The trade in tobacco was enormous, considering the population to be supplied.

Almost every Mexican above the age of ten years, and many much younger, smoked the cigarette.

Nearly every Mexican carried a pouch of leaf tobacco, powdered by rolling in the hands, and a roll of corn husks to make wrappers.

The cigarettes were made by the smokers as they used them.
Up to the time of which I write, and for years afterwards--I think until the administration of President Juarez--the cultivation, manufacture and sale of tobacco constituted a government monopoly, and paid the bulk of the revenue collected from internal sources.

The price was enormously high, and made successful smuggling very profitable.