FIG. 83.—BRASS TOBACCO BOX.
(In the British Museum.)
Smokers' Tongs and Stoppers.
Curious little ember tongs were formerly used by smokers for taking up hot embers or ashes with which to light their pipes. Of these there are several varieties, most of them of polished steel, cut and chased. In the eighteenth century similar tongs were used for holding cigars; some were fitted with small knives, and a few of the earlier examples included tinder boxes. Not infrequently one end of the handle terminated in a tobacco stopper.
Stoppers, were, however, destined soon to become an independent and important smokers' accessory. They were made of different materials, including brass, steel, bone, and ivory, to some being added a pick for clearing out the bowl of a pipe. Many curious handles were modelled, among the varieties being some representing soldiers in armour of the time of James I. There is one favourite type representing Charles I, crowned, and wearing the collar of the Garter, and another a bust of Oliver Cromwell. In one example a farm labourer works a flail, in another a milkmaid goes a-milking with her pail. There are many varieties of a hand holding a pipe, of jockeys and prize-fighters, and of St. George and the Dragon.
The three stoppers illustrated in Fig. [82] are quite exceptional specimens, illustrating, however, the kind of stopper which collectors should keep a keen look out for. These examples are in the British Museum along with a few others of seventeenth and eighteenth-century manufacture, having striking characteristics. One is described as having a human figure at the butt, and at the other end a crowned head. The third example is an historic souvenir, having been made, as the inscription on the stopper indicates, from the royal oak which sheltered Charles II, by Mr. George Plaxton, at one time "parson of the parish."
In the Taunton Castle Museum there is an exceptionally beautiful stopper made of ivory inscribed:—
"NOW . MAN . WITH . MAN . IS . SO . VNJVST .
THAT . ONE . CAN . SCARCE . TELL . WHO . TO . TRVST."
There are similar stoppers in private collections. The inscription on one at South Petherton reads:—