EMPTY BOTTLES!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 15

EMPTY BOTTLES!

LONDON COLLECTOR. RELICS BACK TO CHARLES I. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, January 14. Mr. John M. Bacon, of Earl's Court, London, collects empty bottles. He possesses some of the oldest in existence. Some date back to the time of Charles I. Many have curious histories. Mr. Bacon sliowed some of his treasures this week. "Here is my Highwayman's Bottle," he said, proudly holding up a rare specimen blown in the days of Dick Turpin. It was so made that it could be strapped to a belt and could be slipped' from its place for a man to take a drink while in the saddle. Another old bottle has an interestin «■ liistorv. This is an armpit-bottle. so° fashioned that it could be concealed under the armpit of its owner. In this manner a person fearing poisoning could carry around with him his own supply of drink which he could be sure had not been tampered with. This particular bottle was once the property of a Miss Fiona Cameron, of Corpacli, Lochicl, an aged lady who can remember her great-grandfather telling her stories as a tiny girl of his escapades as a Jacobite agent. At one banquet this very bottle saved his life, for, suspecting liis glass had been tampered with, he "accidentally" knocked it over, to discover a grim sediment at the bottom.