PIPES AND SMOKERS. (Continued.)
In Russia and Denmark as also in Norway and Sweden the pipes are more
simple and are principally formed of wood sometimes tipped with copper
but usually of inferior material and work when compared with French
and German pipes. The German pipes considered as works of art are
doubtless the finest made. Many are made of meerschaum (sea foam).
This material is found in various parts of Asia Minor. When first
obtained it is capable of forming a lather like soap, and is used by
the Tartars for washing purposes. The Turks use it for pipes which are
made in the same way that pottery is and afterwards soaked in wax and
is then ready for smoking. It heats slowly and is capable of greater
absorption than any other material used in pipe making. To properly
color a meerschaum is now considered as one of the fine arts and when
completed is considered quite a triumph. When the pipe takes on a rich
deep brown tint it is considered a valuable pipe and is watched and
guarded as a most valuable treasure.
M. Ziegler thus describes the source whence the considerable annual
supply of meerschaum for meerschaum pipes is derived:
"Large quantities of this mineral so highly esteemed by
smokers, comes from Hrubschitz and Oslawan in Austrian
Moravia where it is found embedded between thick strata of
serpentine rock. It is also found in Spain at Esconshe,
Vallecas and Toledo; the best however comes from Asia Minor.
The chief places are the celebrated meerschaum mines from
six to eight miles southeast of Eskis chehr, on the river
Pursak chief tributary to the river Sagarius. They were
known to Xenophon, and are now worked principally by
Armenian Christians, who sink narrow pits, to the beds of
this mineral, and work the sides out until water or imminent
danger drives them away to try another place. Some
meerschaum comes from Brussa, and in 1869 over 3,000 boxes
of raw material were imported from Asia Minor at Trieste,
with 345,000 florins. The pipe manufacture and carving is
principally carried on in Vienna and in Rhula, Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The commercial value of meerschaum
carving at these places may be estimated at $2,000,000
annually. However very large quantities of them are not made
from genuine but artificial material. The waste from these
carvings is ground to a very fine powder, and then boiled
with linseed oil and alum. When this mixture has sufficient
cohesion, it is cast in molds and carefully dried and
carved, as if these blocks of mineral had been natural. It
is said that about one-half of all pipes now sold are made
from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of the
lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks
have been made of it so light that they would float on the
top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the quality
of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time than
others this is owing in a great measure however to the
thickness of the bowl."
Pipe-colorers, who go around coloring pipes or meerschaums, pride
themselves on the rapidity with which they are enabled to color a
pipe. The following, on "Pipe Colorers," is from "The Tobacco Plant":
"There are men who pride themselves upon the skill with
which they are able to color the pipes they smoke. Some of
these are amateurs, who smoke Tobacco only with the view of
gratifying that taste for color which is satisfied when a
bowl of clay or meerschaum is sufficiently yellowed,
browned, or blacked. There are men who care nothing for
Tobacco of itself, and would be much more easily and
rationally pleased were they to set their pipes upon an
easel and paint them with oils and camel's-hair. Others of
the class are professional colorers, who hire themselves to
pipe-sellers or connoisseurs by the week, or day, or hour,
to smoke so many ounces or pounds of strong Tobacco through
such and such pipes in such and such a time, with the
view of causing such and such stains of Tobacco-juice to
make themselves visible on the bowls or stems of those
specified pipes. These are mostly old, well-seasoned
smokers, to whose existence the weed has become essential;
who smoke their own old pipes, which lack artistic coloring,
in the intervals when they lay aside the pipes they are
employed to color. Another and much smaller section of the
class are those who smoke for smoking's sake, and yet are
weak enough to nurse some special pipes for show. To such it
is a joy to say, when friends are gathered at the festive
board 'Look! is not that well colored? I colored it myself.'
In such an age as this, when the learned cannot tell us
which of our various branches of knowledge and inquiry are
sciences and which are not, it may not seem a great anomaly
that this pipe-coloring should, by some, be called 'an art.'
Nor is it, when we think that there is such an 'art' as
blacking shoes; and when we must perforce admit that he who,
barber fashion, cuts our hair--and he who, cook-wise, broils
the kidney for our mid-day dinner--is an artist. We have not
come as yet to give this title to the weaver who watches the
loom that weaves our stockings, or to the hammer-man who
beats the red-hot horse-shoe on the anvil in a smithy; but
even there we designate 'artisans,' and 'artists' may come
next. So, hey! for the art of coloring pipes!
[Illustration: Pipe colorer.]
"It may not be denied that there is beauty in a well-colored
meerschaum; but in the admission lies the contradiction of
Keats' well-known line--
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
For, your meerschaum is a fragile thing, and eminently
frangible. This present writer once did see four beauties
break within a single moon. And when they break, what
previous joy of coloring can over-top the sorrow of their
dire destruction? It is a singular difficulty in the way of
those who most desire to beautify utility or utilize the
beautiful, or show that beauty is most lovely when made
practical, that these artistic colorers of pipes are always
those who make least use of Tobacco, save for the immediate
purpose of obtaining the clay in which it is smoked. Ask
such an artist why he smokes, and he will scarcely tell you.
His best reason certainly will be, that others smoke, and,
as a custom, it becomes him. And when you find an ardent
smoker--one who smokes because he likes Tobacco for itself,
or finds it useful--who spends his time in tinting pipes,
you will have found a _rara avis_, or a monstrosity. Apart
from taste, there are some practical objections to this
custom of coloring pipes. Smoking, to be worthy, should be
free and unrestrained; while he who colors his pipe is tied
by system and confined to rule.
"A pipe to be enjoyable, should be its master's slave; but
he who keeps a 'well-colored' pipe is slave thereto. He
cannot smoke it as, or when, or where he will. He must not
smoke it in a draught, or near a fire; he must not lay it
down, or finger it; he must not puff too fast, nor yet too
slow. In short, he is the creature of this 'Joss'--this
home-made deity--to which he bows down and worships. The
pipe-colorers are the Sabbatarians of smoking. Whereas, the
pipe was made for man, they treat man as made for the pipe.
And thus, as in all cases where the cart is expected to draw
the horse, the economy of nature is reversed, and mischief
is evolved."
[Illustration: German porcelain pipes.]
Dibdin, in his "Tour in France and Germany," says of Vienna, that it
is a city of smokers,--"a good Austrian thinks he can never pay too
much for a good pipe." Many of the Germans use a kind of pipe carved
from the root of the dwarf oak; wooden pipes of a similar kind are
made of brier root, and are very common, as are also those made from
maple and sweet-brier. One of the favorite pipes used by Germans is
the porcelain pipe, which consists of a double bowl--the upper one
containing the tobacco, which fits into another portion of the pipe,
allowing the oil to drain into the lower bowl, which may be removed
and the pipe cleaned. The bowls are sometimes painted beautifully,
representing a variety of subjects, and in no way inferior to the
painted porcelain for the table.
The Dutch are famous smokers and are constantly "pulling at the pipe."
They use those with long, straight stems, and both their clay and
porcelain pipes are of the finest form and finish. Irving, in "The
History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the
Dutch Dynasty," has given a good description of the smoking powers of
the Dutch. Speaking of his grandfather's love for the weed, he says:
"My great-grandfather, by the mother's side, Hermanns Van
Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone church at
Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred yards to your
left, after your turn from the Boomkeys; and which is so
conveniently constructed that all the zealous Christians of
Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there to any
other church in the city. My great-grandfather, I say, when
employed to build that famous church, did, in the first
place, send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then, having
purchased a new spitting-box and a hundred weight of the
best Virginia, he sat himself down and did nothing for the
space of three months but smoke most laboriously.
"Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on
foot, and voyaging in the Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to
Amsterdam--to Delft--to Hærlem--to Leyden--to the
Hague--knocking his head and breaking his pipe against every
church in his road. Then did he advance gradually nearer and
nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the
identical spot whereon the church was to be built. Then did
he spend three months longer in walking round it and round
it, contemplating it, first from one point of view, and then
from another,--now would he be paddled by it on the
canal--now would he peep at it through a telescope from the
other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird's-eye
glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic windmills
which protect the gates of the city.
"The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of
expectation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil
of my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet
to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be
brought into the world, but that its great projector would
lie down and die in labor of the mighty plan he had
conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in
puffing and paddling, and talking and walking,--having
traveled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France
and Germany,--having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine
pipes and three hundred weight of the best Virginia
tobacco,--my great-grandfather gathered together all that
knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer
attending to anybody's business sooner than their own, and
having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches he
advanced sturdily up and laid the corner-stone of the
church, in the presence of the whole multitude,--just at the
commencement of the thirteenth month."
He also alludes to Hudson whom he says was:
"A seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco
under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first
to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much
popularity in that country, and caused him to find great
favor in their High Mightinesses, the lords and states
general, and also of the honorable West India Company. He
was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double
chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was
supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from
the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. * * * As
chief mate and favorite companion, the commander chose
Master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, in England. By some his
name has been spelled Chewit, ascribed to the circumstance
of his having been the first man that ever chewed tobacco. *
* * * Under every misfortune he comforted himself with a
quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophical maxim, 'that it
will be all the same a hundred years hence!'"
Further on he
alludes to the attempt to subjugate New Amsterdam to the British crown
and the effect produced by the burghers lighting their pipes.
"When"
he says "Captain Argol's vessel hove in sight, the worthy
burghers were seized with such a panic, that they fell to
smoking their pipes with astonishing vehemence, insomuch
that they quickly raised a cloud, which, combining with the
surrounding woods and marshes, completely enveloped and
concealed their beloved village; and overhung the fair
regions of Pavonia:--so that the terrible Captain Argol
passed on, totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch
settlement lay snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all
this pestilent vapor."
[Illustration: A Persian water pipe.]
The Persians[52] are said to be the first to invent the mode of
drawing tobacco smoke through water thereby cooling it before inhaling
it. Fairholt says "it is to smoking what ice is to Champagne." The
_London Review_ gives the following description of pipes and smoking
apparatus:
[Footnote 52: Sandys, writing in 1610 narrates a Persian
legend to the effect that Shiraz tobacco was given by a
holy man to a virtuous youth, disconsolate at the loss
of his loving wife. "Go to thy wife's tomb," said the
anchorite, "and there thou wilt find a weed. Pluck it,
place it in a reed, and inhale the smoke, as you put
fire to it. This will be to you wife, mother, father and
brother," continued the holy man, in Homeric strain,
"and above all, will be a wise counsellor, and teach thy
soul wisdom and thy spirit joy."]
"The hookah of India is the most splendid and glittering of
all pipes; it is a large affair, on account of the
arrangements for causing the smoke to pass through water
before it reaches the lips of the smoker, as a means of
rendering it cooler and of extracting from it much of its
rank and disagreeable flavor.
"On the top of an air-tight vessel, half filled with water,
is a bowl containing tobacco; a small tube descends from the
bowl into the water, and a flexible pipe, one end of which
is between the lips of the smoker, is inserted at the other
end into the vessel, above the level of the water. Such
being the adjustment, the philosophy of the inhalation may
be easily understood. The smoker sucks the air out of the
vessel, and makes a partial vacuum; the external air,
pressing on the burning tobacco, drives the smoke through
the small tube into the water beneath; purified from some of
its rank qualities, the smoke bubbles up into the vacant
part of the vessel above the water, and passes through the
flexible pipe to the smoker's mouth. Sometimes the affair is
made still more luxurious by substituting rose-water for
water _pur et simple_. The tube is so long and flexible that
the smoker may sit (or squat) at a small or great distance
from the vessel containing the water. In the courts of
princes and wealthy natives the vessels and tubes are
lavishly adorned with precious metals. One mode of showing
hospitality in the East is to place a hookah in the center
of the apartment, range the guests around, and let all have
a whiff of the pipe in turn; but in more luxurious
establishments a separate hookah is placed before each
guest. Some of the Egyptians use a form of hookah called the
narghile or nargeeleh--so named because the water is
contained in the shell of a cocoanut of which the Arabic
name is nargeeleh. Another kind, having a glass vessel, is
called the sheshee--having, like the other, a very long
tube. Only the choicest tobacco is used with the hookah and
nargeeleh; it is grown in Persia.
"Before it is used, the tobacco is washed several times, and
put damp into the pipe-bowl, two or three pieces of live
charcoal are put on the top. The moisture gives mildness to
the tobacco, but renders inhalation so difficult that weak
lungs are unfitted to bear it. The dry tobacco preferred by
the Persians does not involve so much difficulty in 'blowing
a cloud.'"
TURKISH CHIBOUQUES AND WOOD PIPES.
"The stiff-stemmed Turkish pipes, quite different from the
flexible tube of the hookah and narghile, are of two kinds,
the kablioun or long pipe, and the chibouque or short pipe.
Some of the stems of the kablioun, made of cherry tree,
jasmine, wild plum, and ebony, are five feet in length, and
are bored with a kind of gimlet. The workman, placing the
gimlet above the long, slender branchlet of wood, bores half
the length, and then reverses the position to operate upon
the other half. The wild cherry tree wood, which is the most
frequently employed, is seldom free from defects in the
bark, and some skill is exercised in so repairing these
defective places that the mending shall be invisible."
The tubes or pipe-bowls used with these stems are mostly a combination
of two substances--the red clay of Nish and the white earth of
Rustchuk; they are graceful in form and sometimes decorated with
gilding. It is characteristic of some of the Turks that they estimate
the duration of a journey, and with it the distance traveled, by the
number of pipes smoked, a particular size of pipe-bowl being
understood. Dodwell, in his "Tour through Greece," says that
"a Turk
is generally very clean in his smoking apparatus, having a
small tin dish laid on the carpet of his apartment, on which
the bowl of the pipe can rest, to prevent the tobacco from
burning or soiling the carpet. The tubes of the kabliouns
are often as much as seven or eight feet long. Some of the
gardens of Turkey and Greece contain jasmine trees purposely
cultivated to produce straight stems for these pipes."
Of those Turkish pipes which are used in Egypt, Mr. Lane, after
mentioning the narghile and the chibouque or "shibuk," says:--
"The most common kind used in Egypt is made of wood called
garmashak (I believe it is maple). The greater part of the
stick, from the mouth-piece to three-fourths of its length,
is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity by
gold thread, often intertwined with colored silks, or by a
tube of gilt or silver; and at the lower extremity of the
covering is a tassel of silk. The covering was originally
designed to be moistened with water in order to cool the
pipe, and consequently the smoke by evaporation; but this is
only done when the pipe is old or not handsome. These stick
pipes are used by many persons, particularly in winter; in
summer the smoke is not so cool from them as from the kind
before mentioned. The bowl is of baked earth, colored red or
brown."
AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN PIPE STEMS.
Before passing to the subject of the costly mouth-pieces of Oriental
pipes, we must say a few words concerning the extraordinary care
bestowed on some kinds of plain wood sticks for stems or tubes.
Cherry-tree stems, under the name of agriots, constitute a specialty
of Austrian manufacture. The fragrant cherry (prunus makaleb) is a
native of that country; and the young trees are cultivated with
special reference to this application. They are all raised from seed.
The seedlings, when two years old, are planted in small pots, one in
each; as they grow, every tendency to branching is choked by removing
the bud; and as they increase in size from year to year, they are
shifted into larger pots or into boxes. Great care is taken to turn
them round daily, so that every part shall be equally exposed to
sunshine. When the plants have attained a sufficient height they are
allowed to form a small bushy head; but the daily care is continued
until the stems grow to a proper thickness. They are then taken out
of the ground, the roots and branches removed, and the stem bored
through after being seasoned for some time. The care shown in rearing
insures a perfect straightness of stem, and an equable diameter of
about an inch or an inch and a half. The last specimens, when cut from
the tree, are as much as eight feet in length, dark purple-brown in
color, and highly fragrant. At Pesth are made pipes about eighteen
inches in length, of the shoots of the mock orange, remarkable for
their quality in absorbing the oil of tobacco, they are flexible
without being weak. The French make elegant pipe-bowls of the root of
the tree-heath, but their chief attention is directed, as far as
concerns wood pipes, to those of brier-root, which are made by them in
large quantities. The bowl and the short stems are carried out of one
piece, and the wood is credited with absorbing some of the rank oil of
tobacco.
Amber--the only kind of resin that rises to the dignity of a gem--is
unfitted for the bowl of a tobacco-pipe, because it cannot well bear
the heat; but it is largely used for mouth-pieces, especially by
wealthy Oriental smokers. The Turks have a belief that amber wards off
infection; an opinion which, whether right or wrong, tells well for
the amber workers. There has always been a mystery connected with this
remarkable substance. So far back as the Phenicians, amber was picked
up on the Baltic shore of what is now called Prussia; and the same
region has ever since been the chief store-house for it. Tacitus was
not far wrong when he conjectured that amber is a gum or resin exuded
from certain trees, although other authorities have preferred a theory
that it is a kind of wax or fat which has undergone slow petrifaction.
At any rate, it must at one time have been liquid or semi-liquid; for
insects, flies, detached wings and legs, and small fragments of
various kinds, are often found imbedded in it--those odds and ends of
which Pope said:--
"The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare;
The wonder's how the devil they got there!"
Whether new stores of amber are now being formed, or whether, like
coal, it was the result of causes not now in operation, is an unsolved
problem. The specimens obtained differ considerably; some are pale as
primrose, some deep orange or almost brown; some nearly as transparent
as crystal, some nearly opaque. Large pieces, uniform in color and
translucency, fetch high prices; and there are fashions in this matter
for which it is not easy to account,--seeing that the Turks and other
Orientals buy up, at prices which Europeans are unwilling to give, all
the specimens presenting a straw-yellow color and a sort of cloudy
translucency. The Russians, on the contrary, prefer orange-yellow
transparent specimens. The amber is seldom obtained by actual mining.
[Illustration: Searching for amber.]
It is usually found on sea-coasts, after storms, in rounded nodules;
or, if scarce on shore, it is sought for by men clad in leather
garments, who wade up to their necks in the sea, and scrape the
sea-bottom with hooped nets attached to the end of long poles; or
(rather dangerous work) men go out in boats, and examine the faces of
precipitous cliffs, picking off, by means of iron hooks, the lumps of
amber which they may see here and there. Sometimes a piece weighing
nearly a pound is found, and a weight of even ten pounds is recorded.
As small pieces can easily be joined by smoothing the surfaces,
moistening them with linseed oil, and pressing them together over a
charcoal fire, and as gum copal is sometimes very like amber, there is
much sophistication indulged in, which none but an expert can guard
against. In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine or
fictitious, into pipe mouth-pieces, they are split on a leaden plate
in a turning lathe, smoothed into shape by whet-stones, rubbed with
chalk and water, and polished with a piece of flannel. It is an
especially difficult kind of work; for unless the amber is allowed
frequent intervals for cooling, it becomes electrically excited by the
friction and shivers into fragments; the men, too, are put into
nervous tremors if kept too long at work at one time. Amber is one of
the most electrically excitable of all known substances; in fact, the
name electricity itself was derived from _electron_, the Greek name
for amber. Hookahs, chibouques, narghiles, meerschaums, all are
largely adorned with amber mouth-pieces. The mouth-piece often
consists of two or three pieces of amber, interjoined with ornaments
of gold and gems; it is in such case the most costly part of the pipe.
At one of the greater industrial exhibitions four Turkish amames, or
amber mouth-pieces, were shown, illustrating clearly enough the value
attached to choice specimens; two of them were worth £350 each, two
£200 each, diamond studded. The Turkish and Persian pipes have often a
small wooden tube inside the amber mouth-piece. They require frequent
cleaning with a long wire and a bit of tow, and in some large towns
there are professional pipe-cleaners.
The natives of British Guiana have a curious kind of pipe, made of the
rind of the fruit of the areca-palm, coiled up into a kind of cheroot,
with an internal hollow to hold the tobacco. The poorer Hindoos make a
simple pipe of two pieces of bamboo,--one cut close to a knot for the
bowl, and a more slender piece for the tube. A lower class of natives
in India make two holes of unequal length, with a piece of stick, in a
clay soil; the holes are unequally inclined so as to meet at the
bottom; the tobacco is placed in the shorter hole, and the smoker,
applying his mouth to the longer, inhales the fumes in this primitive
fashion. The pipes used for opium-smoking in various parts of the East
have small bowls; the drug is too costly to be used otherwise than in
small portions at a time, and too powerful to need more than a few
whiffs to produce the opium-smoker's dreary delirium.
The Tunisians use reeds for pipes. Stone pipes are found among the
natives of Vancouver; while Strong Bow, the North American Indian
chief, has his long wooden pipe of peace, decked out with tassels and
fringes, but with an ominous-looking sharp steel cutting instrument
near the end most remote from the bowl.
Chinese, Japanese, Philippine Islanders, Madagascans, Central
Africans, Algerine Arabs, Mexicans, Paraguayans, Siamese, Tahitians,
South American Indians, Mongols, Malays, Tartars, Turcomans, as well
as the nations of Europe and the chief nations of Southern Asia, all
have their smoking-pipes, plain or ornate, as the case may be, and
made of wood, reeds, bamboo, bone, ivory, stone, earthenware, glass,
porcelain, amber, agate, jade, precious metals and common metals,
according to the civilization of the country and the pecuniary means
of the smoker.
[Illustration: Fancy pipes.]
"The French clay pipes have quite a special character; they
are well made, and great ingenuity is shown in the
preparation of the moulds in which they are pressed; but
being mostly intended for a class of purchasers who prefer
grotesque ideas to refined taste, the bowls are often
ornamented with queer shaped heads, having bead-like eyes;
sometimes imaginary beings, sometimes caricature portraits
of eminent persons. Where more than the head is represented,
license is given to a certain grossness of idea; but this is
not a general characteristic. The clay of which these French
pipes are made is admitted to be superior to that of
England, due to the careful mixture of different kinds, and
to skilful manipulation.
