The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-06-07
A HISTORY OF SNUFF.
II AntGdateS Generally Conceived Opinions Of
the Dust.

In the First Part of King Henry ""
speech is given to HotsDur, the famous and
fiery Harry Percy, which has puzzled many
readers, says the Troy Times. After the
battle of HolmedOn, on the Scottish border,
in the year 1401, Hotspur, who was vic
tOrious, describes an interview he had,
after the fight was done. with a certain
effeminate courter, and says:
He was perfumed like mliner,
And 'twiXt his finger and his thumb he held
A pOuncet-box, which ever aud anon
he gave his nose, and took't away again:
Who, Herewith angry, when it next came there,
Took IL ia snuff.
Shakespeare's play was written, or at
least published, in the year 1898, near the
close of Queen Elzabeth's reign, and the
question propounded is not only was
snuff taken in Hotspur's time, but
nearly two centuries later, in Shakes
peare's time. AS far as can be ascer-
tanned, what is known in modern times
rs snuff was used by fashionable gentlemen
In Shakespeare'S time. Tobacco was
in use in England years before Shakes
peare made Hotspur ridicule a fOp for
From the native ViIginans came
the practice of smoking taken up by
the English in 1860; but tract in the Brit
ish Museum on 1.-The Natural History of
Tobacco" says: THE Irishmen do most
commonly powder their tobacco and stuff it
the probable inventors of snuff. In some
remote and primitive parts OF Ireland at a
dead mans wake plate of snuff IS placed
on the body of the deceased, and the Ell
quette is for all those who are invited to at
tend the funeral to take pinch on entering
the house IF mourning.
In the Life of Columbus" it Is stated
that the great yOyager had noticed smoking
and snuff taking in HispaniOla. Las CaSas,
writing in 1929, also mentions it, with much
minuteneSS of detail. Frequent mention is
made III the Spectator addison and Steele's
well-known weekly, begun in 1711) of female
sDuff-takers in the reign of Queen Anne.
Fashionable ladies, it is said of all ages
freely INDUCED in If, even offering their
boxes to their friends as they sat in the
church pews during divine worship. Queen
Charlotte. wife of George III and grand
mother of Queen Victoria, was n perpetual
snuff-taker during the whole time OF her
residence in England, from her arrival
ard marriage in 1901 to her death in
1918. She had great Partially for ac-
ceDting presents of snuff, particularly
when it was given in gold snutf-bOXes. The
enmity exhibited by Queen Charlotte against
Caroline of Brunswick, the unfortunate
wife OF him who finally became George ",
has been attributed 10 the fact that III an
intercepted letter from Caroline to her
mother the Queen was ridiculed as "Snuffy
old Charlotte"
Ouull HAS very much latlcU lDtO uiSuSe. In
our time the fair sex do not patroniZe snuff.
The readers of Martin Chuzzlewit" must
sympathize with Betsy Prig's remarkable
objections to Mrs. Camps untidy ways with
her snuff, when she had to entreat that adj
mirable harrican not to Ego a-dropping none
of it, into the dish of sliced cucumber, pre-
pared in vinegar. which they were to have
for supper. in Cruel, barley water, apple
tea, mutton broth and that. it don't signify"
Mrs. Prig added. ''and it stimulates patient,
but don't relish it myself"