Tobacco box

“ Well, Freddie, there's plenty of tobacco left in this shop, so you can come in whenever the old tobacco box at home runs out. And don't forget to come in to see Aunt Amanda. Plenty of goods left in the shop whenever—you see all that?" He pointed up towards the shelves. "I'll tell you something I ain't told to but mighty few people before. There's a jar of smoking tobacco up there that's just plain magic. Magic! ”

“ Around the pipe as an evolutionary centre, a whole intricate and elegant little world of smoking furniture and smoking etiquette has come into existence. There is the tabako-ire, or tobacco-pouch,—as far removed in its dainty beauty from the cheap gutta-percha atrocities of Europe as a butterfly is from a blunderbuss,—the netsuke, or carved button, used to attach the pouch to the owner's girdle, and above all the tabakobon, or smoking-box, which contains a brazier and other implements. ”

“ The dents on the old tin tobacco boxes, one on the box, the other on the lid, placed to register with and thus secure it when closed, was certainly very simple.
It is said a man was sewing and the needle would often slip off the end of the thimble when he would attempt to push it through. ”

“ Now, I have only attempted to solve one question so far, about these mysterious remarks, which may be signs, symbols, hieroglyphics; but I have solved it to my own satisfaction, and I don’t think I am wrong.”
“Well, and what’s that?” asked Danthorpe.
“Merely that these were scratched or cut into the inside of this tobacco-box lid a good many years ago,” I said. “I can see that with the naked eye. Perhaps you can’t. Now you will see what I mean. The edge, the lip, of every scratch is quite smooth.” ”

“ Finding all his attempts to trade of no avail, he shrugged his shoulders again, pulled up his box a little higher on his back, and, becoming bon camarade on the instant, offered me his box full of choice foreign tobacco, and suggested a friendly pipe as the best alleviation of the toils of the way; a proposition to which I readily agreed, for, young as I was, I had learnt the art of smoking. ”

“ The cigar dealt the snuff-box its death-blow and the cigarette was chief mourner at its funeral.
As in other periods, men of letters and artists ignored the social prejudices and conventions about tobacco, and laughed at the artificial distinctions drawn between cigars and pipes. It is said that the late Sir John Millais smoked a clay pipe in his carriage when he was part of the first Jubilee procession of Queen Victoria—a performance, if it took place, which would certainly have horrified her tobacco-hating Majesty. ”

“ If it is to be a wooden one, select or make a box of such a size as to suit your pocket or satchel, and cover the bottom, and lid too if the depth allows of it, with sheet cork or slices of good wine corks, about one-eighth of an inch thick, fixed on with glue.
The metal box is not quite so easy, but even here you may save yourself much work by keeping your eyes open. Very neat little collecting boxes can be made out of the flat metal boxes in which are sold certain favourite brands of tobacco. ”

“ Each has a heavy chain dangling from his waist and attached to his ankle, wears a broad-brimmed straw hat of his own manufacture, and incessantly smokes. Before him is a wooden box filled with picadura and small squares of tissue paper. Great nicety is required to roll a cigarette after the approved fashion; the strength or mildness of the tobacco being in a great measure influenced by the way the grains are more or less compressed. A smoker of course finds a tightly-twisted cigarette more difficult to draw than a loosely twisted one. ”

“ We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare I should be very happy to see you out here. ”

“ I may observe that the generality of the hawkers of indecent prints and cards are women.
There are about 35 persons selling snuff and tobacco-boxes—the greatest sale being of tobacco-boxes—and cigar-cases, generally with the other things I have mentioned. Of these 35, however, not one-half sell snuff-boxes constantly, but resort to any traffic of temporary interest in the public or street-public estimation. Some sell only in the evenings. Reckoning that 15 persons on snuff and tobacco and cigar boxes alone take 18s. ”

“ It sufficiently appears from the evidence that, if the essential and sole characteristic of the complainants' invention consists in a substitution of a close wooden box to hold the tobacco while being subjected to the process of resweating, for metal tobacco holders previously in use, either the practice of the defendants in using as a tobacco holder the ordinary tobacco cases in which the leaf tobacco comes packed, during the process of resweating, is not an infringement, or, if it be so held, the complainants' invention was anticipated by others long prior to its date. ”

“ Now we are seeing, to say nothing of smelling, either the cigar or the pipe everywhere, in the street, in the office, in court houses, in the state house, between the lips of the mechanic at his work, the provision dealer on his cart, and indeed almost in every place except the pulpit and school, from which it is a matter of congratulation that they are yet excluded. Being a smoker myself, I cannot be charged with prejudice when I express the opinion that this excessive and ill-timed use of tobacco not only violates rules of good taste and propriety, but is well nigh a nuisance. ”

“ From a glass tube extending from the flask there poured out volumes of the pungent odor, and, as the puffs came, Tom and Phil could hear the air pump being worked. It was a “studentless smoker,” the air pump, attached to a rubber hose which exhausted the air from the flask, producing exactly the effect of some one puffing a pipe. The room was blue with the haze of tobacco, and as the astonished professor stood and gazed at the strange sight more smoke arose from the flask. Then, from somewhere in the dark recesses of the corridor came a voice. ”

“ He says—"No gentleman in those days was seen smoking even a 'weed' in the streets. Cigarettes were practically unheard of in England, and outside one's private smoking-room pipes were tabooed. Men in Society slunk into their smoking-rooms, or, when there was no smoking-room, into the kitchen or servants' hall, after the domestics had retired. A smoking-jacket was worn in the place of their ordinary evening coat, and their well-oiled, massive head of hair was protected by a gorgeously decorated smoking-cap. Thus the odour of tobacco was not brought into the drawing-room." ”

