Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1890-12-30

A Simple, OId-Fashioned Find Over
powers AN New Competitors.
| 1t is curious fact that the use OF
narcotics should prevail all over the
world. Amongst those largely used,
tobacco is a prime favorite, and is
mostly INDUCED in through the medium
of smoking. Since the days of Raleigh
pipe manufacturers have greatly i'm
! proved on the curious smoking appa-
| ratus still preserved as relic of Sir
| Walter. The discovery of some small
pipes in tho mortar of one of our an
cient abbeys seems to indicate that the
! practice of smoking some native herb
was customary prior to the introduction
of tobacco from America.
Some of the first pipes used in Eliza
beth's time consisted of walnut shells
furnished with stems of strong straw.
Pipes of iron, silver, clay and wood sue
ceeded-till we come to the meer-
! schaum. The white earthen porous
pipe ranks first, as the best absorber OF
nicotine, just as the metallic pipe comes
last for opposite reasons. The meer-
schaum Immediately follows the clay
pipe, but, when fully seasoned, it is no
better than wooden pipe.
A shoemaker in Hungary, who was
| ingenious in carving, has the honor of
having carved the first pipe from a
piece of meerschaum which had been
presented to him as a curiosity. Its
porous nature struck the shoemaker as
being we'll adapted for absorbing nico-
tine. That first meerschaum has been
preserved in the museum of Pesth. The
innaninuc Pnnn6 thaf hn
makers wax, which in the course of his
trade accidentally adhered to the bowl,
on being rubbed off brought out clear
brown polish. He therefore waxed the
whole surface, polished the pipe, smoked
it, and admired the colored result.
Pipes of this description. were at first
confined to the richest European noble
men until 1880, when they came more
generally into use.
Ruh1a, a mountain village in Thur
ingia, is the center of the pipe manu-
facture of Germany, where they turn
out over half million real meerschaums
yearly, besides thousands of other
pipes of infinite variety, made Of wood,
lava, clay, porcelain and vast numbers
of imitation meerschaums. The dis
q. covery of the art of making false meer-
schaums from the dust left after cary
ing and boring the real article was a
secret for some time. But pipes of this
description do not color so we'll, for the
porous character of the native meer-
schaum is partly lost in the process
There are five qualities of meerschaum
used in making pipes. The best is
known by its facial absorption of the
nicotine, which gradually develops into
a rich brown blush upon the surface
The absorption of the essential oils of
tobacco purifies the smoke, and the
| harmful qualities of tobacco decrease
as its flavor improves.
To touch on the subject of pipe-color-
ing, smokers may be reminded that as so
many ,meerschaums are not genuine,
! they may often offer up their incense
to the goddess Nicotina in vain. AS a
rule, new bowl should not be smoked
to the bottom, nor, when it is warm,
| touched by the hand, nor vet the color
ing produced too rapidly. 1t is said
two clever French chemists have in
! vented royal road to the coloring of a
meerschaum. By the application of
| ether and alcohol, combined with an
essence, such as that Of rose, in which
ten per cent. of camphor and the same
proportion of borate of soda are dis
solved, they have succeeded in endow-
ing cigar-holders and pipe-bowls with
the property of rapidly assuming that
yellowish- brown tint of maturity so
dear to the lovers of the weed.
For mouthpieces the Turks were the
first to adopt amber. AS all pipe-fan-
ciers know, the clear amber is the
least valuable and the clouded the
greatest favorite, the best of all being
that of the Opaque yellow color. This
material was used by the Turks for
| mouthpieces in the belief that it would
convey no infectious disease. This be-
lief could hardly have been shared by
the American humorist when he dis
covered the 'taste of generations" on
the mouthpiece of the Eastern pipe,
which is one of the attendant luxuries
Of the hot bath.
The pipes of Turkish dignitary are
magnificent according to the rank of
! his visitors. A pasha possessed col
lection of pipes said to be worth thirty
thousand pounds sterling, many of them
being ornamented with diamonds. Some
Eastern pipes have tassels of diamonds
depending from them, besides rings of
the same precious stones round the am
Der mouthpieces. The pipe which the
| Shah of Persia smokes in public is in
crusted with diamonds, rubies, pearls
| and emeralds of great value.
Lord Byron in his Eastern travels be-
came great pipe-fancier, and Disraeli
when in Cairo proved himsalf an accaua-