subs. phr. (common).—A long clay pipe; a CHURCHWARDEN (q.v.).
1859. FAIRHOLT, Tobacco (1876), 173. Such long pipes were reverently termed aldermen in the last age, and irreverently YARDS OF CLAY in the present one.
1866. The London Miscellany, 19 May, 235. 2. Surely these men, who win and lose fortunes with the stolidity of a mynheer smoking his CLAY YARD, must be of entirely different stuff from the rest of us.
