I brought home a box of a brand which was agreeable in Holland, and they were unendurable in the sweet air of Kent.
The cigar is the national medium for consuming tobacco, cigarettes being practically unknown, and pipes rare in the streets.

My experience of the Dutch cigar is that it is a very harmless luxury and a very persuasive one.

After a little while it becomes second nature to drop into a tobacconist's and slip a dozen cigars into one's pocket, at a cost of a few pence; and the cigars being there, it is another case of second nature to smoke them practically continuously.

Of these cigars, which range in price from one or two cents to a few pence each, there are hundreds if not thousands of varieties.
The number of tobacconists in Holland must be very great, and the trade is probably strong enough to resist effectually the impost on the weed which was recently threatened by a daring Minister, if ever it is attempted.

The pretty French custom of giving tobacco licences to the widows of soldiers is not adopted here; indeed I do not see that it could be, for the army is only 100,000 strong.