Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 24

"Swedenborg took snuff profusely and carelessly, strewing it over his papers and the carpet. His ma.n.u.scripts bear its traces to this day. His carpet set those sneezing who shook it. One Sunday he desired to have it taken up and beaten.

Shearsmith objected, 'Better wait till to-morrow,' 'Dat be good! dat be good!' was his answer."

We copy the following article on the manufacture of snuff from a well-known English journal, "Cope's Tobacco Plant:"--

"Although snuff is still extensively consumed in this country (Great Britain), the mode of its manufacture is very little known to those who use it; and there are very few persons of even the most inquisitive turn of mind who can say they have ever penetrated into the mysterious precincts of a snuff-mill. Even those who have been privileged, and have had the courage to inspect the interior of such an establishment, have come away with very vague notions of what they saw. The hollow whirr of the revolving pestles, the hazy atmosphere closely resembling a London fog in November, a phenomenon which is produced by the innumerable particles of tobacco floating about, and causing the gas to flicker and sparkle in a mysterious way, and producing a lively irritation of the mucous membrane, all combine in placing the visitor in a state of amusing bewilderment, and he is compelled to make a speedy exit, having only had just a running peep at the interesting process of snuff-making.

It is therefore our duty to give a description of a process which will be new to a large number of people, and will help to clear up some of the obscure theories that a great many more entertain of it.

"Those persons who have travelled on the Continent, and who have noticed on tobacconists' counters a small machine, somewhat like a coffee-mill, which a man works with one hand, while he holds a hard-pressed plug of tobacco about a pound weight against the revolving grater, and produces snuff while the snuff-taker waits for it, may imagine that snuff in England is produced on a somewhat similar small scale. But this, like many kindred theories, is quite a mistake. In this country there exist large snuff-mills worked by steam power, and in Scotland there is one water-mill which is driven by a water-power of the strength of thirty horses. The grinding of snuff is at present carried on much as it was one hundred years ago. The apparatus, although effective, is very primitive, and would lead one to suppose that mechanical ingenuity had wholly neglected to trouble itself about improving that branch of machinery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snuff-mill a century ago.]

"All kinds of snuff are made from tobacco leaves, or tobacco stalks, either separate or mixed. This in the first instance goes through a kind of fermentation, and, like the basis of soup at the modern hotels, forms, as it were, the stock from which all the varieties in flavor and appearance are produced by special treatment and flavoring. Of course the strength and pungency of the snuff will depend a good deal upon the richness of the tobacco originally put aside for it. About one thousand pounds of tobacco would form an ordinary batch of snuff. The duty on this would amount to about 150, and this has to be paid before the tobacco is removed from the bonded warehouse. Having got his heap of material ready, the snuff-maker moistens it, then places it in a warm room and covers it over with warm cloths--coddles it, as it were, to make it comfortable, so that the cold air cannot get to it--and the heap is then left for three or four weeks, as the case may be, to ferment.

"In France, where, under the Imperial _regime_, snuff-making was a Government monopoly, the tobacco was allowed to ferment for twelve or eighteen months; and in the princ.i.p.al factory (that at Strasburg) might have been seen scores of huge bins, as large as porter vats, all piled up with tobacco in various stages of fermentation. The tobacco, after being fermented, if intended for that light, powdery, brown-looking snuff called S. P., is dried a little; or if for Prince's Mixture, Macobau, or any other kind of Rappee, is at once thrown into what is called the mull. The mull is a kind of large iron mortar weighing about half a ton and lined with wood; and there is a heavy pestle which travels round it, forming, as it were, a large pestle and mortar.

These mulls are placed in rows and shut up in separate cupboards, to keep in the dust. The snuff-maker wanders from one to the other, and feeds them as they require.

"When the grinding of the snuff is completed it is then ready for flavouring, and in this consists the great art and secret of the trade. Receipts for peculiar flavors are handed down from father to son as most valuable heir-looms, and these receipts are in fact a valuable property in many instances, for so delicate is the nose of your snuff-taker that he can detect the slightest variation in the preparation of his favorite snuff. It is related of one old snuff-maker in London, who had acquired a handsome fortune and retired from business, that he made it a consideration with his successors that he should be allowed, so long as he lived, to attend one day in the week at the business and flavor all the snuff. Most people will also be familiar with some one of the numerous versions of the origin of the once famous Lundy Foote Snuff, better known as 'Irish Blackguard.'

"The excise are very rigid in their laws for regulating the manufacture of snuff; and with the exception of a little common salt, which is added to make the tobacco keep, and alkalies for bringing out the flavor, nothing is allowed to be used but a few essential oils. And here we must digress for a moment to correct a popular error, viz., that snuff contains ground gla.s.s, put there for t.i.tillating purposes.

