Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-01-16

"MEERscHAuAs-"-Afrie friendly correspondent.
who is a great pipe fancier, aud has quite
variety of them, asks if it is true that the
meerschaum pipei is made Of sea-foam, as many
believe
before We go q single line further, We
must mention a remarkable circumstance
in our newspaper experience, which for years
embiitered our editorial life, and came near
driving Us broken-hearted and disguised from
the profession. There are three words known
to the standard lexicons Of the present GEN.
fury that we never could, until within
short time back, succeed in getting into
print correctly spelt. Those words are
.-Deuced' 'R q,riescat," and "AeTschd UNI
words without the use of which your one
horse editor finds it difficult to preserve I'M
bIemished the characteristics OF his profeS-
sion, unless he is profane enough to say
.'deviIish,n wise enough to write no obitua-
ries, and is sufficiently self-denying to de-
cline the gift of any pipe that does not owe
it's origin TO eorn-cob. Some years ago we
wrote an article with these words in it regn-
larry every morning FOR week, to see if we
could MT bully the printer into an act of SIM
pie Justice to their orthOgraphy but we
failed in every instance, and at last gave it
up in despair and fell back upon their
Synonyms for that tranquility of mind and
equanimity of temper which, as we had
clearly demonstrated, they had no power 10
yield. Not long since our much esteemed
friend Col. 7. brought around a beautiful
meerschaum, (fresh from the shops of Vienna
and as light as a cork of which he converted
us into the proprietor by virtue of an un-
written deed of gift; but We made no men
ton of the interesting fact in these well-flled
columns, as is the memorable but seldom the
unexceptionable custom in such cases with
individuals in this line of trade, for We were
not then quite sure that we possessed the
necessary facilities for putting the word
"meerschaum" in type without impairing It's
orthography. Our present corps OF compos-
itors. however, are young gentlemen OF in
telIigence, learned in the art preservative
and all the auxiliary and collateral arts and
sciences, and hence our correspondents need
cate dictionary" they may throw into their
communications will be made the victim Of
wordicide in this ofice.l
We could not consistently advise our
correspondent to invest his money in pipes
made of sea-foam, and for several reasons.
the chief Of which are:
L. As a general thing, and for the small
sum of two dollars aud half We'll say as
universal thing. pipes made of sea-foam are
not reliable
II. They are extremely high-priced in this
market, and last but very short time;
which is also characteristic of the common
run of pipes made of mOOnshine.
LII. They don't make pipes of sea-foam
here of late years.
". They never did make them of it. and,
V. They never will.
Meerschaum is kind of clay. (oh, We know
all about iii. found in various parts of
Europe, and is made into tobacco-pipes by
the Germans, whose chief diet after that at
WOrms)is tobacco-smoke. and in whose verna-
cular the word meerschaum means sea-foam,
tbe cray DeinS 50 cdlieu, We presume, IIom
its resemblance, 10. color and lightness, to
the foam of the sea. The price ofpipes made
of this material depends about equally upon
the quality and finish of the article and the
quantity of brains and "brads" the purchaser
may have about him. They generally sell
at from two to fifty dollars, but when they
come in contact with an uncommonly large
fool, which they frequently do in Paris and
Constantinople. they sometimes run up to
three or four thousand dollars. We never
bought but one, and for that we paid but six
bits. We thought it extremely cheap at the
time lit has been long while since), and
continued to think SO until the thing turned
out to be villainous combination of wax,
plaster of Paris and d.cayed tallow.