The Mongrabins and other African races, according to Werne, are much addicted to snuff taking. The snuff they usually carry in small oval-shaped cases made out of the fruit of the Doum palm; these have a very small opening at one end, stopped up by a wooden peg; and the snuff is not taken in pinches, but shaken out on the back of the hand. Mr. Campbell, while travelling in South Africa, gave a Bushman a piece of tobacco. It was speedily converted into snuff. One of the daughters, after grinding it between two stones, mixed it with white ashes from the fire; the mother then took a large pinch of the composition, putting the remainder into a piece of goat’s skin, among the hair, and folding it up for future use.
The snuff in use in Africa is not always made from tobacco. Mr. Hutchinson states that he saw at Panda, on the western coast, snuff made of the powdered leaves of the monkey fruit tree (Adansonia digitata). That of the Zoolus is composed of the dried leaves of the dacca or narcotic hemp mixed with the powder of burnt aloes. Whether or not this was the kind of snuff which Mr. Richardson was knocked down with in his journey across the Great Desert, we are not in a position to determine; whatever it was, it appears to have been extremely powerful. “A merchant,” he says, “offered me a pinch of snuff, and to please him I took a large pinch, pushing a portion of it up my nostrils. Immediately I fell dizzy and sick, and in a short time vomited violently. The people stared at me with astonishment, and were terrified out of their wits, and thought I was about to give up the ghost. They never saw snuff before produce such terrible effects. After some time I got a little better and returned home. This snuff was from Souf, and is called wâr (difficult). I had been warned of it, and therefore paid richly for my folly; indeed, the Souf snuff is extremely powerful.” Some of the strict Mahometans of Ghadames consider snuffing, as well as smoking, prohibited by their religion, and therefore do not indulge in it. The South American traveller which Mr. Lizars, the tobacco antagonist, once fell in with, was evidently not a strict Mahometan, for he first filled his nostrils with snuff, which he prevented falling out by stuffing shag tobacco after it, and this he termed “plugging;” then put in each cheek a coil of pig-tail tobacco, which he named “quidding;” lastly, he lit a Havannah cigar, which he put into his mouth, and thus smoked and chewed—puffing at one time the smoke of the cigar, and at another time squirting the juice from his mouth. What a phenomenon! That gentleman should have politely thanked the South American for permitting him to view an exhibition, such as he may never have the pleasure of seeing again. And what a capital illustration ready made to his hands. It is almost equal to those elaborate calculations which are based upon the amount of time consumed in taking so many pinches of snuff during the day, and so many repetitions of the operation of blowing the nose.[13]
A correspondent of the “Petersburg (Va) Express” says:——“There are, perhaps, in our state 125,000 women, leaving out of the account those who have not cut their teeth, and those who have lost them from age. Of this number, eighty per cent. may be safely set down as snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of snuff per day—that is to the 100,000 dippers 2,500 lbs. a day, amounting to the enormous quantity of 912,000 lbs. In this number of snuff-dippers are included all ages, colours, and conditions. This practice is generally prevalent in the pine districts of North Carolina, and in many parts of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Eastern Tennessee. It may be thus described:—A female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and, wetting it, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all about her mouth, into the interstices of her teeth, &c., where she allows it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, à la quid of tobacco, and suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary avocations; while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and thus imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men. In the absence of snuff, tobacco, in the plug or leaf, is invariably resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel chewing is elegant, compared tosnuff-dipping.”
The most uncomfortable reflection to the snuffer is that which concerns the probability of his consuming himself by a condition of slow poisoning, not the result of the pure tobacco, but its impure associates in the box. In boxes lined with very thin lead, but especially in cases where the leaden lining is thicker, and which are much used by the Paris retailers, a chemical action takes place, the result of which is to charge the snuff with sub-acetate of lead. This result was suspected by Chevalier, and has been confirmed by Boudet of Paris, and Mayer of Berlin, by careful experiments. Mayer traces several deaths and cases of saturnine paralysis to the patient’s having taken snuff from packets, the inner envelope of which was thin sheet lead, in constant contact with the powdered weed. The cry once heard of “death in the pot,” requires now to be exchanged for “death in the box,” and Holbein to give us a new plate of the skeleton form emerging from a packet or snuff-box containing the scented rappee.
Late investigations have shown that no small amount of adulteration is practised with snuff, and this in some instances of a most dangerous kind. Out of forty-three samples of snuff examined by Dr. Hassell, the majority were adulterated considerably. Chromate of lead, oxide of lead, and bichromate of potash, all highly poisonous, were detected. Mr. Phillips also stated to the committee of adulteration, that he had found in different samples common peat, such as is obtained from the bogs of Ireland, starch, ground wood of various kinds, especially fustic, extract of logwood, chromate of lead, bichromate of potash, and various ochreous earths. Samples of spurious snuff, it is presumed for the purpose of mixing, were found to be composed of sumach, umber, Spanish brown, and salt; another kind was made up of ground peat, yellow ochre, lime, and sand, all of these being more or less scented.
The numerous varieties of snuff owe their character principally to the peculiarity of scent and the method of preparation. The perfumes used are either the essential oil of bergamot or otto of roses, and in some cases powdered orris root or Tonquin beans. The powdered leaves of the sweet-scented woodruff and the fragrant melilot have been alluded to as used for the same purpose, also the dried leaves of some species of orchis (Orchis fusca, &c.)
As a substitute for snuff, either in preference, or in cases where tobacco snuff could not be readily obtained, different vegetable productions have come into use. In India the powdered rusty leaves of a species of rhododendron (R. campanulatum), and in the United States the brown dust found adhering to the petioles of several species of kalmia and rhododendron, all of which possess narcotic properties, are used for this purpose. The powdered leaves of asarabacca have been named as the base of some kind of cephalic snuff. “Grimstone’s eye snuff” has long enjoyed a certain amount of popularity, although it does not contain a particle of tobacco, but is composed mainly of such harmless ingredients as powdered orris root, savory, rosemary, and lavender.
But to return to the subject of deleterious adulteration, we find in Dr. Hassell’s “Adulterations detected in Food and Medicine” several pages occupied with this really important subject. First comes the narration of a case of slow poisoning, on the authority of Professor Erichsen, by means of snuff containing as an adulteration 1·2 per cent. of oxide of lead. Then follows the case of Mr. Fosbroke, of injuries sustained from snuff containing lead. These are followed by other instances showing that all the combinations of lead tested, exhibited dangerous and disastrous symptoms, if indulged in, when mingled with snuff, as too often, unfortunately, is the case, as an adulteration, or, as before shown, liable as a result of packing the snuff in lead, or keeping in boxes lined with lead.
Advice Gratis.—Give up taking snuff; or, if you should propose slight objections to this course, then purchase leaf tobacco, and manufacture your own snuff, and having done so, keep it in a gold snuff-box, or if you have weighty reasons for preferring silver, there is no objection to that metal, or even the homely horn of the Franciscan of Calais.
Our forefathers thought of the box, as well as of the snuff, and sometimes paid for their thought. In the early part of the eighteenth century, fashionable snuff-boxes had reached the highest point of luxury and variety.The Tatler of March 7, 1710, notices several gold snuff-boxes which “came out last term,” but that “a new edition would be put out on Saturday next, which would be the only one in fashion until after Easter. The gentleman,” continues the notice, “that gave £50 for the box set with diamonds, may show it till Sunday, provided he goes to church, but not after that time, there being one to be published on Monday that will cost fourscore guineas.” These costly articles, so happily satirized by Steele, are represented as the productions of a fashionable toyman, named Charles Mather, popularly known under the name of “Bubble Boy.”