502 ON THE TOBACCO PIPE MANUFACTURE, ETC. 



piece of agate, unsupported by the trimmer's block. The point of the 

 pipe is now cut, and the top of the bowl smoothed down with the palm 

 of the hand or a damp sponge. It is then taken off the wire, and is 

 laid fiat upon a board, if intended to be straight ; if bent with the usual 

 curve, the pipe is laid on a dryer, the bars which support it being hollow 

 in the centre. The pipes when of a greyish white, are removed and 

 packed into a kiln, or into seggars (which is an improved method), the 

 old and primitive plan being to pack them directly into a large crucible, 

 standing upon five legs, made of fire brick or clay, mixed with crushed 

 pipes. The crucible is built by piling small rolls of clay one on 

 another, wetting each roll slightly so as to assist adhesion while worked 

 together with the hand. 



This kiln, or large crucible, is built inside a circular furnace about 

 twelve inches larger than the kiln, leaving a space of about six inches 

 between the furnace and the kiln. When the kiln is filled with pipes, 

 the space that admits the man to stack the pipes within, is bricked up 

 with pieces of burnt clay of the uniform thickness of the kiln, and the 

 top or dome is covered with clay spread on paper, to keep out the flame 

 and sulphur, winch would otherwise discolour the pipes while burning. 

 The kiln being ready, the fire beneath the centre is Hghted, and is kept 

 increasing in heat for from 7 to 16 hoivrs, the time required depending 

 upon the size of the kiln, some of which hold 30 gross, and some about 

 100 gross. 



The improved, or seggar kiln, is simply a large furnace in which the 

 seggars containing the pipes are piled, and which hold about 2 gross 

 each, so that these kilns are made to contain from 200 to 1,200 gross. 

 They have from three to six fire-places, the crucible kiln having but one. 

 They are a decided improvement upon the old system, and add materially 

 to the quality and shape of the pipes. 



In the year 1G53, King Charles the Second granted a charter " for 

 the good of his subjects, tobacco pipe makers, as they had been trained 

 up and lung exercised in that art, and intending to restrain and suppress 

 the growing numbers of loose and idle persons intruders in that trade, 

 and to appropriate the same to such only as theretofore had been, and 

 thereafter should be, orderly and honestly educated, and brought up as 

 its apprentices according to law. For the effecting thereof, his princely 

 wisdom thought fit to create and constitute sundry persons in the said 

 Letters Patent named, into a Corporation, or body politique, and cor- 

 porate in deed and name, by the name of the Masters, Wardens, and 

 Assistants, and Fellowship of the Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers, in 

 our cities of London and Westminster, and our Kingdom of England, 

 and Dominion of Wales ; some of which Pipe Makers had, by their 

 industry and expense, found out a new way of burning the said Tobacco 

 Pipes with sea coals, or pit coals, which were formerly burnt with wood, 

 to the consumption and decay thereof. And whereas our said subjects, 

 the tobacco-pipe makers, have for them and their successors, entered 



