CIGAR CASE, LAMP, AND HAMMER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2630, 10 August 1904, Page 69

CIGAR CASE, LAMP, AND HAMMER.

a shape popular many years ago. This ball is split in half horizontally, the upper portion unscrewing from that forming part -of the stick itself. Within the ball is contained a small round metal spirit-lamp, with cap, attached by a chain, to screw over the wick-holder when the lamp — to be used for giving light or heating anything required — is not in use.

The third handle sketched is also a geologist's hammer, with stick — as are the handles of the real hammers — of polished ash.

Sporting trophies of all kinds are utilised for constituting walking-stick tops, the tusks of slain wild boars being frequently met with. An officer who had been nearly slain by an oblong* shot from a shrapnel shell had it fixed on a thick ''green bamboo" stick as a memento. It was not convenient for promenading with, te but the owner's wife found it of service when she was attacked by a thieving tramp in the hall of their country housie. The police official introduced to us by

the next picture reveals to us the working ot a contrivance once used by a daring diamond robber. The handle of the walk-ing-stick he used was hollow, and could

be filled with pepper, to be, in tn-' aaimer indicated, blown in the face of an liiuividual from whom precious stones were to be purloined.

As in the case of the telescope, cigarholder, lamp, geologi&t's hammer, matchbox, and spring measure handles, we now come to another "useful" variety. The walking-stick seen on the left of the picture can be, as shown to the right, converted intf an architect's or builder's plumbline, and sometimes such a stick is carried by those interested in ancient abbeys, castles, and mansions, for by the

plumbline they can ascertain whether the walls and &o iorth of the edifice are, with age, departing from the perpendicular. The handle of the stick, A, is hollow, and unscrews from the mount, B. In the hollow, D, which tapers off to a small aperture, C, is contained the plumbline, F, fitted at one end with a small split ring, E, and at the other with a metal shot, G. Taking out the line, its user detaches the split ring, passes the line through handle A, front D, and out at C, where the shot liecks the line from passing right through. The split ring is then placed on the line, and is slipped over the "body"' of the stick, when the plumb hangs as at H. Many walking-sticks have been sold marked off, not too conspicuously, as yard measures ; in others the handles and thicker portion of the stick itself form a small

drinking flask. Of ladies' walking-sticks, more often used in the country or in hilly parts, the handle is sometimes \lso a smell-ing-salts or scent bottle. Finally we have an example of walkingstick of which at one time considerable numbers were sold. The gentleman depicted has — note his right hand — unscrewed the handle end and the ferrule of his stick, revealing that a tobacco-pipe mouthpiece had been hidden by the ferrule, and that the stick handle itself, hollow, and lined with porcelain or meerschaum, is now the bowl of a long tobacco-pipe. The whole extent of the stick is pierced to form the stem of the pipe, which is, from its length, very cool smoking. Such pipe sticks, for ease of cleaning, are usually made in several lengths, screwing together. — Cassell's Saturday Journal.