Several interesting specialistic collections of leather bottles and drinking vessels have been got together, showing the varied forms of the almost imperishable vessels, so suitable as liquor carriers and drinking cups in olden time. In the Guildhall Museum are several different types of bottles, black jacks, and silver-rimmed cups. Until comparatively recent times many old inns were famous for their leather drinking cups, but as the coaching days came to an end such vessels were gradually dispersed. Now that motor-cars have popularized the road once more, and old inns are again frequented, the collector seeks in vain for what were once quite common. In another noted collection there is a drinking cup or bottle moulded like a negro's head, and there are what are called pilgrim bottles, some of which are of ornamental type. The so-called pots have sometimes lids and loosely fitting covers; the black jacks, however, are chiefly open, ill-shaped vessels. Some of the black jacks were very large, one in the Taunton Museum measuring 19 in. in height. It was originally used in the servants' hall at Montacute House, which is one of the finest old buildings in Somerset. This famous jack was in olden time filled with beer every morning and placed on the servants' breakfast table. Those smaller cups with silver mounts and shields, on which are often engraved crests or initials of their former owners, are of the rarer type, but they are not infrequently found among the relics of an old family. There is a fine collection in the Hull Museum, and in other places where they are found in excellent condition, proving the truth of the rhyme published in _Westminster Drollery_ in the seventeenth century in praise of the black jack, which runs as follows:-- "No tankard, flagon, bottle, or jug Are half so good, or so well can hold tug; For when they are broken or full of cracks, Then must they fly to the brave black jacks." Leather Curios. Some very fine pieces of leather work have been modelled as curios and ornaments. Some of the most notable are models of old warships and fully rigged galleons made of leather. Leather pictures were made some years ago; a little later leather modelling of baskets of flowers, and the making of picture frames of leather was a popular amusement, some of the ornamental brackets made of leather being specially effective. The surrounds of picture frames made of leather cut to shape, carved and modelled, had a very similar effect to the beautiful carved wood work of an earlier period. Some of the powder flasks of leather which were used a century or two ago are valued curios, as well as the leather cases stamped and embossed so decorative and appropriate to the pistols and knives they were made to contain. Of the finer objects there are small curios like leather snuff boxes and trinket cases.