"We need not say much about Dutch pipes as distinct articles
of manufacture, because the process adopted in their
production are pretty much like those in use elsewhere. The
Dutch are famous clay-pipe smokers, not countenancing the
cigar so much as their neighbors the Belgians, nor the
meerschaum so largely as their German neighbors on the Rhine
frontier. A notable bit of sharp practice is on record in
connexion with the pipe-smokers of Holland--a dodge only to
be justified on the equivocal maxim that all is fair in
trade provided it just keeps within the margin we need not
speak. A pipe manufactory was established in Flanders about
the middle of the last century.
"The Dutch makers, alarmed at the competition which this
threatened, cunningly devised a stratagem for nipping it in
the bud. They freighted a large worn-out ship with an
enormous quantity of pipes of their own make, sent it to
Ostend, and wrecked it there. By the municipal laws of that
city the wreck became public property; the pipes were sold
at prices so ridiculously low that the town was glutted with
the commodity; the new Flemish factory was thereby
paralyzed, ruined, and closed."
The Turks (especially those of the lower orders) use a kind of clay
pipe made of red earth decorated with gilding. The stem of the pipe is
made from a branch of jasmine, cherry tree or maple and is
sufficiently long to rest on the floor when used by the smoker. A
writer in the _Tobacco Plant_ says of Old English Clay pipes:
"Of all the various branches of the subject of tobacco, that
of the history of pipes is one of the most interesting, and
one that deserves every attention that can possibly be
given. Whether considered ethnographically, historically,
geographically, or archæologically, pipes present food for
speculation and research of at least equal importance to any
other set of objects that can be brought forward. Some
branches of the subject have already been treated in these
columns, and others, in what is intended shall follow, will
hereafter be discussed. The present article will be devoted
to 'Fairy Pipes' and the history of the earliest pipes of
this country. Smoking is an old and venerable institution in
this kingdom of ours, and dates far back beyond the
introduction of tobacco to our shores. Long before Sir
Walter Raleigh was thought of, there is reason to believe
herbs and leaves of one kind or other--coltsfoot, yarrow,
mouse-lax, sword-grass, dandelion, and other plants, and
even dried cow-dung--were smoked for one ailment or other,
and in some instances for relaxation and pleasure, and thus,
no doubt, became habitually used. These are still, in some
of our rural districts, smoked by people as cures for
various ailments, and are considered not only highly
efficacious but very pleasant. I have known these or other
herbs smoked through a stick from which the pith had been
removed, the bowl being formed of a lump of clay moulded by
the fingers at the time, and baked in the household fire.
[Illustration: Clay and reed pipes.]
"The small branches of the elder tree, or sometimes the stem
of the briar and bramble, are what I have seen used, but
even the stem of the hemlock and keckse are sometimes
brought into requisition for the purpose.
"I believe that long before the time Dr. Wilson states on
the authority of Sharpe, that it was common within memory,
for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss
gathered on the neighboring moors, which they declared to be
much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use long
before the American weed was heard of; before Sir Walter
Raleigh wooed and won Elizabeth Throgmorton, or Sir Richard
Granville voyaged to Virginia with Masters Ralph Layne,
Thomas Candish, John Arundell, Master Stukely, Bremize,
Vincent, Heryot, and John Clarke; before Sir Francis Drake
made his first voyage, or the Spanish Armada was dreamed of;
before Sir John Hawkins, Captain Price, Coft, Keat or others
for whom the honor of the introduction of tobacco has been
claimed, drew breath--smoking was to some extent indulged in
by our forefathers and (still medicinally, of course) in
this country. In mediæval times, when the Ceramic art was
but little practiced, and when all the domestic vessels that
were produced were of the rudest and coarsest character both
in material, form, and decoration, it is not to be expected
that pipes for the smoking of herbs would be manufactured as
a matter of sale, and those of the people who wished for
such an indulgence would naturally be thrown on their own
primitive resources such as I have described, for
instruments for the purpose.
"A portion of a very rude pipe-head, formed of common red
clay--a lump of clay moulded by hand, and ornamented with
small circles pressed into it as from the end of a
stick--has come under my notice, as have also others of an
equally primitive character, found in different parts of
this kingdom. These I have no hesitation in ascribing to a
pre-Raleigh period. It is not to these, however, but to the
small pipes formerly used in this kingdom for smoking
tobacco, and tobacco alone, that I wish to draw attention.
Most people, especially in the Midland and Northern counties
of England, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, will have
heard the name of Fairy Pipes applied to the small,
old-fashioned, and sometimes oddly-shaped tobacco pipes
which are not infrequently turned up in digging and plowing
and other operations. To these and the general forms of old
English pipes, I purpose confining myself in the present
article. Many years ago I collected together a large number
of these 'Fairy Pipes' from all parts of the kingdom. Since
then, my own researches have, with the aid of inquiries
carried on for me, enabled me to bring forward many
interesting points, so as to verify dates of manufacture and
more fully to carry out their classification. Like their
Irish brethren and sisters, English people were formerly apt
to ascribe everything unusually small to the fairies, and
anything out of the common way to the people of very remote
ages.
"Thus, these small pipes are commonly in England called
'fairy pipes,' or 'Carl's pipes,' or 'old man's pipes;' in
Ireland, where they are likewise known as 'fairy pipes,'
they are also called 'Dane's pipes;' and in Scotland, where
their common name is 'elf pipes,' or 'elfin pipes,' they
are, in like manner, known as 'Celtic pipes.' They are also
sometimes named 'Mab pipes,' or 'Queen's pipes,' from the
same fairy majesty, Queen Mab. Thus, while in each country
they are ascribed to the elfin race--the 'small people' of
Cornish folk-lore--their secondary names attach to them a
popular belief in their extreme antiquity. Anything
apparently old is at once, by the Irish, set down to the
'Danes;' by the Scots to the 'Celts;' and by people in the
rural districts of our own country to the 'carls,' or 'old
men'--carl being indicative of extreme antiquity. In
Ireland, the pipes are believed to have belonged to the
_cluricaunes_--a kind of wild, ungovernable, mischievous
fairy-demon--who were held in awe by the 'pisantry;' and
whenever found, these pipes were, with much superstitious
feeling, immediately broken up, so as to destroy and break
up the spell their finding might have cast around the
finder. But it was not only among the peasantry that this
belief in the extreme antiquity of tobacco pipes existed.
"Serious essays were written to prove their pre-historic
origin, and to claim for them a history that in our day
reads as arrant nonsense. In 1784, a short pipe was asserted
to have been found between the jaws of the skull of an
ancient Milesian exhumed at Bannockstown, county Kildare.
Upon this discovery, an elaborate and learned paper was
written in the 'Anthologia Hibernica,' setting forth this
pipe as a proof of the use of tobacco in Ireland long before
that country was invaded by the Danes. This pipe has been
proved by comparison to be probably quite late in the reign
of Elizabeth. They also have a more modern pipe, the stem of
which describes one or more circles, while another is tied
in a knot, yet allows a free passage of air. At another
time, in opening an Anglo-Saxon grave mound, some of the men
employed came across a fairy pipe which evidently had rolled
down from among the surface-soil, and, being turned out in
juxtaposition with undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, was
immediately set down by the learned director of the
proceedings as a relic of that period. At another time I had
brought to me, as a great curiosity, two 'Roman pipes,' as I
was informed--the finders jumping to the conclusion that
because they had dug them up at little Chester (the Roman
station Derventio), they must be Roman pipes! I believe they
expected to receive a large sum from these relics: how
grievously they were disappointed I need not tell. Instances
of this kind are far from rare.
