Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1888-08-10
SMOKING IN JAPAN.
The Utensils Considered Indispensable to
Well-to-Do Smokers.

WelI-tO-Do Smokers.
The visitor at 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 red cone of glowing
coal like volcano peak. A pouch OF
fine-cut rolled into a pill is put into the
brass pipe-bowl. and Il 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, All oblong, and
perhaps small oval. bag of leather,
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 flint
and steel. The clasp of the pouch
will. usually be piece of elaborate
art in gold, inlaid or pousse
metal. Connecting these utensils of the
smoker by silken cord. like gang
lion its nerves, is knob or mass of
carved ivory called a netsuke. The
netsuke as to use is button; as to art
is a statuette. portrait. bust, figure,
group. pun or riddle, carved with ex-
quisite skill. To the production of this
one article nearly all the ivory inn
ported into Japan during the last three
centuries has been applied. On a
japanese dress of the old style neither
pins. hooks and eyes. nor buttons lin
our sense) were used. All the flowing
garments, whose weight fell on Shout
ders or waist, were held in order by
the wide and many-folded girdle
Fashion, the real Tycoon of Japan, de-
creed the use, not of the ponderous
clay pipes or china bowls of the Dutch
man, but of l.illiputian pellet-holders
of brass the size of chincapin shell.
This requires constant refilling, and
fire at hand to relight. This may be
done either at the glowing charcoal in
the house hi6achi (fire brazier). or with
a line of smoking tow held in the hand
as one walks.
The most common method, however,
is to dump the spent and smoking wad,
and borrow fire from that Hence the
need of a fire-holder ever ready at hand
and portable. BY a happy thought the
button holding the pouches to the Cir
die was followed out on the upper side
and made the receptacle. At first this
button was cut from hard wood selected
from briar and other roots, as being
less likely to burn-an idea illustrated
in modern American pipes of the same
material. The Japanese word for root
is ne, and that meaning to fix, hold, or
hang, is tSUbe. hence the origin of the
name netsuke. Even now the Japanese
6imbo, or poor man. uses only a wooden
button and wad- holder-a true ne
tsuke-while the rich and well-to-do
sport their ivory carvings. which range
in value from bu (quarter-dollar) to
five 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 seventeenth century,
until at last even the Mikado, tho son
of Heaven, sat on the invisible throne
in a halo of smoke. A demand for
elegant netsuke grew up, and ivory
carving developed into steady and
lucratiya tradp in which soma of tho
nimblest fingers of the best artists
carvers 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 connoisseurs and
collectors. " E. Grifis. in Harper S
Magazine.