Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1910 — GLASS BOTTLES LONG KNOWN. [ARTICLE]

GLASS BOTTLES LONG KNOWN.

Those in Days of Pharaoh of Exoda* 'Were of Splendid Workmanship. Although the oldest bottles known were made of skins, glass bottles containing wine are represented on Egyptian monuments which are more than 4,000 years old, while as early as tho Pharaoh ®f the Exodus there were bottles made of bronze, silver, gold, porcelain and alabaster, which from their superior workmanship and elegant design go to prove that even at that period the art of bottle making was by no means in its infancy. The early history of the bottle is somewhat meager, owing, no doubt, to the fact th.it the true bottle has never been a thing of much beauty, expect in a few rare instances, but rather a humble vessel of no intrinsic value. Bottles are rarely mentioned in fiction, but one must not forget the story of the Bottle Sprite in Grimm’s, nor that of the broken bottleneck in the fairy tales of Hans Anderson, which latter is almost more fascinating to older people than to children, owing to the clever way in which the bottleneck endows itself with a personality. The graceful old flagons, the demijohns and the queer-shaped bottles at one time used to contain a certain renowned Dutch brew, all recall the bygone drinking days when it was considered no disgrace to be a “two-bottle man,” and when the custom of “joining the ladies” was more honored in the breach than in the observance, the host and his male guests having more commonly joined each other—under the table!