The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-19
SAY SNUFF HABIT. IS COMING BACK. DESLJETUDE
New York Finds Sales In- ereasing Steadily In
 Recent Years

NEW YORK, Oct 5.-For many yeara we have been saying, complacent- 1y, ns we puffed our cigars, cigarettes and pipes: Thanks goodness, the dis. reputable habit of snuff-taking has dis ap1caEee." We have congratulated our ,saives ou the increasing niceness of the sweeld, shuddering, perhaps, at the thought of a not particularly clean small vice of older generations, says the New York Times. Yet snuff f-taking has been creeping back and gaining upon usE all the while.
 \ Three times as much snuff was sold in New York last year as in 1897, and tobacco men declare, in carefully weighed statements, that more snuff will be sold this year than last.
 Early in the nineteenth century there arose sort of moral crusade against snuff. The outcry of the reformers grew go loud that people who had formed the habit in early life and couldn't get along without. their half-hourly sniff book to hiring small boys to slip into the tobacconist's and buy for them the mak- fngs of good sneeze.
 I For years after society had banned the titillating indulgence they continued to practice it, but on the sly, at home, with the blinds pulled down, or out in the barn. This fact is amply proved be recent excavations made on the site of an old colonial stable in New Eng land, which brought to light seventy seven empty snuff cans lying in dusty heap under the blanks, where some an- cient voluptuary had cunningly hidden them Mute were the little red tins, yet they told eloquently of the secret joys of our rude forefathers. Pleasures were few on that stern and rockbound coast.
 Times Arc Changing
 There is grave doubt that the taking of snuff will remain a surreptitious proceeding much longer, if the sales volume figures put forth by the tobacco firms today are correct. The grand mother and the flapper who now whiff Turkish incense in the hotel Hobbies would stare in shocked amazement at the sight of some brazen travelling man dabbing pinches of tobacco dust at his nose, right out in public, with his hand kerchief spread and ready and tears of qualification gathering in his eyes. Yet such a sight they are likely to be- hold, for the tobacco experts say that snuff-taking is about to claim again its place in the sun.
 { For several years the snuff curve has been rising rapidly on the charts the statisticians make Nfor the trade. Some authorities lay this incline to the general increase in the use of tobacco of all kinds Others hint that the younger kenerati ton, always seeking some new thrill, has discovered the potentialities of the once suppressed habit. What ever the explana tion, cigar stores re- port growing demand for snuff; a de- hand so pronounced, indeed, that new brands have lately appeared on the market, if not quite yet on the bill boards.
 ! Snuff, after all, has been greatly mis- understood. It entered upon the scene as cure for the bronchial and stomach troubles that were SO widely prevalent in the hard-drink days of 150 years ago. It is argued that the nickers and the hard drinking of those days have come back, so why not snuff? &
 Originally, snuff was regarded as a medicine, sort of Seidlitz powder to be taken through the nose, as its name implies. Nowadays it is seldom taken nasaly, although one may still see mid dled-aged men inhaling it in the subways and other partly dark places The vogue of the hour is to place it on the tip of the tongue or to rub it behind