Snuff - Yesterday And Today

INTRODUCTION Whateer I do whereer I be, My social box attends on me. REV. WILLIAM KING, 1788. general conception of a revolution is of something THE which goes off with a bang. But there is another kind of revolution which steals upon us almost before we are aware of it it comes, as it were, with the panthers velvet tread, and not with the charge of a buffalo. One such revolution is at work today it is the quiet return of snuff-taking as a social habit. Those who would dispute this should speak warily, for there is ample evidence lurking round the corner to coilfound them-the evideace of those whose business it is to mill, blend or sell snuff. Thus, there are blenders who, a decade ago, sold some hundreds of pounds weight of snuff anaually, now measure their outprrt-home and export-by the ton. The increase in siluff-taking is not confined to men. More women are taking to the tobacco powder, as it was once called and which it is, thus reviving the vogue snuff had among the ladies of the eighteenth century and later. The famous blenders, G. Smith and Sons, of Charing Cross Road, will tell us that an increasing proportion of their customers today are women. The subject of Women and Snuff is dealt with in Chapter VIT. It is difficult to analyse the general return to favour of snuff-taking some say the enormous rise in the price of tobacco and cigarettes is the reason certainly, by compar- ison, snuff-taking is a most economical pleasure. The cigarette scare naturally bumped up snuff sales for a time, but it had little to do with the steady increase which is progressing all the time. There are other possible reasons, but we will leave them to emerge in their appropriate chapters in this book. One of the fascinations of snuff-taking lies in the numerous different snuffs available to the snuff-taker. The mellow old firm of Smith and Sons-known as Smiths of Charing Cross Road to thousands of snuff-takers the world over-produce at least fifty varieties of snuffs from choice tobaccos whose broad leaves have ripened in sunnier climes than ours, and many of these snuffs are described in detail in Chapter IV. To those who think of snuff as just snuff the number of varieties comes as a surprise, and their picturesque names perhaps a revelation. Who can fail to be charmed by such appellations as Golden Cardinal, Lavender and Otterburn, not to mention Garden Mint, an innovation of Smiths, with a distinct whiff of real mint about it There are, too, the natural snuffs, with no flavouring save that of honest-to- goodness tobacco. And here it may be mentioned that, basically, snuff consists of nothing else the addition of other substances except flavouring being prohibited by law. Long gone are the days when dried and powdered dock leaves and other substances were craftily mixed with the tobacco...