Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-07-25
THE MgERSCHAUM.
A Visit to an Expert Pipemaker on the
Rhine.

Rhine.
Mayence is about as far up the Rhine as
tourists go on the steamers. 1t has cathe-
dral remarkable for its ugliness to the ordi-
nary observer and for its beauty to the
architect. Going from the river front lead
ing TO the square on which the cathedral
stands is narrow, winding street, with
tall houses and a slit of blue sky overhead.
At the corners are some of the most Won
derful pipe stores in the world. These
places are lined and hung and festooned
with pipes of every description. There are
the long Rhine pipes with their chromoed
China bowls and meerschaum pipes of
every variety. Perhaps the most wonder
full pipes to be seen there are those from the
Black Forest. with bowls as big as your
head. These bowls are of the knot of some
tree, and they are carved with ali sorts of
fantastic devices. the favorite being hounds
and hunter chasing deer.
Leading from one of these pipe shops is
a very narrow, creaky and uncertain stair
way winding up to the roof. In the very
top room, with a window projecting over
the messy, red tile-steep roof, sits one of
the most expert pipe-makers on the Rhine
He has a little workbench fixed almost in
the window, and attached to it is a small
lathe and wise. Chunks of white meer-
cred with the white dust that comes from
the turning and carving. From that high
window is a view of the muddy Rhine and
the long bridge of boats which stretches
across it. This workman at odd times
comes down TO the ordinary pipe work
the NubianS head, the bowl in the claws of
fowl, and the other conventional shapes
that meerSchaum pipes in the tobacconist's
windows have made US familiar with but
his general work is much ahead of that
He is an artist in his way-a portrait art
ist Before him at this time was a photo
graph of President Garfield and with the
bowl of the future pipe fixed in the wise
he was tashtonlng with minute chisels the
mass of meerschaum into sculptured
head of the dead President This particu-
lar pipe has been ordered from America,
and it was to cost big amount Just how
much the American was to paw for it the
German could not say, and how much the
carver was to receive he would not say.
Anyhow before it reached the smokers
hands there were several large profits to be
made, and no doubt the smallest was that
of the artist who made it. 1t seemed that
quite large business was done in this stvle
of portraiture, Some photos of handsome
young ladies were there, and pipes were to
be made with the features copied. 1t
seemed rather shady compliment to pay
to the girls, rs their faces were sure To be-
come anything but the lily color they
would be when they left the carver's hands.
As near as could be gathered from his
rather gruff remarks, the meerschaum was
quarried in the chunks we saw it. and
large specimen was exceedingly rare The
humps, when soft, could easily be pressed
together like any other piece of clay, but the
pressure would spoil the porousness of it
and ii would not color The chips of the
meerschaum that We're too small to make
little pipes or cigar-holders of were kneaded
together and sort OF cheap meerschaum
pipe made, that the dealer in the off streets
IN England could sell at very low figure
and yet be quite truthful in their assur-
ance that they were genuine meerschaum.
while, as the time honored pun has it, they
were q mere sham instead, and would
under no provocation, color. The nice
thing about these pipes is that the ordinary
smoker cannot tell the cheap from the dear.