caught a glimpse more than once of the negro women at work in
the laundry, every one of whom held a long cigar in her mouth, and
puffed incessantly as the clothes were manipulated upon the
washboards." In Havana, as throughout Cuba, there is a cigar
etiquette, to infringe any of the rules of which is construed as an
insult. It is, for instance considered a breach of etiquette when you
are asked for a light to hand your cigar without first knocking off
the ashes. A greater breach, however, is to pass the cigar handed for
you to obtain a light from, to a third party for a similar purpose;
the rule is to hand back the cigar with as graceful a wave as you can
command, and then if necessary, pass your own cigar to the third
party.

[Illustration: A moonlight