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Dear Mr. Ryder:
I was just reading Dr. Walker's replies to a dissertation about Joseph Barnett, and felt that I might have .02 to offer - but since it is likely that this will be my first and final contribution to this rather specialised area, I didn't want to go through with a complete registration. Perhaps you would like to consider adding this anyway.
My brother is currently a student of archaeology at the University of Sydney (Australia), where his supervisors have been employing him (inter alia) in the excavation of late nineteenth century clay pipes. From my discussions with him on this surprisingly interesting subject, it appears that there are a few misconceptions about the suspect Barnett's pipe.
There are generally two types of clay tobacco pipes, handmade press cast and mass-poduced slip cast. By the late nineteenth century, unglazed (but decorated through the casting) slip cast pipes were mass produced in many millions per annum. They are fairly fragile, and basically disposable; many archaeological sites reveal hundreds or even thousands, and one Swedish excavation found nearly a million in one storeroom. It was not uncommon to carry several in case you broke one. At one time, some vendors gave a pipe away free with tobacco sales. (The cigarette machine, by the way, was invented in 1881 and tended to drive clay pipe prices down still further, but didn't drive them out of business until WW I).
So when the coroner asks if the pipe found near Kelly's body was wood or clay, he is basically asking if it is an identifiable rich man's possession, or a poor man's anonymous litter. No special inference can be attached to finding Burnett's pipe in the house, other than that the place hadn't been cleaned up since he last smoked there. For that matter, it is hardly possible to assert that the pipe was definitely Burnett's, only that they had the same manufacturer, and were possibly distributed by the same nearby pub or tobacconist.
Cheers,
Roger
