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Lunel in flavour, aroma, and quality. A Prize Medal hasbeen awarded to the manufacturer.
In the Zollverein Department is some well-fermentedgood beer (15, p. 1U48), manufactured for long voyages,by C. Christiani. This was tasted, and found sound andgood but too weak; and being flavoured with absinthium,was unsuited either for the English or Indian markets.Honourable Mention is made of it from its proving, oninquiry, to be highly relished by the beer-drinkers ofGermany .
The Austrian “ bier stein” is a hard, dry, and toughmass, fabricated from an extract, of malt and hops only,not unpleasant to the taste, and fairly portable. Thereare two varieties, a pale and a dark, the latter flavouredprobably with liquorice. Beer was prepared from eachof these for the .Jury, by the Exhibitor, after consider-able delay, and though pronounced sound, sparkling, andfree from any unpleasant flavour, was thin and not agree-able to the English palate. The preparation had certainlyabsorbed moisture in the Exhibition Building, whichmust seriously affect its qualities as a portable article;and the time (about a fortnight), space, aud appliancesrequired for preparing beer from it, render it, practically,of little value.
D. II.— Tobacco.
The exhibition of raw and manufactured tobacco is(upon the whole) one of the most satisfactory of the classon which the Jury were called upon to decide. The im-port trade is very fully represented by numerous sam-ples of excellent articles. The British , German, Algerine,and United States manufactured tobaccos for smokingand chewing are no less complete ; and the products ofthe famous snuff-mills of Scotland, Ireland, Portugal , andAustria are all shown.
1. British Exhibitors. —The beautiful cases of \V.Benson (39, p. 203) have been awarded a Prize Medal;they contain an epitome of the London tobacco trade ; andamongst them a box of Havannah cigars, ticketed “ Florde Cabanas, Partagas, and Martinez manufacture,” standspre-eminent for evenness and perfection of manufacture.The variously-sized, coloured, and formed cigars in onebox are stated to be all the produce of the same crop oftobacco: differences of colour and strength, and, in somedegree, of aroma, also, depending upon the age of theleaf employed, and its position on the plant,—the oldestor lowest being used for the well-known (and extensivelycounterfeited) flat oily cigars called “ Bravas.”
Among other raw or leaf tobaccos, the American va-rieties are particularly well illustrated, but too insuffi-ciently labelled to convey much information to the public,who would be glad to learn, from such a collection, thatthe commoner “ shag tobacco ” is prepared chiefly fromthe “ Mason” county leaf; the mild kauaster and similarqualities from the thin, delicately flavoured, mild, Ohio leaf; the common strong ships’ tobacco, extensively usedin the royal navy, from the Virginia leaf, &c.
Hungarian tobacco, almost unknown in Great Britain ,is also exhibited both in this and in the Russian Depart-ment. It is very fine, and of peculiarly delicate flavour,much more so tlian the tobacco usually cultivated inTurkey.
A Prize Medal has been awarded to Bex. Jones andCo. (43, p. 203) for their collection of Havannah cigars,illustrating the English market. These are selected fromthe Exhibitors’ stores, and are somewhat unequal in qua-lity, not being picked for exhibiting, nor are they dressed ,samples.
Cohen and Orr (49, p. 204) have been awarded aPrize Medal for their Havannahs, “Ugues” brand; a,very good cigar, imported by this firm only. i
English -made cigars are copiously exhibited.
E. Jonas and Brothers (42, p. 2o3) have been awarded ja Prize Medal for their very fine collection of differentvarieties ot cigars manufactured from the Havannahleaf. These are sold at a very cheap rate, are beautifully ;rolled, draw well, and are of fair flavour, the latter beinga quality unattainable in perfection in England.
