28 APRIL 1961, Page 13

TEN-CENT CIGARS Site,— My memory. :led H. I... Mencken's .4

New Dictionary of Quotarons, tell me that Vice-President Thomas R. Marshal! said around 1920. 'What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.'

I don't imagine the Vice-President was thinking of a Havana in those terms, however. And if he were alive today he'd be looking for a good fifteen-cent Cigar. Today's ten-cent cigars are fearsome objects and are known to the taxi-drivers of New York as 'Castro's revenge.'--Yours faithfully.

Chief Correspondent New York Times, The Adelphi, Strand. WC2