From a Photograph.
Although I had not the good fortune to be present at such an inauguration, time did not hang heavily on my hands while waiting for the smokers to prepare for the contest.
THE JUDGES WEIGHING OUT THE COMPETITORS’ ALLOWANCES OF TOBACCO AND FILLING THE PIPES.
From a Photograph.
Glancing around the room I noticed with interest a large shield adorning the wall, upon which was arranged an assortment of most curious pipes, representing all corners of the globe. In fact, the place was a veritable museum of pipes, giving silent testimony of the character and degree of culture attained, as well as of the individual taste of smokers of almost every nation of the world. The lordly meerschaum, elaborately carved; the Turkish chibouque; the “hubble-bubble,” in which the fumes pass through water; the long German pipe, with its china bowl adorned with a gay picture; the Indian’s pipe of peace—all, their functions finished, now hang side by side in idle repose. A huge pipe carved from the stump of a tree and a pipe with a sea-shell for a bowl were conspicuous among the curiosities of the collection.
After my inspection of the museum the labour of deciphering the rules of the club, in Flemish, came as a less welcome task, but the secretary, always ready to be of service, aided my efforts, and I was able to discover the real objects of the association.
A casual observer might be somewhat surprised to find that a society of this kind should require numerous laws and regulations, but a glimpse at the workings behind the scenes of a Belgian “Rookersclub” furnishes convincing proof that the number of rules is in no way excessive, considering the importance of the institution, for the strictest discipline is a sine quâ non in a well-conducted “Rookersclub.”
Many are the duties of the members and the regulations for competitions. No applicant can be elected unless he has reached the age of eighteen. Cigars and cigarettes are tabooed, the pipe being looked upon as the only justifiable means of satisfying that craving which makes us slaves to the weed. The chief object of the club being to teach, through its disciples, the world at large the use of tobacco and to guard against its abuse, it wisely refrains from over-indulgence, and asks no more from its members than that they should “smoke at least one pipe at every club meeting.”
