PIPE SMOKERS’ MARATHON

Shannon News, 10 July 1925, Page 4

PIPE SMOKERS’ MARATHON

SOME QUEER CONTESTS. , The winner of the pipe-smokers’ ‘•Marathon” race at the Paris Cent Kilos Club kept his pipe alight for 01 min. 3-ssec. That is not long at these contests go; perhaps French tobacco is rather adapted for conversational than for contemplative smoking (states the London "Observer”) At a similar competition at the Agricultural Hall some years ago the winner, smoking a briar, and starting with an eighth of an ounce of tobacco, kept the pipe alight for an hour and flfty-one minutes. Sixteen of the competitors lasted over the hour, Smoking contests have not always been so considerately devised. Thomas Hearne tells of one in 1723, in which the prize went to the man who smoked three ounces of tobacco in the shortest time. There is also a tradition of a club in Derbyshire, where, according to Mr W. J. BarnhardSmith, “the qualification consisted in the candidate consuming an entire pound of shag tobacco at one sitting. A china teapot was the pipe, and he smoked through the spout.”