THE KING’S PIPE

Evening Star, Issue 20876, 20 August 1931, Page 3

THE KING’S PIPE

TOBACCO AT DOCKS Writing in the July issue of ‘ The P.L.A. Monthly,' Mr A. G. Kinney finds the giving’s Pipe” afc Royal Victoria Dock a dingy spot without a shred of romance to it.” Ho says: “The furnace which ads as the ‘Pipe’ in an insignificant shed alongside one of tlio storage warehouses, and the explanation of the whole affair is this: On each floor of sheds where tobacco is ‘ worked ’ there is a big dirt and rubbisli tub, and into it all sweepings and scraps of tobacco, as well as odd ends of ropo and wire, arc thrown. Several times cadi week the filled tubs, watched over by a Customs officer, who provides a certificate authorising the destruction of the rubbisli, are hoisted on to wheels and brought into tho yard of the shed where the ‘King’s Pipe ’ (furnace) is. Tim contents of tho tub arc tunica out on to tho floor just by the kiln, and a workman shovels tho stuff into tho glowing furnace and lets it burn away. Eventually tho residue, ash and clinker and wire scraps, is released, and the man deans out Ins kiln with a sheer or rake; and the residue is thrown into a truck standing on the railway lino at hand. These final debris must bo entirely useless, and I daro say end their visible existence down on the dumps Hornchurch Marsh ’way.” Mr Linnoy claims that “ Tho Street of Tobacco,” running from Tidal Basin to Connaught road station, is tho richest street in tho world. Along it arc thirty-two bonded warehouses, and in these (plus certain warehouses at King George V. Dock and at West Indies Dock) arc stored more than 50,000 tons of tobacco. Tho value of this, with duty, is dose on £30,000,000. He also tolls how the lOewt hogsheads of tobacco mature. “ Tho hogshead may remain for perhaps three years untouched by human hand or machinery. Tho tobacco is working out its own salvation. Tho seasons follow, and each in turn contributes an intangible something in tho way of temperature and moisture to that mysterious process of fermentation and change from within- thus, invisible ami impalpable, progresses tho ageing or maturing which goes far to transmute tobacco leaves into smoking tobacco. The warehouses whore this is silently going on, of course, are bonded, and every door has its Customs lock and its P.L.A. look, both of which are turned before tho dinner break and before work ceases for the day.”