What appears to be ground gla.s.s is only the little crystals or small particles of alkali that have not been dissolved.

So that fastidious snuff-takers may dismiss this bugbear at once and forever.

"The essential oils referred to form a very expensive item to the manufacture of snuff. The ladies would be much surprised to see a dusty snuff-maker drain off five pounds'

worth of pure unadulterated otto-of-roses into a tin can, and as they (the ladies) would suppose, throw it away on a heap of what would appear to them rubbishy dust in one corner of the snuff-room. Of course the ladies would consider the proper place for it to be on the cambric handkerchief, but this idea would be about the last to occur to your matter-of-fact snuff-maker.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Perfuming snuff.]

"In addition to otto-of-roses, the scent-room contains great jars of essence of lemon, French geranium, verbena, oil of pimento, bergamotte, etc., all of which are used in the various flavoring combinations. There would most likely also be a few hundred-weight of fine Tonquin beans, and one of these beans is generally presented to any visitor who drops in, as souvenir to carry away in his waistcoat pocket. Snuff is very extensively used in the mills and factories of Lancashire. Those who toil long in heated and noisy mills seem to require, and doubtless do require, tobacco in some shape or other to keep them from flagging; and as chewing is not polite, and smoking in a mill not allowed, the only resource left to the operative is his snuff. A singular feature connected with this is, we believe, the fact that spinners in very few instances use snuff-boxes, they prefer having their supply of snuff screwed up in a piece of paper.

One retail shop-keeper in a busy spinning town in Lancashire a.s.sured us that he retailed over four hundred weight of snuff a week in pennyworths.

"It is impossible to state the exact quant.i.ty of snuff used in this country; but, as far as we can arrive at it from statistics at hand, we should say it cannot be less than five hundred tons per annum. This seems an enormous quant.i.ty, considering the comparatively small number of persons who now use snuff; but the great bulk of snuff seems to be consumed by particular communities, such as the Lancashire operatives, and the consumption of it is therefore not generally observable; and further it should be remembered that those who do take snuff, individually use large quant.i.ties."

Snuff-manufacturing has in some cases been attended with considerable affluence. One instance is the London manufacturer already mentioned, whose profits acc.u.mulated to the extent of nearly a quarter of a million; another is the Lundy Foote business, and the third a Scotch manufacturer (Gillespie), who by the way, practised a bit of benevolence, in the shape of building an hospital, in return for the good things fortune had sent him. Of course an hospital, like many other things, may have a doubtful origin, as witness the famous Guy's, which stands as a lasting monument to the wonderful profits that used to be made out of the iniquitous advance note system. But we do not by any means wish to make comparisons which must be odious and although the profits of snuff-manufacturing are for a variety of reasons--amongst others the decreased consumption of the manufactured article--not nearly as large as they were fifty years ago; yet we are sure that the fortunes acc.u.mulated by some of the old snuff-makers were the result of honest, upright industry.

Of European tobacco used in the manufacture of snuff that of Holland and France (St. Omer) is considered to be equal to any grown in Europe. Of the varieties grown in America, Virginia leaf is used quite extensively for some grades of snuff and "good stout rich snuff leaf"

commands excellent prices and meets with a ready sale.

A writer gives the following account of the love the Terra Del Fuegians have for tobacco.

"This morning we were up early, a large party going ash.o.r.e for various scientific purposes, and the others taking the ship out in the channel to do a little dredging; both parties were very successful, and added much to our collection. As we on the sh.o.r.e were about ready to come off, we were visited by a party of Fuegians, five men, four women, and nine children, with three dogs. They came in an English-built boat, stolen or lost from some English ship.

The men and dogs landed and came towards us with a great frankness of manner. They could talk neither English nor Spanish, except the few words, boat, fire, tobac, galleto, arco. But they understood the imperial manner of one of our officers, who said quietly but firmly, 'keep back those dogs,' and immediately drove back the barking curs with sticks and stones. They warmed themselves at our fire, and seemed disposed to be very civil and friendly. We gave them our remaining biscuit, and what little tobacco there was in our party to spare. One of them accepted a pinch of snuff and pretended to sneeze, crying 'Hatchee!' with mock solemnity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fuegian snuff-takers.]

An old man sat down on a stone and sang to us a low, sweet recitation, or chant, in wild key, or mode, ending on a rising melody with each stanza.

They followed us to the ship, and we gave them some calico and beads, and tobacco, and also bought bows and arrows, and a sea-urchin, paying them in tobacco. They clung to the ship as we got under way, men and women, crying, 'Tobacco!' and frantic to catch any fragment of the precious weed thrown to them. But at length they let go, and we left the bay with the cry of tobacco ringing in our ears."

