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State Legislator - Richard Lawrence Miller - 03-24-2016 01:08 PM
Perhaps the following is well known, but it is news to me. In Lincoln's state legislature days there was a low quality cigar called "long nine." Several contemporary references are quoted in the tobacco chapter of Marc McCutcheon, The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s (Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books 1993, p. 182). No doubt the Sangamon County delegation was composed of tall gentlemen, but I suspect that the appellation “Long Nine" given to them was also connected to the cigar, perhaps a way of ridiculing the delegation's members but a name which they gloried in. Or maybe it was used affectionately. Anyway, persons of Lincoln's time would have seen the term's connection to a cheap cigar. Just as if a group of thin Virginia legislators today were called the Virginia Slims.
RE: State Legislator - RJNorton - 03-24-2016 02:57 PM
Very interesting, Richard!
I found an article which talks about "long nines" here:
http://firecured.blogspot.com/2011/01/early-american-cigars-supers-long-nines.html
Also, here:
http://firecured.blogspot.com/2011/01/mark-twain-on-long-nines-cigars.html
RE: State Legislator - Gene C - 03-24-2016 03:24 PM
Thanks Richard, I didn't know that.
Kind of funny now that I think about it.