Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-01-16
TOBACCO PIPES.
a Curious and Extensive Cole ction, with
Interesting Facts.

N curious ana Extensive Collection, with
Interesting Facts.
Most men, and even some women, would
find much to interest them in unique col
lection which is now on exhibition in Ed
inburgh, and which is catalogued in the
ScOtchman of that city. 1t is collection of
5000 pipes of all nations, the whole valued
at 5000 The interest of the collection to
smokers is sufficiently obvious, and if man
smokers should too hastily determine that
an assemblage of tools for burning tobacco
had no interest for them, they would make
a great mistake. for, besides its curiosities.
the collection contains for those who can
find it much information as to the artistic
and mechanical development of the nations
which smoke, and which of them do not
What progress is involved, for instance.
in the passage from the English small
bowled clay pipe of 1910 to 1870, to speci-
mems of blue Wedgwood or Worcestershire
and Stafford ware, and which doubtless
deserve their description as exquisite Or,
comparing nation with nation, as well as
pipe with pipe what inference would not
The student Of anthropology. who had no
other source of information draw from
two pipes-one rude like those from Sibe-
ria with stems made from thong-bound
slips of OF wood. and the other fashioned
is symmetfically as any statue? Or who,
considering the nature of its intended
services, would hesitate to say that pipes of
gems and precious metals, like those from
central Asia and Turkey, betoken bar
barrie taste in comparison with the beaut:-
full and comparatively cheap bowls of We
neiian glass or Seyres chinaware in which
material goes for nothing, and fitness and
work .nanship for all We would not even
infereatially say that anything. is good
enough to burn tobacco in on the contrary
jasper, agate, jade and serpentine, or the
silver used in Japan, and the polished
precious stones used in Circassia, are none
too good, but only woman, dandy or q
savage would use them to put fire in.
Other national characteristics are expressed
in these pipes. The Swiss and the Scandi-
navians carve theirs; bowls of painted
porcelain are common in Germany; Rus
STA sends some stems embroidered with
flowers and an American Indians pipe is
decorated with scalps and womans work
in beads and porcupine quilts Among
the curiosities is pipe which belonged to
the Corporation of Cologne, and was
smoked by the giant F" of their guild pro-
cessions one has cluster of five bowls,
but it does not appear how many are
smoked at once; another has bowl for
each day in the week. In the Dutch case
is the bridegroom pipe, q long clay dec
GRATED with gaudy ribbons, which is
smoked only on the wedding day and lis
anniversaries; there is a tomahawk pipeand
Polynesian club pipe, which are equally
useful in peace or war and finally, there
is the biggest pipe, of which the stem is
five feet eight inches long, the dimensions
of the bowl not being given. A suspicion
arises that this is merely show pipe and
SO it is probable that q pipe ordered some
two or three years ago by Russian Count
from a maker in this city remains on the
records as the biggest pipe intended for
actual use. The block of meerschaun from
which it was cut weighed, when ready for
the stem, just half pound, and measured
OF inches from the outer edge to the Joint.
The stem was made from a single piece of
clouded amber 81 inches long, and was
joined to the bowl by a silver screw. The
total length was II! inches, the weight was
IA ounces, and the cost only 5000, as the
bowl, though nicely shaped, was not
carved at all.