Another pewter piece often found, and often still used, is the hot-water jug with its wicker-covered handle. This was brought every night, in colonial and Revolutionary times, well filled with boiling water, to the master of the house, for him to mix the hot apple-toddy or sangaree for the members of his household, who drank their share out of pewter cups or heavy greenish glasses. I know of two of these pewter jugs which have been in daily use for certainly forty years (though in the more temperate vocation of hot-water jugs to carry shaving-water to the bedrooms), and still retain, sound and firm, the old wicker coverings on the handles, which may have been woven upon them a hundred years ago. Truly, our grandfathers made things for use, not for sale. Strange hiding-places have these old forsaken and forgotten pewter dishes. They lurk in tall and narrow cupboards by the side of old chimneys, or in short and deep cupboards over the mantel. They lie in disused fireplaces, hidden from view by gaudy modern fireboards. They are at the bottom of deep boxes under wide window-seats, and are shoved under the dusty eaves of dark attic-lofts. On the highest pantry shelves, under cellar stairs, in old painted sea-chests, in the woodhouse, are they found. From the floor of henhouses have they been rescued, where they have been long ignominiously trodden under foot by high-stepping and imperious fowl. Let us take them from these obscure corners, and preserve them with care, for though they have no intrinsic value like silver, no brilliancy like glass, no beauty of color or design like china, they are still worth our interest and attention, for they were the first table-ware used by our ancestors. We are a young nation of few years and few relics, let us then reverently preserve the old pewter plates and platters, remembering that these simple dishes of inexpensive metal illustrate the frugal home-life of the men and women who were the founders of the Republic. III. EARLY USE AND IMPORTATION OF CHINA IN AMERICA