The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1910-01-28
EXPENSIVE SMOKING OUTFITS.
Pipes at $500 Apiece and Tobacco at
SO a Pound


Il keep some pipes here that are price,
a. high as 800, > said tobacconist. VIII
keeps an extensive line OF smokers sup
plies. Il don't sell many of them, bu
there is pretty fair profit in them, s.
that its worth while to keep them oil
hand. Mostly they're bought by fraterna
organizations as gifts for members who "
achieved a silver wedding or done some
thing mertorious in behalf OF the trater
nifty. or something OF that sort. They n
meerschaums finely carved. Occasionally
the grown children OF some elderly Ger
man will chip in and buy one OF them fol
| their father as a birthday gift. The Ger
mans still like meerschaum pipes, but
meerschaums are practically dead issue
the ordinary. uncarved kind, | mean-foI
the everyday smoker. Not onetenth as
many of them are sold now as were SOLD
ten or fifteen years ago.
The meeschaum pipe Is an example oil
good thing being virtually killed by a
standard newspaper Joke. When the .Jok-
lists began to write their funny stuff about
men smoking themselves black in the face
irving to color meerschaum pipes that set
tied It. The meerschaum pipe became a
sort of laugh. The man who owned one
got so he hated to smoke 1t when his
friends were around.
"Then too. the great improvement IN
the making of the briar pipes did Its
share toward banishing the meerschaum.
The meerschaum, you see, never was as
hardy pipe. anyhow. as the briar. When
you let a meerschaum pipe fall the chances
were about four out of five that 1t would
smash. 1t was a pretty discouraging thing
for fellows who'd spent years in coloring
meerschaums to have them break into bits
upon their first fall. Moreover, the meer-
schaum never was as hygienic a pipe as
the briar. The amount of nicotine that
the meerschaum pipe absorbs is bound to
make it strong and dizzyfying, so to speak.
| never could quite see how or why the
game of coloring meerschaum pipe was
worth the candle BY industnousy smok-
ing the pipe for a certain term OF years
you got brown or black bowl. wen,
what of it? Why wouldn't it have been
lust as well had the bowl remained white!
I've some briar pipes here that sell for
as high as $50, but they, too, are mostly
gift affairs, with good deal of gold gin
care to smoke one of them myself if
were as rich as Rockefeller. The gold
trimmings become heated and burn the
fingers, and the pipes are too nifty and
ornate, anyhow, for comfortable handling.
Just as fine briar pipe as man need
want to smoke can be bought for IS, and
irst rate pipes sell for 50 to SO. -Four dol
ars is about the average price of perfect
,riar pipe. The best briars come from
london and Dublin. Of late years the
IRISH pipes are making their way in this
ountry. The Irish briars give little
reater variety in shapes than the Eng
sh pipes. but both the London and the
dublin pipes are the last word in that
md of a pipe. I've been selling briar '
ipes for thirty years, and I've never been {
BILE to learn why it is that we don't make l
$ good briar pines in this country as are
lade in Great Britain; but it's the sim t
lie fact of course that ouE briars are no t
here near the foreign article. We've got !
ne wood in this country. and we can get t
ne amber and make the vulcanite and all t
nat; but somehow we don't seem to be e
Ole to assemble the materials into top p
otch briar pipe. As the matter stands and a
ids fair to stand for years to come, the il
ritish manufacturers of briar pipes can n
Nv the heavy duty on their pipes and still b
ltsel the American briars without the il
asst trouble. IL
81 carry some smoking tobaccos here
lat sell for as high as SO pound. There's k
tile call for such brands. but L sell enough h
keep them from drying up on me. / k
MT say that | would care to smoke to- Ell
Iccos of this kind, though I'm pipe smo- Y
II. | smoke a brand that costs only m
yhty cents pound and get all the fun in e,
e out of it. These excessively high priced f
loking mixtures and other mixtures that NJ
n for 81 or S. pound usually are called ca
r by men who, DESTROYS of abandoning the as
yarette habit, are trying to switch to the W
pc. They find that cigarettes are hurting pc