[Illustration: Fairy pipes.]
"I remember a man once bringing me some fragments of Roman
pottery and other things of the same period, which he had
turned up in the course of excavations, and among them was a
Tobacco stopper formed of a Sacheverell medal! and a George
II. half-penny, all of which he was ready to swear he had
found "all of a heap together," inside a hypocaust tile,
which, on examination, certainly had remained _in situ_ from
Romano-British times! The cupidity of a man had evidently
led him to collect together these odds and ends, and try to
turn them to profitable account. Some twenty years ago, a
large number of "elfin pipes" were dug up at Bomington, near
Edinburgh, along with a quantity of placks or bodles of
James VI., which thus gave trustworthy evidence of their
true date. Others were found in the ancient cemetery at
North Berwick, adjoining to which is a small Romanesque
building of the Twelfth Century, close upon the shore.
Within the last half-century, the sea has made very great
inroads upon this ancient burial-place, carrying off a
considerable ruin, and exposing the skeletons, and bringing
to light many interesting relics at almost every
spring-tide. Among these, many pipes have been washed down.
A similar circumstance has occurred on the seashore at Hoy
Lake, Cheshire, where several "fairy pipes" have been found.
"Notices of several discoveries occur. Dr. Wilson says, in
the statistical accounts of Scotland, many of which are
suggestive of a pre-Raleigh period. Thus, 'in an ancient
British encampment in the parish of Kirk Michael,
Dumfriesshire, on the farm of Gilrig, a number of pipes of
burnt clay were dug up, with heads smaller than the modern
tobacco-pipes, swelled at the middle and straighter at the
top. Again, in the vicinity of a group of standing stones at
Cairney Mount, in the parish of Carluke Lanarkshire, a celt
or stone hatchet, elfin bolts (flint and bone arrow-heads),
elfin pipes, numerous coins of the Edwards and of later
date, and other things are all stated to have been found.'
An example is also recorded of the discovery of a
tobacco-pipe in sinking a pit for coal, at Misk, in
Ayrshire, after digging through many feet of sand. All these
notes are pregnant with significant warnings of the
necessity for cautious discrimination in determining the
antiquity of such buried relics."
In Turkey the jasmine is cultivated for the purpose of pipe smoking.
Barillet describes the growing of the common jasmine near
Constantinople. He says:
"The object sought is a long straight stem, free from leaves
and side branches. For this purpose the plants are grown
quickly in a rich soil, and drawn up by being grown in a
sheltered situation, to which the sun has little access at
the sides, but only at the top. Pinching is resorted to, and
during the second year's growth one end of a thread is
attached to the top of the jasmine stem. This thread passes
over a pulley attached to the post to which this jasmine is
trained, and from it is suspended a weight, the effect of
which is to keep the stem always in a vertical direction.
When the jasmine stem is about two centimeters (say three
quarters of an inch) in diameter a cloth is wrapped around
it to prevent access of dust and of the sun's rays. Twice or
thrice in the year the stem is washed with citron-water,
which is said to give the clear color so much esteemed. When
the stem has acquired a length of some fifteen feet, it is
cut down and perforated by the workmen, and fitted with a
terra-cotta bow and an amber mouth-piece."
Blackburn, in his work entitled "Artists and Arabs," gives the
following picture of life and manners in Algiers:--
[Illustration: Female smoking in Algiers.]
"There is one difficulty here, however, for the artist--that
of finding satisfactory models. You can get one at last, and
here is her portrait. Her costume, when she throws off her
haik (and with it a tradition of the Mohammedan faith, that
forbids her to show her face to an unbeliever), is a rich,
loose, crimson jacket embroidered with gold, a thin white
bodice, loose silk trousers reaching to the knee and
fastened round the waist by a magnificent sash of various
colors, red morocco slippers, a profusion of rings on her
little fingers, and bracelets and anklets of gold filagree
work. Through her waving black hair are twined strings of
coins and the folds of a silk handkerchief, the hair falling
at the back in plaits below the waist. She is not beautiful,
she is scarcely interesting in expression, and she is
decidedly unsteady. She seems to have no more power of
keeping herself in one position or of remaining in one part
of the room, or even of being quiet, than a humming-top. The
whole thing is an unutterable bore to her, for she does not
even reap the reward--her father, or husband, or other male
attendant always taking the money. She is petite,
constitutionally phlegmatic, and as fat as her parents can
manage to make her; she has small hands and feet, large
rolling eyes--the latter made to appear artificially large
by the application of henna or antimony black; her attitudes
are not ungraceful, but there is a want of character about
her, and an utter abandonment to the situation, peculiar to
all her race. In short, her movements are more suggestive of
a little caged animal that had better be petted and
caressed, or kept at a safe distance, according to her
humor. She does one thing--she smokes incessantly, and makes
cigarettes with a skill and rapidity which are wonderful.
Her age is thirteen, and she has been married six months;
her ideas appear to be limited to three or four, and her
pleasures, poor creature, are equally circumscribed. She had
scarcely ever left her father's house, and had never spoken
to a man until her marriage. There seems to be in the
Moorish nature a wonderful sense of harmony and contrasts of
color. Two Orientals will hardly walk down a street side by
side unless the colors of their costumes harmonize. You find
a negress selling oranges or citrons; an Arab boy with red
fez and white turban, carrying purple fruit in a basket of
leaves--always the right juxtaposition of colors. The sky
furnishes them a superb background of deep blue, and the
repose of these solemn Orientals, who sit here like bronze
statues, save that they smoke incessantly, inspires you with
a curious respect. They are men who believe in fate--what
need that they should make haste?"
In Africa the pipes are made of clay and horn, and are mostly rude
affairs, but well suited to their ideas of implements used for holding
tobacco. King gives the following description of smoking among them:--
"A party of headmen and older warriors, seated cross-legged
in their tents, ceremoniously smoked the daghapipe, a kind
of hookah, made of bullock's horn, its downward point filled
with water, and a reed stem let into the side, surmounted by
a rough bowl of stone, which is filled with the dagha, a
species of hemp, very nearly, if not the same, as the Indian
bang. Each individual receives it in turn, opens his jaws to
their full extent, and placing his lips to the wide mouth of
the horn, takes a few pulls and passes it on. Retaining the
last draught of smoke in his mouth, which he fills with a
decoction of bark and water from a calabash, he squirts it
on the ground by his side through a long ornamented tube in
his left hand, performing thereon, by the aid of a reserved
portion of the liquid, a sort of boatswain's whistle,
complacently regarding the soap-like bubbles, the joint
production of himself and neighbor. It appeared to be a sign
of special friendliness and kindly feeling to squirt into
the same hole."
[Illustration: African pipe.]
We give an engraving of a kind of pipe used by the natives of interior
Africa. It is made of clay, and holds but a small portion of the weed.
