CLAY TOBACCO-PIPES.
An amusing treatise might be written on the variations in shape of the common tobacco-pipe since its first introduction into the country. Hundreds of specimens of old pipe-heads might soon be procured, and especially in the neighbourhood of London, where the same ground has been tilled for gardening purposes perhaps
some hundreds of years, and has received fresh supplies year after year from the ash-bin and dust-heap. I have about a dozen in my possession, which probably belong to various periods from the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The dearness of tobacco in the early times of its use is evinced by the smallness of the bowls, for many of them would hold at most not half a thimbleful of tobacco; while the shank, where it joins the bowl, is nearly double the thickness of that in use at the present day. If I recollect aright, the pipe as represented in Hogarth seems but little larger in the bowl than that in use a century before; the shape being in both the same, very much like that of a barrel. The sides of the bowl seem formerly to have been made of double or treble the thickness of those now in use. This will account for the good preservation in which they may be found after having been in the ground one or two centuries. The clay tobacco-pipe probably attained its present size and slimness, and (very nearly) its present shape, about the beginning of this century. I am well aware that, by many, all this will be esteemed as "in tenui labor," but, for my part, I look upon no reminiscences of the past, however humble, as deserving to be slighted or consigned to oblivion. Even the humble tobacco-pipe may be made the vehicle of some interesting information. Will any of your correspondents favour your other readers with some farther information on this subject?
Henry T. Riley.