ze, and the bottles and curiously
shaped oil and vinegar cruets of a hundred or more years ago look quaint
when compared with those of the present day. Even the flower vases which
formerly adorned the table, and the more decorative dishes used for
fancy sweetmeats and confections, have changed, leaving in the process
many of the older pieces, relegated to the store-cupboard, where disused
glass so often remains until in due time it is rescued from oblivion by
the collector of household curios. Among the eighteenth-century cut
glass jugs and trifle bowls are many beautiful vessels, for the making
of which certain districts from time to time became famous. The old
Waterford glass is especially noteworthy, and as a speculation, apart
from the interest it possesses for collectors, is worth securing.
Bristol glass to the uninitiated appears to be a misnomer, in that the
beautiful white milk-like surface upon which so many exquisite floral
designs have been painted looks more like egg-shell porcelain, but when
held up to the light is found to be of glass-like nature, pellucid
although semi-opaque.

Nailsea glass has many peculiar characteristics about it, notably the
curiously introduced waved and twisted lines in colours. Many objects
which were essentially curios, their utilitarian purposes having always
been secondary, were made at Nailsea. There are gigantic models of
tobacco pipes, formerly hung up against the walls as ornaments. As
fitting companions to the pipes were walking-sticks of glass, some very
remarkable designs which might at one time have been carried by the
gallants of that day. They were often filled with sweetmeats and
comfits, ornamented with bows of ribbon, and presented to ladies of
their choice by devoted swains. A few of those curious sticks or
shepherd's crooks, as they were called, are to be seen in most
representative museum collections. The so-called rolling-pins of glass,
made at Sunderland as well as at Nailsea and Bristol, were known as
sailors' love tokens, and are referred to more fully in Chapter XIII. In
the Taunton Castle Museum there are some interesting specimens of old
glass, notably one of the very rare dark bottle-glass linen smoothers
which came from South Petherton. Such smoothers were at one time
favoured in the kitchen laundry in the days when servant-maids excelled
in getting up linen, and prided themselves on the beautiful gloss they
were able to impart--in the days before publi