Having spoken of most of the modes of using snuff in both the Old and New World, we come now to a description of using snuff at the South, known as "dipping," and by some as "rubbing," both terms used to denote the same manner of use. The description of it as given by A. L.

Adams is as follows:--

"In the South, and more especially in Virginia, where tobacco has been cultivated for more than two hundred and fifty years, and where a few pounds of it was the legitimate price for a wife, it is not surprising that it should be more highly prized and come into more general use than in any other section of our country. On the banks of the James River it was first successfully cultivated by the English colony, and this simple fact alone must forever throw a charm around it, which will foster the pride of the Virginian who has any respect for his ancestry, and hold him under sacred obligations to use, cherish, and defend the plant and its use--all of which he regards as no less a pleasure than a duty. Here too its many virtues were first discovered, and its soothing effects first felt and appreciated.

"To the old Virginian it is indeed a cherished weed, charming all manner of diseases, comforting in sorrow, soothing the ills of life, and preserving to a good old age and in a happy frame of mind all who use it. He believes in its superior virtues, and ascribes to it more good qualities than to any other known plant. He always carries it about with him, and if perchance he gets out he is truly miserable. He not only loves but worships it as a cure all.

His wife and daughters know its virtues full well, and use it with equal grace and relish, believing it gives a l.u.s.tre to the eye and a freshness to the cheek rarely surpa.s.sed.

Among the variety of ways in which it is used none attracted my attention so much as the novel manner of snuff-taking in various parts of Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia.

"In some localities the practice is unknown, while in many others it is very common. I first discovered young ladies putting snuff into their mouths as if eating it, when my curiosity was excited to an alarming extent, but on being invited to 'dip' with them I soon learned that they were not eating, but 'rubbing and chewing' it, as they called it, and in such a lively manner as to soon convince me that they appreciated it. I found the habit to be quite common even among the young of both s.e.xes--all indulging in it as if it afforded real satisfaction to the appet.i.te for tobacco in some form.

"The young ladies however seemed the more attached to the 'rubbing process,' as it has been appropriately styled, and defended it with equal logic and grace whenever it was a.s.sailed. The young gentlemen when in the society of the young ladies generally join them in this unique use of snuff, as they are always sure to be invited and urged if they decline, and to merit their favor of course they must appear social. I believe, in credit to their taste, however, that they really prefer a good cigar, and think it more in keeping with their ideas of manhood and neatness. I have seen young girls of ten 'rubbing and chewing,' as if they appreciated it as much as mother Eve did the apple in the garden of paradise.

"I have also seen old ladies with trembling limbs and few teeth 'rubbing and chewing,' as if it made them feel young again. I have frequently been ushered unexpectedly into the presence of young ladies, and found them puffing their cigarettes in a manner that convinced me that they knew how to smoke. There is nothing that will more surely and quickly bring a stranger into the fellowship and good graces of the ladies than to join them in their pet habit of snuff-rubbing. It seems to form a bond of friendship which they regard as sacred as the vows of wedlock.

"The older matrons 'rub' less and smoke more, which is in accordance with nature and philosophy: The older we grow the more we smoke. They find solid pleasure in sitting by the open grate after tea with fifteen inches of pipe's tail between their teeth, and slowly but gracefully puffing the perfumes of the exhilarating weed into the room, and watching with childish pleasure the hazy curling wreaths of smoke as they gently float around, changing in form and color until they finally disappear up the chimney, affording rich themes for meditation and profitable study, and perhaps suggestive of earlier days when grandmother, an innocent, blooming maid, was exchanged for the weed, the seed of which produced the plant she is now burning. Everywhere I marked only pleasant and soothing effects from the use of tobacco.

"The planter is never more indifferent to the ills of life and in sympathy with good feeling and pleasure, than when he sits down after dinner in his vine-thatched portico and lights his pipe, pa.s.sing to his guests pipes, cigars, and tobacco in various forms, leaving them to choose their favorite mode of using it. Sambo is never more contented than when he burns the weed in a cob pipe, and draws the delicious smoke through an elder sprig or mullen stem. But the maid is happiest of all when with her lover she sits face to face, and they 'dip' together from the same magic plant--tobacco.

"In every walk of life throughout the sunny South tobacco in some form may be found, and its effects are always the same, whether drawn from the pocket of the beggar or taken with gloved fingers from the golden tobacco-box of the planter.

For snuff the ladies have very nice round boxes with lids which, they always carry with them full of black snuff highly but pleasantly flavored. They also carry little brushes or sticks about three inches long with pliable ends; these they wet in the mouth, then dip into the snuff-box, and then place it in the mouth outside of the gums and rub earnestly for two or three minutes. 'Will you dip with me?'

is the usual way of putting the invitation, when the box is drawn from the pocket and rapped slightly on the cover, sometimes by all present, who thus signify their readiness to 'dip,' then it is repa.s.sed open to all, and the 'dipping and rubbing' begins in earnest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snuff-dipping.]

