Show french cigars are costly traveler la Is unable to take along supply because became duty Is high customs Cua toina officers alert new tew york the cigars algara you buy in france are ara notorious said bald a smoker recently who has lately come back from europe and it Is really impossible to get a decent cigar at retail at anything like a fair price I 1 know of three places in parts paris where you can got get good cigars by the box one which for or many years was under tho the grand hotel and Is now across the boulevard from it another in the rue ste honore near the bottom of the avenue de impera and the other in the champa elyseos Elys eos a little below the elysee palace hotel when I 1 started for or parts paris from london I 1 had forty cigars in a box which bad cost toe me just 3 1 I had bad bought them thara in london thinking that as in the past I 1 would he be allowed to take forty cigars in at boulogne Bou logre tree free or of duty an american who lives in london told me on the channel boat that a now new law ay prohibited tho the admission of more than ten tree free of duty dut he be added the duty la Is so small that hat you yon need not cot bo be alarmed 1 now long experience has taught me that the moment you declare anything to a customs other you lay yourself open to trouble ir if you tell him you have anything duo ablo he be Is s very apt to make a thorough search I 1 remember that once I 1 bought it a box of twenty five cigars at fladen baden biden nod and declared them when I 1 reached french Agine curt with tle tl result whatnot that not only buly did the customs man go minu minutely toly through alt all my hand band I 1 luggage but bui actually searched se arced my fay packets however wever at calais I 1 declared my forty cigars and handed them to the dou douan anter fer 1 at the same time reminding him that ten cigars were exempt ho immediately demanded to seo see the cigars and carried them off in triumph to tho the head official then be came back and probed my valises vali ses well they soaked me duty on the thirty cigars which was waa actually more mora than aney had cost me when I 1 reached paris and the officers asked roe me if there was anything dutiable in my trunk i paid no and it was wag not opened the next day I 1 was passing th the cigar shop opposite the farad hotel and was surprised by the cheapness of cigars that were exposed in the show windows I 1 rent in filled with remorse that I 1 had even condemned i the french method of ailing cigars and round found that the cigars in the win dows dowa were in a sense a hoax tho tha retail price was quoted but you could not buy at that price unless you a box |