Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-23
Notes for Smokers

/ TAMES SHIELDS, the special photographer
attached to the staff of the Dish, has
been investigating for us the history and an
tiquity of corncob pipes. We have always
insisted upon the intellectual and cultural
SAVIOR of the corncob, and therefore we are
the more interested to note that the earliest
reference found by Mr.. Shields is from the
Yale Literary Magazine of 1856. viz:
He tods employed in iohittling a corncob
bowt into q pipe.
The traditional custom or keeping cob pipes
on mantepiece over the fireplace Zone of
the little clubs on Camac street has q fine
display of members pipes ranked against the
chimney is authenticated by the second al
fusion in our experts chronology. In the
knickerbocker Magazine, November, 1851,
he finds the following:
My taciturn host took cob pipe dO1n
from a shelf over the fireplace.
This pleases us inordnately, as we have
always held that the corncob is an antidote
for excessive talk.
James Shields also finds the corncob re-
ferred to in Harper's Magazine in 1884 and
1889. After that time references became fire.
quent.
The word "cob' as applied to the cylin-
drical core of the ear of corn dates, as far as
the New English Dictionary could learn,
from 1902.
According to Pritchett's "Smokiana," the
Pipe Makers Co. of London has had con-
tinuous existence since 1919.
The only grudge we have against Shakes
peare is that he never mentioned tobacco or
smoking in any of his works. We would like
to have this confirmed by DR.. Horace How
ard Furness, who knows more about the bard
H.. oI.a e l,,k Sc. h.,
general impression.
Mr.. Shields tells us also that, according to
the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
Biography, zone tobacco pipe maker, at
least, made pipes in Philadelphia as early as
the year $780,
The German mania for forbidGing is anus
ingly illustrated by an article discovered by
our photographer in Harper's Weekly for
December 3, 1910. We read:
On the third day of May, 1882, the King
of Prussia signed a decree permitting the
inhabitants OF Berlin to smoke pipes in the
streets and in the Thergarten. Until then
their use in public was forbidden "out of
regard for public propriety" and the de-
linquent who was caught, pipe in mouth,
in any place outside his own home or the
house OF friend punished by fine of
two thalers; if repeated the offense was
expiated by term in prison.
We have long made it rule never to fire.
quent, save on occasions of exceptional
splendor or unique hospitality, any tavern
where the smoking of our pipe is frowned
upon by the headwaiter.
Convinced as we are that the lowest order
of smokers are those who use nothing but
cigars, the next lowest in degradation are
those who use pipes ornamented or carved
or disgustingly adorned. OF these the Ger
mans are the worst offenders. Mr.. Shields
has discovered the beginning Of the German
downfall in the following clipping;
The old Kaiser Wilhelm whose cigars
were specially made for him in Havana,
smoked nothing but a pipe when on his
hunting trips. The Emperors pipe was
| guarded by an important functtonary It
was fine piece of workmanship. due to
| the skill of a turner, who worked from a
pattern sketched by the Kaiser's own
hands In the center of the meerschaum
head of the pipe stood a black grouse of
chiseled silver, perched, wings spread on
| a bough. On the stem OF the pipe was a
| w formed from brilliant pebbles found In
| the stomachs of grouse. The Kaiser stuffed
his pipe with tobacco mixed with the sweet
leaves of certain trees noted for their
| odors. The pipe gave out great clouds of
fragrant smoke.-Harpers Weekly, 1910.
From the moment when the present exiIe's
grandfather had that atrocity made, the col
lapse of the German empire was certain.
|
And speaking of corncobs, even as we were
| compiling the above paragraphs arrived de-
! lightful essay on cotsmokipg by one Of our
n