CHAPTER XII
THE SMOKER'S CABINET
Old pipes—Pipe racks—Tobacco boxes—Smokers' tongs and stoppers—Snuff boxes and rasps.
The slave of the pipe and the moderate smoker of years gone by have left behind them relics in nearly every home. Such curios are found when pulling down old houses, and clearing out rubbish heaps; and even when making excavations in the vicinity of once occupied ground remains left behind by smokers of olden times are discovered.
Many are marked as curios on account of their curious forms; others have been regarded as such because their uses have become obsolete, and some because of their great beauty and the costliness of the materials of which they are made.
The collectable curios of the smoker's cabinet consist of clay pipes, varying from the earliest form known to the later types not far removed from the modern clays still smoked by workmen; of pipes of curious forms and quaintly carved bowls; and the Eastern pipes, which look more like show pieces in their size and forms than any pipe made for actual use. The curios include tobacco jars, spill cups, and ash trays; and there are also brass and copper spittoons and pipe racks. An old smoker's desk often contains odd curios, such as the one-time common pipe-stoppers, so many of which were made by Birmingham "toy-makers" in the eighteenth century.
Old Pipes.
When tobacco was first introduced into this country, and smoking was taught to those whose descendants in countless numbers were destined to worship at the shrine of my Lady Nicotine on British soil, the pipe was brought over too; for tobacco and the tobacco pipe are inseparable, although the pipe shares its popularity with cigars and cigarettes.
There are few records of early experiments in the modelling and baking of local clays by pipe makers; it was, however, soon discovered that Broseley clay was most suitable for the tobacco pipe, and there are pipes known to have been made at Broseley in the seventeenth century. The flat heels of the early pipes were useful in that pipes could then be laid down on the table. Then in the reign of James II an advance was made by the spur-like projection of the bowl, which was found to be convenient for the purpose of branding with the initials of the maker or his trade mark, and there are many examples of old marks, some of which are very curious, a not uncommon form being a punning rebus on the maker's name; thus we have a gauntlet, used by a man named Gauntlet.