TOBACCO-STOPPERS. 237 



of a celebrated ship, a beam of an historic mansion, 

 were each taxed for a tobacco-stopper. The custom is 

 very old, for Taylor, the Water Poet, notes, in his 

 Wandering to See the Wonders of the West, 1649, that 

 he saw a sprig of the famous Glastonbury thorn, which 

 the monks at that place had celebrated for its miracu- 

 lous flowering at Christmas, and which was cut down 

 by the parliamentary soldiers. He says : " I saw the 

 sayd branch, I did take a dead sprigge from it, where- 

 with I made two or three tobacco-stoppers, which I 

 brought to London." 



The reader of the Spectator will remember the 

 remark made by Sir Eoger de Coverley, when viewing 

 the coronation chairs in Westminster Abbey : " If 

 Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, 

 it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper 

 out of one or t'other of them." 



The flint and steel and tinder, which the old smoker 

 was necessitated to carry on a journey, has been 

 superseded in our days by many ingenious inventions. 

 German tinder first took the place of the old rag- 

 tinder and dried moss; and this is still used, separated 

 into thin strips, but coated at top with an explosive 

 composition, which ignites by friction ; small boxes 

 will contain a packet of this tinder, a part of the case 

 being rough to ignite it. Matches, headed with a 

 lump of combustible matter, which burns long enough 

 to light any pipe or cigar thoroughly, are also to be 

 obtained in boxes which occupy very small space in 

 the pocket. Those who are fond of a display of showy 



