Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1859-10-11

One DOur WOulQ SuLuce W SCI HAL iIeo itoh
all his troubles, and permit him to walk the
streets at liberty, embarrassed by plumbers, car
penterss, tinners GLACIERS, gas-fxers carpet 1T
ters, bell hangers, and the whole tribe of bell
pullers!
We are now living at peace. We are in q
plain two story house, without "convenlences.
We are recruiting Nothing gets out OF order.
We do not wake to hear water trickling from
bursted pipes; we have no chandeliers to fall
down; the gas never leaks; we are not afraid to
use our furniture; our chairs have no linen
clothes on the carpets are without drugget.-
The children bless the country and country
house, in which they are not always scratching
something, or hitting something with shoe or
button, or finger nails. And we already feel
that few weeks more will 80 far invigorate US
that we shall be able to return for ten months
life in modern house aoith conusniences.
MRRRoHAUM PIpRs-The Philadelphia North
American says: AS you smoke tosbacco it die
tils an essential oil-acrid and offensive to de-
gree. Upon the inside of porcelain or COM
mon clay pipe, the oil crystalizes and the pipe
soon becomes pungent. The meerchaum, on the
contrary, is highly porous and absorbs the oil OF
tobacco, though in q manner that we cannot ex-
plain. The new pipe at first becomes straw COL
ored on the outside, a shade which deepens un-
til it becomes as black as ebony. The more oil
of tobacco it absorbs, and consequently the
blacker it becomes, the more exqulsitely does
the tobacco taste. After the pipe is once satu-
rated with the oil, it absorbs no more, and the
pipe is always ''swee:," and never acquires the
rank and offensive odor peculiar to other pipes.
This is the sole merit of the merchaum-that
it is perfectly neat and nearly inodorous. What
we canuot account tor is this: Though the pipe
is perfectly white when new, and must, of
course, be first colored on the inside yet though
it becomes colored externally till of jetty black
ness you will find on breaking it, that the
inside of the pipe is perfectly white. Another
popularity OF the meerohaum is, that, when
heated you may perforate it with pin and that
when cold the mark made by the pin is no long
er visible.
AS some of our readers may be interested in
neerchaum smoking, a few directions as to the
mode of coloring the pes may not come amiss.
Imprimis, then if a purchaser pulls away at his
newly purchased twenty dollar meerchaum, as
he would q common clay one, the odds are that
he will calcne the inside of the bowl, and thus
prevent it from colorjng ever afterwards. In
this case the stem, if it be also of meerchaum,
will become black as jet, while the bowl will be
dirty yellow.
1t must ct first be smoked carefully and slow
", not being permitted to become too hot to be
held in the hand; while the exulting possessor
OF the article will remember that when heated
the least touch will scratch its surface. The best
plan is to take it to q glovers and and have q
piece of buckskin sewed closely round the bowl
until the coloring process Is accomplished.
With these precautions the genuine meer-
schaum is colored in about years time to the
desired blackness. The process, however, may
be facilitated-this we give as piece OF our
own private internationally saturating piece
of sponge in perfumed sweet oil, inserting it
in the bottom of the bowl of the pipe, just
reaching above the bore, and placing button
mold over it to separate the tobacco and protect
the sponge from burning. The oil assists the
process of absorption and carries with it the oil
of tobacco through the pores. If otto OF roses
be used with sweet oil, it will impregnate it
an enduring perfume that will render 1t especial
ly delightful to the smoker, however abhorrent
it may be to those who eschew smoking and
smokers.