“ In America, where I spent many happy years, I was never without “a smoke,” a habit I still continue, though with the disadvantage of having to substitute British for the fragrant Oronoko and Perique tobaccos. This latter is, in my estimation, whether used as cigar, cigarette, or in a pipe, the finest tobacco in the world. I have discovered, beyond doubt, that a person afflicted with obesity is affected by the smallest transgression of the strict regimen. ”

“ The bowl is then removed, and the aperture stopped with a plug which is kept in readiness. The first smoker closes with his thumb the hole through which he has been imbibing the smoke, and passes the pipe to his neighbor, who applies his lips to the hole, fills his lungs with smoke, and then passes the pipe to the next man. In this way, the tobacco is made to last as long as possible, and the greatest possible amount of enjoyment is got out of the least possible amount of material. ”

“ Always the cigarette for him and for the other men. Our cellar of nurses in Pervyse kept a stock of pipes and of cigarettes ready for tired soldiers off duty. The pipes remained as intact as a collection in a museum. The cigarettes never equaled the demand. We once took out a carful of supplies to 300 Belgian soldiers. We gave them their choice of cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and about 250 of them selected cigarettes. That barrack vote gives the popularity of the cigarette among men of French blood. Some cigars, some pipes, but everywhere the shorter smoke. ”

“ The tobacco jar is another accessory of more recent date than tobacco pipes but interesting from the varieties of style and shapes. The finest are made of porcelain and are lavish in design and enrichment. Of all the articles of the smokers' paraphernalia none however exhibit more fanciful designs than Tobacco-stoppers used by smokers for crowding the tobacco into the pipe while smoking. ”

“ Maybe you might think it was the bottle o' milk done it, instead of the cigarettes, being as they was at the same time; but don't you never believe it. Cigarettes! You keep off of 'em. Now pipe-tobacco! That's a different thing. If I'd only stuck to a pipe, along with that bottle o' milk, look how high I'd 'a' been now! What kind o' tobacco did you say your farver wanted? Housewife's Favorite?"
"No, sir," said Freddie. "My farver he wants half a pound of Cage-Roach Mitchner."
"That's it," said Toby. "I don't see how I come to forget that name. Your father's a man o' good common sense. ”

“ A biscuit or two was handed to the carriers, and—what delighted them still more—a few small fragments of tobacco. The New Guinea fashion of smoking is peculiar. The pipe is a bamboo tube about two feet long and two inches in diameter, with one end closed. Near this end, a small hole like the mouth-hole of a flute is made, and in it a piece of leaf, twisted into a pointed cup or ‘horn’ containing a little tobacco, is inserted. Applying a light to the tobacco, the smoker sucks vigorously at the open end of the tube ”

“ Thus, the tobacco shops are ornamented outside with various highly-colored pictures, drawn by artists of the most florid genius, representing cigar-boxes, pipes, meerschaums, narghillas, bunches of cigars, snuffboxes, plugs and twists of tobacco, and all that the most fastidious smoker, chewer, or snuffer can expect to find in any tobacco shop, besides a good many things that he never will find in any of these shops. ”

“ Even in the poorest man’s house the tobacco tray, with its fire-pot and ash-pot, is an essential part of the [131] furniture. Visit the humblest abode and there will be placed before you all the tiny equipment for a smoke; but their weed is almost tasteless; certainly, it can do nobody any harm. Formerly the tiny cup of tea was always the prelude to social gossip; now, however, for some reason or other the pipe takes precedence of the cup. ”

“ Now, the man who smokes a clay pipe is not only—as a rule—a heavy smoker, but he smokes strong and dark-coloured tobacco. And if he wears a dental plate, that plate becomes encrusted with a black deposit which is very difficult to remove. There is, as you see, no trace of any such deposit, or of any tobacco stain in the interstices of the teeth. It appeared to be almost certainly the plate of a non-smoker. But if that were so, it could not be Reed's. But it had been ascertained by the police surgeon that it fitted the jaw of the skull and undoubtedly belonged to the burned body. ”

“ Every man carries a small bag called a tuffio, in his knapsack, in which is his pipe and tobacco, and the women have their tuffio in their wrappers, carrying their pipes in their hands. They prepare their tobacco for smoking by straining out its juice while quite green, and they informed us by signs that it would otherwise make them drunk. ”

“ Our greatest privation at the Salthouse Lane establishment was want of tobacco. We rarely had any of it. I remember one day, when want of nicotine made me very sad, we went, on my suggestion, into the bag-room and pulled out our bags and chests. My chest was what seamen call a round-bottomed chest, i.e., a sailor's canvas bag. The beauty of it is that anything wanted is always at the bottom. In turning the bag out I found half a plug of tobacco. If we had been gold-mining and I [Pg 290] had struck a "pocket," or come across big nuggets we could not have been happier. ”

“ Of all the soldiers' wants the most imperative appears to be the harmless necessary cigarette. All their letters clamor for tobacco in that form. "We can't get a decent smoke here," says one writer. An army airman "simply craves for cigarettes and matches." From a cavalryman comes the appeal that a few boxes of cigarettes and some thick chocolate would be luxuries. ”

“ As a general rule no adulterants of any kind are added to the tobacco except in some of the very cheap kinds in which the leaf is sometimes treated with a glycerine solution in order to give it a sweetish taste. The solution is quite harmless.
The machinery for the manufacture of cigarettes has been brought to such perfection that it is quite automatic. The only hand work required is the feeding of the tobacco into the hoppers. The cutting, rolling, wrapping, tipping and packing are all done quite mechanically, the cigarettes being turned out all ready [Pg 139] for the smoker. ”