PLAN No. 406. SPIT-FIRE BOTTLE
A young man who thought he could afford amusement for many people at a good profit to himself, went to a wholesale drug store and bought a pound of metallic sodium. This he removed from the can and soaked it in lamp oil until soft, then dried it on a glass surface, and with a piece of lead pipe rolled it out into sheets about 1⁄8 of an inch thick. These he cut into sticks 3 inches long, and 31⁄2 inches wide, and put two sticks into a dram glass vial, labeled “Spit-Fire.” Moistening causes it to burn.
Taking one of these vials into a barber shop, a hotel lobby, a cigar stand or a crowd of people at a park, or a picnic, he would take a small piece of it and lay it on top of a pipeful of tobacco, then spit on it and the tobacco would light. A small particle of it dropped into a glass of water or into acid will burn. He offered this at 15 cents per bottle and sold them by hundreds to people who liked novel means of amusement. He also mounted the vials on cards containing a dozen each, and sold them to dealers for 75 cents per card.
One pound of metallic sodium is enough for 1,000 bottles, and the cost for vials, labels and corks is about $3.75, while the metallic sodium is not expensive. For 1,000 bottles, at 15 cents each, he received $150, so you can see the amount of profit in this plan.