The natives are great smokers and indulge in it almost constantly, but
their love for it can hardly exceed that of the more hardy Laplanders,
who are described as "passionately fond of the plant." Nothing is so
indispensable as tobacco to their existence. A Laplander who cannot
get Tobacco sucks chips of a barrel or pieces of anything else which
has contained it. Tobacco gives the Laplanders a pleasure which often
rises to ecstacy. They both chew and smoke, and they are certainly the
dirtiest chewers in the world. When they chew they spit in their
hands, then raise them to their nose that they may inhale from the
saliva the irritating principles of the plant. Thus they satisfy two
senses at the same time. They regularly smoke after their meals. If
their supply of Tobacco falls short, they sit down in a circle and
pass the pipe round, so that every one in his turn may have a
whiff.[53]
[Footnote 53: Reynard, in his "Travels In Lapland," says
of the use of tobacco: "We interrogated our Laplander
upon many subjects. We asked him what he had given his
wife at their marriage. He told us that she had been
very expensive to him during his courtship, having cost
him two pounds weight of tobacco and four or five pints
of brandy."]
"A Painter's Camp in the Highlands" defends the custom of smoking in
the following well chosen words:
"People who don't smoke--especially ladies--are exceedingly
unfair and unjust to those who do. The reader has, I
daresay, amongst his acquaintances ladies who, on hearing
any habitual cigar-smoker spoken of, are always ready to
exclaim against the enormity of such an expensive and
useless indulgence; and the cost of Tobacco-smoking is
generally cited by its enemies as one of the strongest
reasons for its general discontinuance. One would imagine,
to hear these people talk, that smoking was the only
selfish indulgence in the world. When people argue in this
strain, I immediately assume the offensive. I roll back the
tide of war right into the enemy's intrenched camp of
comfortable customs; I attack the expensive and unnecessary
indulgences of ladies and gentlemen who do not smoke. I take
cigar-smoking as an expense of, say, half-a-crown a-day, and
pipe-smoking at threepence.
"I then compare the cost of these indulgences with the cost
of other indulgences not a whit more necessary, which no one
ever questions a man's right to if he can pay for them.
There is luxurious eating, for instance. A woman who has got
the habit of delicate eating will easily consume dainties to
the amount of half-a-crown a-day, which cannot possibly do
her any good beyond the mere gratification of the palate.
And there is the luxury of carriage-keeping, in many
instances very detrimental to the health of women, by
entirely depriving them of the use of their legs. Now, you
cannot keep a carriage a-going quite as cheaply as a pipe.
Many a fine meerschaum keeps up its cheerful fire on a
shilling a-week. I am not advocating a sumptuary law to put
down carriages and cookery; I desire only to say that people
who indulge in these expensive and wholly superfluous
luxuries, have no right to be so hard on smokers for their
indulgence.
"Nearly every gentleman who drinks good wine at all will
drink the value of half-a-crown a-day. The ladies do not
blame him for this. Half-a-dozen glasses of good wine are
not thought an extravagance in any man of fair means, but
women exclaim when a man spends the same amount in smoking
cigars. The French habit of coffee-drinking and the English
habit of tea-drinking are also cases in point. They are
quite as expensive as ordinary Tobacco-smoking, and, like
it, defensible only on the ground of the pleasurable
sensation they communicate to the nervous system. But these
habits are so universal that no one thinks of attacking
them, unless now and then some persecuted smoker in
self-defence.
"Tea and tobacco are alike seductive, delicious, and
deleterious. The two indulgences will, perhaps, become
equally necessary to the English world. It is high treason
to the English national feeling to say a word against tea,
which is now so universally recognized as a national
beverage that people forget it comes from China, and that it
is both alien and heathen. Still, I mean no offence when I
put tea in the same category with Tobacco. Now, who thinks
of lecturing us on the costliness of tea? And yet it is a
mere superfluity. The habit of taking it as we do is unknown
across the Channel, and was quite unknown amongst ourselves
a very little time ago, when English people were no less
proud of themselves and their customs than they are now, and
perhaps with equally good reason. A friend of mine tells me
that he smokes every day, at a cost of about sixpence
a-week. Now, I would like to know in what other way so much
enjoyment is to be bought for sixpence. Fancy the
satisfaction of spending sixpence a-week in wine! It is well
enough to preach about the selfishness of this expenditure;
but we all spend more selfishly, and we all love pleasure,
and I should very much like to see that cynic whose
pleasures cost less than sixpence a-week."
[Illustration: Egyptian pipes.]
The Egyptian pipes, especially those of modern date are exceedingly
fanciful in shape and resemble somewhat the pipes used by the
Persians. Many of them are made of clay and are sold very cheap.[54]
The Chinese use a variety of pipes but all of them have small bowls
for the tobacco. Some of their pipes are made of brass and attached to
the pipe is a receptacle for water, so as to cool the smoke before it
passes into the mouth. The Japanese use both copper and silver pipes,
most of them similar in shape and size to those used by the Chinese.
[Footnote 54: Watlin says of smoking in Egypt: "Tobacco
is tolerated, and seems to become more common again,
though a smoker is generally disliked and not allowed to
perform the part of Imam or rehearse, of the prayers,
before a congregation. The greater part of the people,
however, detest and condemn still the use of tobacco,
and I remember a Shaumar Bedawry who assured me that he
would not carry that abominable herb on his Camel, even
if a load of gold were given him."]
[Illustration: Japanese pipes.]
A writer says of smoking among the Japanese:
"Let us sit down to a good Japanese dinner--down on the
floor. Food on the floor. Fire and cigars or pipes on the
floor. Sit on your heels, waiting. Enter first
course--Fish-skin soup. Smoke. Third--Fish, cake and
bean-cheese. Smoke. Fourth--Row fish and horse-radish.
Smoke. Fifth--Broiled fish. Smoke again, Sixth--Custard
soup. Smoke. Seventh--Chicken stew, turnips and onions.
Smoke a little. Eighth--Cuttle-fish, wafer cakes, Nipon tea.
Here, if tired you can stop at the end of about two hours'
ankle-ache. All is cleanly, well spiced with talk, and
served with the utmost politeness. Sipping tea may be
substituted for the infinitesimal whiffs of polite smoking.
A grand dinner is much more elaborate; at least, so far as
the variety of smokes is concerned. After dinner, rest and
smoke."
An English writer could very appropriately call this a cloud of smoke
as he has another scene herein described.
"'Tis all smoke, possibly, but what cannot we discern,
through a cloud of smoke? Objects dim, but
'Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallambrosa.'
Be the medium of the smoke an honest 'churchwarden,' a short
clay, or a costly meerschaum; does the smoke emanate from a
refined Havana, a neat Manilla, or a dainty cigarette, such
as we are at this moment enjoying as a sequel to a modest
breakfast, 'tis all smoke."
We have thus given a somewhat lengthy description of the custom and
implements used in smoking, from the first discovery of the plant
until now, and turn to other implements used in connection with the
pipe. We, however, give the following from Cop's "Tobacco Plant,"
descriptive of the part played by tobacco on the stage two centuries
ago:
"The 'Return from Parnassus' was published anonymously, and
the copy I have used is dateless. It was 'publicly acted by
the students of St. John's College in Cambridge.' In Act I.,
Scene 2d, characters are given of Spenser, Ben Jonson,
Marlow, Drayton, Marston and Shakespeare, together with some
other of the known poets and dramatists of the Elizabethan
age. It contains many references to tobacco. In 'Act IV.,
Scene 1st,' the characters are thus placed: 'Sir Rodericke
and Prodigo at one corner of the stage, Recorder and
Amaretto at the other. Two pages scouring of Tobacco pipes.'
