Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/198

 who loved to indulge in the pastime known as "painting the town red," or, still better, to fight with each other, when the toughness of the leather-breeches" [sic] was supposed to be more than a match for the tenacity of "brambles." The pipes used by these swashbucklers were from four to five feet long. They thrust them into their girdles after the manner of swords, and employed them as cudgels when occasion offered. No transition could have been more signal than the passage from these monster pipes to the tiny little kiseru of later eras, which held about as much tobaceotobacco [sic] as could be piled on the nail of a young lady's little finger, and were perfect bijoux in the matter of shapeliness and decoration. Even after several vain official attempts to check the spread of the tobacco habit had been abandoned as abortive and unnecessary, some time elapsed before polite folk began to carry pouches and pipes at their girdles, for smoking in the open air was not practised, and on entering a friend's home the visitor expected to have a tobacco-tray set before him, and would as soon have thought of smoking a pipe of his own tobacco as of taking from his sleeve a packet of tea and a teapot to brew his own beverage. Were it known exactly when the habit of attaching pipes and pouches to the girdle became fashionable, the origin of the beautiful ornaments connected with this class of sage-mono might be discussed with some confidence. But there are pictures extant which show that, as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, a lady's pipe—for by that time ladies had fallen victims to the seductive habit—was so long that it had to be carried by an attendant, and the inevitable conclusion is that the miniature pipe and its charming concomitants