An unusual wooden elephant

The elephant, 9 ins. long and  7 ins high, has the general look of a child’s toy but is also a working cigarette dispenser operated by pulling the elephant’s tail. The cigarette appears through the hole in the side of the elephant’s khanposh. The trunk can be raiseda little manually. The wooden lift off lid on the howdah is a more modern replacement but the rest of the animal looks as though it was probably made in the first half of the 20th century. Although I have seen smart wooden and silver cigarette dispensers this one is something of a mystery. I even wonder if it was made to dispense the sort of confeetionary cigarettes which i used to see as a small boy and which I think were made of marzipan.   apr27/1