Actual smoking from tobacco-pipes was introduced on the
stage afterwards; and instances from the early dramas have
been given by the writers on tobacco history. In the second
scene of Act III. smoking is alluded to as one of the marks
of the current man of fashion, and is coupled with that of
wearing love-locks, which was to prove such a scandal to the
Puritans. 'He gins to follow fashions. He wore thin
sireduelt in a smooky roofe, must take tobacco and must
weare a locke.' 'Work for Chimney Sweepers, or a Warning
against Tobacconists, by J. H.,' was published in quarto in
the year 1602.
"It was answered in the same year by the anonymous 'Defence
of Tobacco,' a quarto of seventy pages. The author of the
attack followed the line of King James, or, I should rather
say, showed him the line to take, for the King's
'Counterblast' did not appear until he had been King of
England for some years. The book is divided into sections,
each section being called 'A Reason.' The seventh 'Reason'
against the use of tobacco is, that the devil is the
discoverer and suggester of smoking. 'It was first used and
practised,' says J. H., 'by devils, priests, and, therefore,
not to be used by us Christians. That the devil was the
first author hereof. Monardus, in his 'Treatise of Tabaco,'
dooth sufficiently witnesse, saying: The Indian priests,
who, no doubt, were instruments of the devil, whom they
serve, even before they answer to questions propounded to
them by their princes, drinke of this tobacco-fume, with the
vigour and strength whereof they fall suddenly to the ground
as dead men, remaining so according to the quantity of smoke
that they had taken. And when the hearbe hath done his
worke, they revive and wake, giving answers according to the
vissions and illusions which they saw while they were wrapt
in that order.' It is not unlikely that J. H.'s authority
had confused opium with tobacco.
"It was the opinion of the age that every Pagan deity had a
real existence in the world of evil spirits. After further
quotations of Monardus, to prove that the devil is 'the
author of Tobacco, and of the knowledge thereof,' J. H.
concludes his seventh reason by declaring, 'Wherefore in
mine opinion this practice is more to be excluded of us
Christians, who follow Veritie and Truth, and detest and
abhor the devil as a lyar and deceiver of mankind.' In the
first year of this century, pipes were not only exhibited,
but were used upon the stage. They seem at first to have
been smoked, not during 'the induction.' In the induction to
Ben Jonson's 'Cynthia's Revels' (1601), the Third Child
says: 'Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors,
that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much
ado; and here take my place, and sit down, I have my three
sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I
begin.' The Third Child thereupon smokes; but it seems as if
the smoking on the stage was a kind of protest against a
prior smoking in the pit. In John Webster's 'Malcontent,' as
augmented by John Marston in 1604, Sly says in the
introduction: 'Come, coose, (coz or goose!) let's take some
tobacco.'
"In 'The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street,' published
in 1607, and attributed by some to Shakespeare,
tobacco-taking or tobacco-drinking (as smoking was then
usually called) appears no longer in the induction, but in
the play itself, Idle, the highwayman, says to the old
soldier, Skirmish, 'Have you any tobacco about you?' Idle
being supplied, smokes a pipe on the stage. These extracts,
however, may have been cited before, together with others of
like character in the great days of the English Drama. Pipes
continued to appear upon the stage until its abolition (in
company with the Prayer Book) by the Puritan rulers. They
reappeared on the stage of the Restoration. In Thomas
Shadwell's 'Virtuos' (1676),--to take one instance,--Mirando
and Clarinda fling away Snarl's cane, hat and periwig, and
break his pipes, because he 'takes nasty tobacco before
ladies.'"
There is printed evidence, however, in this same period to show not
only that all the English ladies of the time were not enemies to
tobacco, but that some of them were themselves smokers. In 1674 an
anonymous quarto appeared under the title of "The Women's Petition
against Coffee." It was a protest against the growing influence of the
coffee-houses in seducing men away from their homes to sit together
making mischief and drinking "this boiled soot." It was answered in
the same year by "The Men's Answer to the Women's Petition." After
speaking of the providential introduction of coffee into England in
the midst of the Puritan epoch, when Englishmen wanted some kind of
drink which would "at once make them sober and merry," the writer
glorifies the coffee-house.
John Taylor, "the Water Poet," made a kind of compromise when he
attributed the introduction of tobacco, not to the devil, but to
Pluto,--"Pluto's Proclamation concerning his Infernal Pleasure for the
Propagation of Tobacco." It appears in the folio collection of his
works of the year 1628. The confusion of tobacco with opium and such
destructive drugs seems to have been common with the travelers of the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. Camerarius, in his "Historical
Meditations," translated into English by John Malle (folio, 1621),
speaks of tobacco as to be seen growing in many gardens throughout
Europe. He quotes Jerome Benzo as saying that in Hispaniola "there be
among them some that take so much of it, as their senses being all
overcome and made drunke with the same, they fell down flat to the
ground as if they were dead, and there lie without sense or feeling
most part of the day or of the night."
The tobacco-box, during the reign of Elizabeth, was no unimportant
part of a dandy's outfit; sometimes a pouch or bag was used.
Tobacco-boxes came into general use in England soon after the
introduction of tobacco, and were much sought after by all who "drank"
tobacco. Marston, the Duke of New Castle, and other dramatists,
alluded to the tobacco-box as a part of the smoker's outfit; thus in
the play of "The Man in the Moone" (1609), one character, in answer to
an inquiry who one of the company is, answers: "I know not certainly,
but I think he cometh to play you a fit of mirth, for I behelde pipes
in his pocket; now he draweth forth his tinder-box and his touchwood,
and falleth to his tacklings; sure his throate is on fire, the smoke
flyeth so fast from his mouth; blesse his beard with a bason of water,
lest he burn it; some terrible thing he taketh, it maketh him pant and
look pale, and hath an odious taste, he spitteth so after it."
The tobacco boxes of the Seventeenth Century were much larger than
those of the present. Some of them held a pound of tobacco besides
space for a number of pipes.
Many of them were made of brass while others were fashioned from horn:
"There is also a simple and ingenious tobacco-box used
frequently in ale-houses, 'which keeps its own account,'
with each smoker and acts also as a money-box. It is kept on
parlor tables for the use of all comers; but none can obtain
a pipe-full, till the money is deposited through a hole in
the lid. A penny dropped in, causes a bolt to unfasten, and
allow the smoker to help himself from a drawer full of
tobacco. His honor is trusted so far as not to take more
than his pipe-full, and he is reminded of it by a verse
engraved on the lid:--
'The custom is, before you fill,
'To put a penny in the till.'"
[Illustration: Engraved boxes.]
Some of the tobacco boxes were made of silver and beautifully engraved
with fancy sketches, historical scenes, or representations of
personages, landscapes, flowers, etc. The late Duke of Sussex had a
large collection of pipes and tobacco boxes.
A journal describing them says of the collection:
"The Duke of Sussex
had a wonderful collection of these, the values attached to
some of them being almost fabulous. One example from the
work-shop of Vienna--long celebrated for this description of
art,--represented the combat of Hector and Achilles, the
cover of the pipe being a golden hemlet cristatus of the
Grecian type."
