QUEEN'S TOBACCO-PIPE. 301 



on the rocks in the wind, and subjecting them to other 

 processes, had reduced them to powder. He had also 

 bought up the half-used livers, extracted the remainder of 

 the oil, and converted the residue into manure. 



Boatloads of fish are often sold to put on the land 

 at places on the coast, when the "take" happens to be 

 unusually large, and there is no other more remunerative 

 market for it. 



Among the various kinds of refuse used as manure 

 must be mentioned the damaged goods confiscated at 

 many of the docks, which are buried until partly rotten 

 before they are sold for this purpose. At the London 

 Docks, however, the goods are burnt and reduced to 

 ashes, many tons of which are sold to the farmer. In 

 the centre of these docks a fire is kept burning night and 

 day, its chimney being known as the " Queen's tobacco- 

 pipe," and here are consumed all condemned goods, some 

 of them damaged and unfit for food, but many of such 

 value that it is deeply to be regretted that some more 

 rational method of disposing of them has not been devised. 



Great loads of tobacco and cigars are burnt from 

 time to time, and a similar fate on one occasion befel 

 thirteen thousand pairs of French gloves, while on another 

 nine hundred Australian mutton-hams were condemned 

 to the flames. These hams had been warehoused on their 

 arrival, in the expectation that the duty on them would 

 shortly be taken off, but they had to wait so long that 

 they became damaged, and were condemned as unfit for 

 food. No doubt their ashes helped to enrich the fields, 

 but the hams might have fed a large number of people, 



