n the days when long
clay pipes were served to the guests, and a bowl of punch was placed
before them--it was thus that convivial spirits enjoyed themselves in
time gone by.

Now and then these old pipe racks are met with in some outhouse or
attic, but they are getting very scarce, for most of them appear to have
found their way into the scrap heap of the old-metal dealer. Some of the
racks intended for the storage of pipes and not for baking them were
exceedingly decorative, the ornamental sides terminating with acorn
knobs made of cast lead.

Tobacco Boxes.

It seems natural to suppose that the need of a suitable receptacle for
tobacco would early be felt. Many of the old tobacco boxes--those for
storage purposes--were made of lead or pewter. Lead was found to be cool
and was also used as an appropriate lining for boxes made of other
materials. Jars soon came into vogue, and there are quite ancient
specimens, especially the old japanned boxes, ornamented with figures in
gilt.

There is, of course, a vast difference between the storage jar and the
smaller box carried about by the smoker much in the same way as the
pouch is now used. Many still prefer metal to other materials, and it is
no uncommon thing to see brass and steel boxes in use in industrial
districts. Few, however, excepting modern replicas of the antique, are
decorated in the way the old Dutch tobacco boxes of brass were in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is not very clear why so many
of them were engraved with scriptural subjects, for there does not
appear to be much connection between biblical history and the pipe!
Engravings of scenes depicting Noah and the Flood are common, the
incongruity of the clothing shown being often commented upon; one writer
upon the subject referred to the engravings on one of these tobacco
boxes as being ornamented with Jewish characters wearing knee breeches
of English type, talking to Dutch frauen. Historical portraits are not
uncommonly met with on these quaint boxes, and quite a number of battle
scenes have been engraved. Such metal work has been gathered together
in several museums, and in the British Museum there is a fine collection
of various shapes, some oval, others long and narrow, and some almost
square. The brass tobacco box illustrated in Fig. 83 has a medallion
portrait of Frederick the Great in the centre, such embossed subjects
being very popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries