s
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.

The earlier forms of clay pipes gradually gave way to the long-stemmed
"churchwardens," which in course of time were again superseded by pipes
with short stems. The meerschaum in its day had many followers, and some
of the curiosities of the smoker's cabinet (the term "cabinet" is used
here in a figurative rather than a realistic sense) are those
elaborately carved specimens of meerschaum, that remarkably light
material that lends itself so well to the carver's art.

Pipe Racks.

There appear to have been two distinct forms of racks--those used for
cleaning or rebaking clay pipes, and the racks on which they were
stored. The pipe rack was originally a wrought-iron frame upon which
dirty clay pipes were stoved in a brick oven and restored to their
original freshness. The stoving of pipes was a common practice not only
in taverns and public clubs but in private houses i