Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The scene in the Queen's Warehouse, to which we return, is very
singular. Long streets stretch right and left between the walls of
tobacco-casks; and when the men are absent at one of their meals, you
find yourself in an odd sort of solitude, and in an atmosphere of
tobacco. Every one of these giant hogsheads is stripped twice from the
tobacco during its stay in this warehouse; once on entrance, to weigh
it, and again before leaving, to ascertain whether the mass is
uninjured; and to weigh what is found good for the duty, and for the
sale price to the merchant. Thus the coopers take all these hogsheads
twice to pieces, and put them together again. This tobacco is of the
strong, coarse kind, for pigtail, shag, snuff, &c. The finer kinds, as
we have said, go to the other warehouse.
But your eye is now attracted by a guide-post, on which is painted, in
large letters, "TO THE KILN." Following this direction, you arrive at
the centre of the warehouse, and at the Queen's Pipe. You enter a door
on which is rudely painted the crown royal and the initials "V.R.," and
find yourself in a room of considerable size, in the centre of which
towers up the kiln; a furnace of the conical kind, like a glass-house or
porcelain furnace. On the door of the furnace is again painted the crown
and the "V.R." Here you find, in the furnace, a huge mass of fire, and
around are heaps of damaged tobacco, tea, and other articles ready to be
flung upon it, as it admits of it. This fire never goes out, day or
night, from year to year. There is an attendant who supplies it with its
fuel, as it can take it; and men, during the day-time, constantly coming
laden with great loads of tobacco, cigars, and other stuff, condemned to
the flames. Whatever is forfeited, and is too bad for sale, be it what
it will, is doomed to the kiln. At the other Docks damaged goods, we
were assured, are buried till they are partly rotten, and then taken up
and disposed of as rubbish or manure. Here the Queen's Pipe smokes all
up, except the greater quantity of the tea, which, having some time ago
set the chimney of the kiln on fire, is now rarely burnt. And strange
are the things that sometimes come to this perpetually burning furnace.
On one occasion, the attendant informed us, he burnt nine hundred
Australian mutton-hams. These were warehoused before the duty came off.
The owner suffered them to remain till the duty ceased, in hopes of
their being exempt from it; but this not being allowed, they were left
till so damaged as to be unsalable. Yet a good many, the man declared,
were excellent; and he often made a capital addition to his breakfast
from the roast that, for some time, was so odoriferously going on. On
another occasion he burnt thirteen thousand pairs of condemned French
gloves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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