ITALIAN PIPE OF MOTHER-OF-PEARL.
Now, it is quite certain that a man possessing this amount of resource would never have designed a pipe with three bowls in order that he might at the same moment inhale three different kinds of tobacco; he would have done what many smokers prefer to do at the present day—that is, he would have mingled his various kinds of tobacco and smoked them in a pipe of normal construction. The modern German pipes, affected chiefly by students, are too well known to need illustration. They have most capacious bowls of porcelain, and bear a painted picture, generally the representation of a more or less pretty maid.
But the Germans and French must not have it all their own way with the curiosities of pipeland. We give a photograph of an English one, which may be meant for a snake with a man's head, or a catherine wheel; and, if its coils could be opened out, it would measure many feet in length. It is made of earthenware, of a buff colour, covered with brown spots. He would be a bold man who would venture into the smoking-room of a London club with such a grotesque thing between his lips. But it was used before the days of modern clubs.
PERFORATED SILVER PIPE CASE.
THIS PIPE IS SMOKED IN THE CASE.
Italy supplies many examples of curious pipes. One is a bowl made from a natural shell resplendent with mother-of-pearl; it has an earthenware lining and silver cap. Another is a pipe of glass—not more brittle perhaps than a clay "churchwarden," but rather too expensive to risk between the teeth, for it is a fine example of that beautiful Venetian-glass work which is not excelled throughout the world.
A third Italian pipe is like the fur seal, in that the most valuable part of it is its skin, or case, made of finely-perforated silver. It will be noted that the pipe is too long for the case, an intentional peculiarity, in order that it may be smoked while encased in its handsome covering.