Swiss and Tyrolean artists also produce exquisite
carving, but use wood as a material; and in the famous collection of
Baron de Watteville will be found a marvelous piece of carving
representing Bellerophon overturning the Chimera. But French pipes are
the most interesting of all to collectors, from the fact that tobacco
was introduced into that country long before it was known in England,
and also from the ingenuity of a people who can give interest of
various kinds to what might seem a simple and prosaic branch of
manufacture. In the sentiment of the following lines on "A pipe of
Tobacco" by John Usher, all lovers of the plant will heartily join:
"Let the toper regale in his tankard of ale,
Or with alcohol moisten his thropple,
Only give me I pray, a good pipe of soft clay,
Nicely tapered, and thin in the stopple;
And I shall puff, puff, let who will say enough,
No luxury else I'm in lack o',
No malice I hoard, 'gainst Queen, Prince, Duke or Lord,
While I pull at my pipe of Tobacco.
"When I feel the hot strife of the battle of life,
And the prospect is aught but enticin',
Mayhap some real ill like a protested bill,
Dims the sunshine that tinged the horizon;
Only let me puff, puff,--be they ever so rough,
All the sorrows of life I lose track o',
The mists disappear, and the vista is clear,
With a soothing mild pipe of Tobacco.
"And when joy after pain, like the sun after rain,
Stills the waters, long turbid and troubled,
That life's current may flow, with a ruddier glow,
And the sense of enjoyment be doubled,--
Oh! let me puff, puff, till I feel _quantum suff_,
Such luxury still I'm in lack o',
Be joy ever so sweet, it would be incomplete,
Without a good pipe of tobacco.
"Should my recreant muse,--Sometimes apt to refuse
The guidance of bit and of bridle,
Still blankly demur, spite of whip and of spur,
Unimpassioned, inconstant, or idle;
Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries enough,
Such excitement is all I'm in lack o',
And the poetic vein soon to fancy gives reign,
Inspired by a pipe of Tobacco.
"And when with one accord, round the jovial board,
In friendship our bosoms are glowing;
While with toast and with song we the evening prolong,
And with nectar the goblets are flowing;
Still let us puff, puff--be life smooth, be it rough,
Such enjoyment we're ever in lack o';
The more peace and goodwill will abound as we fill
A jolly good pipe of Tobacco."
[Illustration: Tobacco jars.]
The tobacco jar is another accessory of more recent date than tobacco
pipes but interesting from the varieties of style and shapes. The
finest are made of porcelain and are lavish in design and enrichment.
Of all the articles of the smokers' paraphernalia none however exhibit
more fanciful designs than Tobacco-stoppers used by smokers for
crowding the tobacco into the pipe while smoking. The author of "A
Paper of Tobacco" says:
"This was the only article on which the English smoker
prided himself. It was made of various materials--wood,
bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver: and the forms
which it assumed were exceedingly diversified. Out of a
collection of upwards of thirty tobacco-stoppers of
different ages, from 1688 to the present time, the following
are the most remarkable: a bear's tooth tipped with silver
at the bottom, and inscribed with the name of Captain James
Rogers of the Happy Return whaler, 1688; Dr. Henry
Sacheverel in full canonicals, carved in ivory, 1710; a
boat, a horse's hind leg, Punch, and another character in
the same Drama, to wit: his Satanic majesty; a countryman
with a flail; a milkmaid; an emblem of Priopus; Hope and
Anchor; the Marquis of Granby; a greyhound's head and neck;
a paviour's rammer; Lord Nelson; the Duke of Wellington; and
Bonaparte. The tobacco-stopper was carried in the pocket or
attached to a ring worn on the finger."
In Butler's Hudibras it is alluded to in connection with the
astronomer's sign.
"----Bless us! quoth he,
It is a planet now I see;
And if I err not, by his proper
Figure that's like tobacco-stopper,
It should be Saturn!"
In James Boswell's "Shrubs of Parnassus" (1760) a description in verse
of the various kinds of tobacco-stoppers is given:
"O! let me grasp thy waist, be thou of wood
Or levigated steel, for well 'tis known
Thy habit is disease. In iron clad
Sometimes thy feature roughen to the sight,
And oft transparent art thou seen in glass,
Portending frangibility. The son
Of laboring mechanism here displays
Exuberance of skill. The curious knot,
The motley flourish winding down the sides,
And freaks of fancy pour upon the view
Their complicated charms, and as they please,
Astonish. While with glee thy touch I feel,
No harm my fingers dread. No fractured pipe
I ask, or splinters aid, wherewith to press
The rising ashes down. Oh! bless my hand,
Chief when thou com'st with hollow circle crowned
With sculptured signet, bearing in thy womb
The treasured Cork-screw. Thus a triple service
In firm alliance may'st thou boast."
Tobacco-stoppers were often made of wood from some relic like a
celebrated tree or mansion which gave additional value by its
historic associations. Taylor alludes to several made from the well
known Glastonbury thorn. He says:--
[Illustration: Tobacco stoppers.]
"I saw the sayd branch, I did take a dead sprigge from it,
wherewith I made two or three tobacco-stoppers, which I
brought to London."
Pipes and tobacco-stoppers have often been favorite testimonials of
friendship and reward. Fairholt says:--
"It was the custom during the last century to present
country churchwardens with tobacco-boxes, after the faithful
discharge of their duties."
The following lines from "The Tobacco Leaf," penned by some favored
one on receiving a rare pipe, are no doubt as neat as the object that
called them forth:--
"I lifted off the lid with anxious care,
Removed the wrappages, strip after strip,
And when the hidden contents were laid bare,
My first remark was: "Mercy, what a pipe!"
A pipe of symmetry that matched its size,
Mounted with metal bright--a sight to see--
With the rich umber hue that smokers prize,
Attesting both its age and pedigree.
A pipe to make the royal Freidrich jealous,
Or the great Teufelsdrockh with envy gripe!
A man should hold some rank above his fellows
To justify his smoking such a pipe!
What country gave it birth? What blest of cities
Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal?
What happy artist murmured "_Nunc dimittis_,"
When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl!
Has it been hoarded in a monarch's treasures?
Was it a gift of peace, or price of war?
Did the great Khalif in his "Houre of Pleasures,"
Wager and lose it to the good Zaafar?
It may have soothed mild Spenser's melancholy,
While musing o'er traditions of the past,
Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter Raleigh,
Ere sage King Jamie blew his "Counterblast."
Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern,
Escape that monarch's pipoclastic ken?
Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern,
Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben?
Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creation
Loom through its smoke--the spectre-haunted Thane,
The Sisters at their ghostly invocations,
The jealous Moor and melancholy Dane.
Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets,
Titania may have led her elfin rout,
Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets,
Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out.
Vain are all fancies--questions bring no answer;
The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains;
He were indeed a subtle necromancer,
Could read their records in its cloudy stains.
Nor this alone: its destiny may doom it
To outlive e'en its use and history--
Some ploughman of the future may exhume it
From soil now deep beneath the eastern sea.
And, treasured by some antiquarian Stultus,
It may to gaping visitors be shown,
Labelled: "The symbol of some ancient Cultus,
Conjecturally Phallic, but unknown."
Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel
'Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things?
Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral,
[Greek: Ôs phhyllôngenehê], as Homer sings?
For this: Some links we forge are never broken:
Some feelings claim exemption from decay;
And Love, of which this pipe was but the token,
Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away."
The verse that has been written in praise as well as dispraise of the
"Indian Novelty" would of itself fill a volume of no "mean
pretentions." The following clever lines from The Tobacco Plant
entitled "Puffs from a Pipe," convey much advice to all smokers of
tobacco.
Sage old friend! with judgment ripe;
Come and join me in a pipe.
Brother student! brother joker,
Thee I greet, O! brother smoker.
Smoke, O! men of every station,
Every climate, every nation.