The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-05-03
How They Smoke in Japan.

The visitor at a Japanese house,
after being RECALLED with tea and cake
in tiny dishes, next sees the rosy
checked maid enter with the tobacco
bon. On mimic mountain of white
ashes reposes a red cone of glowing
coal like volcano peak. A pinch of
fne-eut rolled into pill is put into the
brass pipe-bowl. and q light is had by
touching it to the coal. Then sitting
back on ones heels, elbow in palm
and pipe in mouth sociability and
smoke become the order of the hour.
Pendent from the girdle of the visitor
one will see long narrow. an oblong.
and perhaps small oval, bag of leath-
er, or of fine plated bamboo thread,
or of paper, stamped so as to closely
initiate leather These three pouches
contain the pipe. fine-cut tobacco, and
f1int and steel The clasp of the
pouch will usually be piece of
elaborate art in gold, inlaid or re-
pousse metal Connecting these uten-
sils of the smoker by a silken chord,
like ganglion its nerves, is a knob or
mass of carved ivory called netsuke.
The netsuke as to use is button; as
to art it is a statuette, portrait, bust.
figure, group, pun, or riddle, carved
| with exquisite skill. To the produc-
ton of this one article nearly all the
ivory imported into Japan during the
last three centuries has been applied.
On a Japanese dress of the old style
| neither pins. hooks and eyes. nor but
tons Gin our sense) were used. All
the flowing garments, whose weight
| fell ON shoulders or waist, were held
in order by the wide and many-folded
girdle. Fashion, the real Tycoon of
Japan, deereed the use, not of the
ponderons clay pipes or china bowls
of the Dutchman, but of Lilliputian
pellet-holders of brass the size of a
chincapin shell. This requires con-
slant refilling, and fire at hand to re-
light. This may be done either at the
glowing charcoal in the house h,bachi
| (fire brazier). or with a line of smok-
ing tow held in the hand as one walks.
The most common method, however,
ia to dump the spent and smoking
wad, and borrow fire from that. Hence
the need of fire-hoider ever ready at
hand and portable. By happy
thought the button holding the pouches
to the girdle was followed out on the
| upper side and made the receptacle.
| At first this button was cut from hard
wood selected from brier and other
roots, as being less likely tu burn--an
idea illustrated in modern American
pipes of the same material. The Jap
| anese word for root is ne, and that
meaning to fix, bold, or hang, is
tsuke, hence the origin of the name
netsuke. Even now the japanese
5snsbo, or poor man, uses only wood
en- button aud wad-holder-a true
nelsuke-while the rich and well-to-do
! sport their ivory carvings, which range
in value from a bm (quarter-dollar)
to i've hundred dollars. The button
tucked up under the light girdle holds
pipe and pouch snugly and gracefully.
The use of the weed, in spite of re-
strictive law and violent pamphleteer-
ing, became very general among all
| classes in the seventeeth century, until
at last even the Mikado, the son of
heaven, sat on the invisible throne in
halo of smoke. A demand for ele-
CANT netsuke grew up, and ivory cary-
| ing developed into steady and lu-
crative trade, in which some OF the
nimbiest fingers of the best artist-car-
yers won fame, riches. and sweeter
than all, social rewards. The names
of famous Japanese ivorists of the
eighteenth and the early part of the
nineteenth century are household
words among native conn0issedrs and
collectors-R E. GriTfs, in Harper $
| MdqIziRs.