chests by means of a fumador was a custom much resorted to by Portuguese
ladies in the eighteenth century. Sweet lavender is still used in the
linen cupboard, although its use was much more general in the days when
London street cries were heard.

Dressing Cases.

When people travel and visit their friends their luggage includes among
other things a dressing case, for there are many toilet requisites which
are of a personal character, and cannot well be substituted by others.
It is true that the need of portable dressing cases has increased of
late years owing to greater travelling abroad. Dressing cases, however,
are by no means modern, for some very beautiful examples with
silver-topped bottles, hall-marked in the days of Queen Anne, are among
the collectable curios. There is a still older example in the Victoria
and Albert Museum--a case of tortoiseshell, filled with a complete
toilet set, consisting of four combs and thirteen toilet instruments,
partly of steel and partly of silver. It is an historic case, having
been presented by Charles II to a Mr. T. Campland, who is said to have
at one time sheltered him. Many old families have interesting and
valuable examples, and not infrequently isolated cut-glass bottles with
Georgian hall-marked silver tops which have formed part of the equipment
of dressing cases are met with.

Scratchbacks.

Old English scratchbacks are among the rarities of the curios associated
with the toilet table. It is unnecessary to comment upon the habits and
customs of those periods when scratchbacks were found necessary, or to
refer to the hygienic conditions of the toilet then conspicuous by their
absence. It is sufficient to allude to these curious little
instruments, mostly shaped like a hand, often of ivory, and always
fitted with a handle in length from 12 to 15 in. The hand in some cases
is large in proportion, measuring as much as 2 1/2 in. in length, sometimes
as an open hand, at others with the fingers closed, often very
beautifully modelled. Horn and whalebone were favourite materials for
the handle, although some were of ebony and other woods. Scratchbacks
appear to have been made both in lefts and rights in this country; but
the scratchbacks of the Far East were invariably rights. The
accompanying illustrations, Fig. 65, show the usual types of these now
obsolete toilet requisites, which it may be noted were sometimes
duplicated by miniature scratchbacks carried about on th