TOBACCO BOXES. 177 
The tobacco boxes of the Seventeenth Century were much 
larger than those of the present. Some of them held a 
pound of tobacco besides space for a number of pipes. 
Many of them were made of brass while others were fagh- 
ioned from horn: 
“There is also a simple and ingenious tobacco-box used 
frequently in ale-houses, ‘ which keeps its own account,’ with 
each smoker and acts also as a money-box. It is kept on 
parlor tables for the use of all comers; but none can obtain 
a pipe-full, till the money is deposited through a hole in the 
lid. A penny dropped in, causes a bolt to unfasten, and 
allow the smoker to help himself from a drawer full of 
tobacco. His honor is trusted so far as not to take more than 
his pipe-full, and he is reminded of it by a verse engraved 
on the lid :— ; 
‘The custom is, before you fill, 
‘To put a penny in the till.’” 
Some of the tobacco boxes were made of silver and beau- 
tifully engraved with fancy sketches, historical scenes, or 
ae, 
ENGRAVED BOXES, 
representations of personages, landscapes, flowers, etc. The 
late Duke of Sussex had a large collection of pipes and 
tobacco boxes. 
A journal describing them says of the collection: “The 
Duke of Sussex had a wonderful collection of these, the 
values attached to some of them being almost fabulous. One 
example from the work-shop of Vienna—long celebrated for 
this description of art,—represented the combat of Hector 
and Achilles, the cover of the pipe being a golden hemlet 
eristatus of the Grecian type.” Swiss and Tyrolean artists 
12 