Lambert and Butler have also received a Prize Medalfor their excellent tobacco, cigars, snuffs, and Cavendish j
' (40, p. 203). The cigars smoke well, with a good whiteash, and are of very fair flavour. The cut tobacco andsnuffs are of excellent quality. Negro-head and Caven-dish are also exhibited, and are successful imitations ofthe American produce, though inferior in flavour. Theyare prepared by a peculiar process from the best Virgi-nian leaf. A specimen of English -grown tobacco fromthe same exhibitor is worthy of notice, as a curiositv : itwas raised on a poor light soil in Cambridgeshire , and isan excellent specimen, but deficient in flavour.
Richardson Brothers, of Edinburgh (f>2, p. 204),have been awarded a Prize Medal for their very finesamples of pig-tail aud twist tobacco. The leaf is uni-versally used, in this form, in Scotland , both for chewingand smoking; and the exhibiting house supplies themarket to a great extent both with this and Scotch snuffs,of which different qualities are exhibited. The speci-mens of Virginian leaf (intended to illustrate the articlein a raw* state) are very fine, and in the present state ofthe market, which is low (owing to bad crops and specu-lation'), would fetch double the average trade price.
A Prize Medal is awarded to the snuff of Messrs.Lundy Foot and Co., of Dublin (44, p. 203), an articletoo well known to require more special notice, and ofwhich the Exhibition samples are admirable.
Honourable Mention is made of the following Exhibi-tors:— Sales, Pollard, and Co. (47, p. 203), for beauti-fully prepared leaves of Cuban (Yara) tobacco of finequality. Bremner aud Till, for their samples of leaftobacco as imported (41, p. 203), including some veryrare specimens, seldom or never seen in the market.Amongst these are the Palatinate tobacco (like Benson’sHungarian), Manilla, Pernambuco , and Yara leaf; alsothe Havannah leaf, in the fiat bundles called “ Minorcas,”in which it is originally put up for export.
M. IIyams’ (p. 203; samples of British -made cigarsand cheroots, from the New’ Granada leaf, deserve noticefrom their extraordinary cheapness, as does his specimenof Columbian tobacco. The Jury also mention Buck-land and Toplis (48, p. 203), for their neatly-fabricatedcheroots of tobacco and other narcotic herbs and drugs,required as medicine or for luxury. A piece of wood atthe mouth extremity retains the oil effectually (au old in-vention). These cheroots draw well, but are very rank.
The Cape of Good Hope exhibits cigars and kauastertobacco (36, p. 950), grown in the colony. The defectsof the cigars seem to be in the manufacture and choiceof leaf, for they are spongy, tough, and leathery, mostclumsily made, and smoke with a black ash. The flavouris, how ever, so far good, as to induce the Jury to encou-rage improvements in the colony, by the award of Ho-nourable Mention to N. Moss, the exhibitor.
Canada contributes very fair leaf-tobacco for cigar-making, from J. Levey (73, p. 963), of which Honour-able mention is made : it equals second-class Virginia-leaf, and will probably be much improved by care in theculture.
East Indies. —The Honourable East India Com-pany contribute Sourabaya (Java) cheroots, of two qua-lities : the first, a dark-coloured sample, are very wellflavoured, with a fair ash; they burn pretty steadily, andrather strong, and are better than any English -madecigars, but inferior to the Manilla. The lighter-colouredsamples are weak and poor.
The Trichinopoly cheroots exhibited (p. 873) are singu-larly coarse and bad; these, never good in their owncountry, have possibly been injured on the voyage. Some“ Calcutta Manillas,” as imitation Manillas are generallycalled, are well rolled, of fine (almond) flavoured tobacco,burn with a white ash, and are equal to second-class Ha-vannahs (p. 873). Honourable Mention is made of them,and of the Chinsurah Havannahs, manufactured probablyfrom “ Sand-head ” tobacco, cultivated on the Arracancoast.
The Jury regret not having found in the East IndianDepartment, samples of AwaJlan and various other rawtobaccos, raised in different parts of our Eastern posses-sions ; or of the Lunka cheroots, made from tobaccogrown on the banks of the Godavery and Mahanuddyrivers, where its cultivation and manufacture are rapidly