17TH CENTURY CLAY PIPE.
Clay pipes have an enormous sale in this country at the present day, and we may assume that the publicans are the chief buyers, for it has long been the custom to give pipes away to patrons of beershops, without making any charge. Such pipes are mostly made from a Dorsetshire clay, the material being first well kneaded, moulded into pipe form, then dried, and lastly burnt in a kiln. The work of making this kind of pipe is so expeditious that a manufacturer can count on an output of five hundred pipes per day from each hand employed.
At one time there was a demand for "clays" of a more ornate kind, some of the bowls representing heads of popular or unpopular personages. For example, when the great Duke of Wellington tried to stop smoking in the army, except from the muzzles of the guns, he was caricatured in a pipe bowl in which his famous nose was given undue proportions, while the neck of the pipe bore the figure of a subaltern emulating the rude conduct of the gentleman in the Ingoldsby Legends—
"The sacristan said not one word
To indicate a doubt,
He put his thumb unto his nose
And spread his fingers out."
OLD ENGLISH EARTHENWARE SNAKE PIPE.