When travelling to other cities eventually many people go to the University of the place. Some of them we have heard about and want to see to the lands or the people – the last visit to Boston included a walk around Harvard (for example of all the law schools  in the United States the Supreme Court Justices went to either Yale or Harvard). A number of years ago, when in Montreal went through McGill University and saw the name Macdonald. It t turns out there is an interesting legacy as outlined in the book Sir William C Macdonald – A Biography by William Fong published by The Macdonald-Stewart Foundation, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 2007.

Macdonald originally worked for a company in Boston and late in his life noted “I started working for a $1.00 a day and that day to the present I have always banked or invested half of what I earned” For most of his life, his furnishings represented this attitude and it was suspected for a number of years he earned more from his investments than from his salary. One of the areas he invested in were railway shares (the high tech of 1850’s).

Eventually, William moved from Boston to New York to Montreal and started a business with little competition. No one really knows why tobacco, but it is believed he made contacts while working in New York and Boston which were headquarters for cotton and tobacco factors. In the 1850’s people smoked cigars (but there was a lot of competition) and chewed tobacco (which was not competitive) for it involved a cost of machinery. He likely bought tobacco on consignment and then sweeten it up to provide his brand. For most of his career, he had two processes: his primary product was nicotine-laced candy, as it was sweet from the flavors (sugar, licorice and alcohol) and pipe tobacco, what was not used in the chewing tobacco process. Over the years the scale became larger the product was the same.

From the manufacturer’s point of view, chewing tobacco – whatever the source of the its leaf – was the ideal product. With its nicotine, sugar and other additives, it was essentially addictive, which ensured repeat purchases, and at times extremely fashionable, which lead to a proliferation of new product lines defined by flavor, packaging and target markets. Cigars typically appealed to the rich and urban; after the Civil War the public began to smoke cigarette and by 1895 they were more popular than chewing tobacco. But since tobacco chewing was habit-forming the new competition did not necessarily take business away from him.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, over the years cigarette companies have proven to be a successful investment, they went through a down cycle with all the government’s trying to sue them, but the companies are still doing business. As long as cigarettes remain legal, they will offer good money to be made. Perhaps, the cigarette companies are thinking about the marijuana industry for the results to continue.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.