"The only advantage I ever discovered in this unnatural way of snuffing is in avoiding all unpleasant sneezing which snuffing is sure to produce, although it is claimed that it whitens and preserves the teeth and sweetens the mouth, and produces a beneficial effect on the lungs, all of which is true or not, just as you choose to believe. 'Will you dip and rub with me?' said one of the prettiest belles of Winchester, and in another city in another state the daughter of an ex-governor, handing me a silver-tipped brush and opening a rose-wood snuff-box richly inlaid with gold, politely asked me to 'dip' with her, expressing the belief that friendship would always follow. I have frequently been asked by ladies when travelling through the country and stopping at farm-houses, if I used tobacco--as a hint to offer them some, and it was a pleasure to comply, and receive the thankful smile of an appreciative heart."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snuffers.]

In other parts of the country the habit of snuff-taking is confined princ.i.p.ally to old ladies, who use any kind, either black or yellow, and who prefer themselves the cheaper kinds. But few varieties are used, and there seems to be but little taste manifested in the selection of the "dust." Foreign varieties are used only to a limited extent, being chiefly confined to those of transatlantic birth and tastes. The custom of chewing and smoking seems to be more popular with the male s.e.x than snuff-taking, and one rarely finds a man addicted to the latter habit, unless it be one somewhat advanced in years.

Stewart in his admirable paper on snuff gives much useful information in regard to the universal custom of using it as well as its origin and distinguished uses of the great sternutatory.

"The luckless fate of inventors and originators has become proverbial, but the ingenious individual whose nostrils rejoiced in the first pinch of snuff stood in no need of the n.i.g.g.ardly praise of contemporaries or the lavish grat.i.tude of posterity. That first 'pinch' was its own priceless reward, far above present appreciation or future fame. What matters it, that his great name has not been reverently handed down to us: that posterity seeks in vain his honored tomb, on which to hang her grateful votive wreath; that zealous antiquaries have raised up innumerable pretenders to his unclaimed honors, and striven to rob him of his fame?

Enough for that lucky inventor, wherever he may rest, that he enjoyed in his lifetime the reward for which ordinary benefactors of their kind are fain to look to the future.

"It is perfectly vain to attempt now to penetrate into the mystery which envelopes the name and nation of the first snuff-taker: long before rough, n.o.ble-hearted Drake cured his dyspepsia by the use of tobacco, or Raleigh transplanted some roots of that precious weed into English soil, there were European noses which had rejoiced at its pulverized leaves. Conjecture, lost in the mazy distance, gladly lays hold of something substantial in the shape of snuff's first royal patron. This was Catherine de Medicis, who, receiving some seeds of the tobacco plant from a Dutch colony, cherished them, and elevated the dried and pounded leaves into a royal medicine, with the proud t.i.tle of 'Herbe a la Reine.' For in the beginning men took snuff, not as an everyday luxury, but as a medicament. Like tea--which a hundred years later was advertised as a cure for every ill--the new sneezing powder was hailed a universal specific; and so pleasant in its operation, that mankind, acting upon the wholesome aphorism that prevention is much better than cure, and eagerly antic.i.p.ated the disease it was supposed to remedy."

"The use of 'the pungent grains of t.i.tillating dust'

received a somewhat heavy and discouraging blow from an unexpected quarter. That ubiquitous power which hurled anathemas alike at the heresies of Luther and the length of clerical wigs, discountenanced its use, and at length fairly lost its temper in the contest with snuff. Whether from a prescience of the beneficial influence it was destined to exert upon mankind, or from a suspicion of its power of sharpening intellects, it is difficult to say; but Popes Urban VIII., and Innocent waged quite a miniature crusade against snuff, anathematizing those who should use it in any church, and positively threatening with excommunication all impious persons who should provoke a profane sneeze within the sacred precincts of St. Peter's pile; Louis XIV., that good son of the Church, filially complied with the paternal injunction, but his courtiers were less yielding; and the ante-chamber of Versailles frequently resounded with the effects of the pleasant stimulant.

"All persecution has a distinct tendency to establish the object of its hate, and so it was with the subject of our article--it only required to be loved; and I do not doubt that, had circ.u.mstances required them, snuff would have found its martyrs. Its use was not general in England until Charles II. introduced it, upon his return from exile, with other important fashions. It had been known and used before, as had the periwig, but it was not until his reign that it became common. When the Stuarts relieved the country of their presence for the second and last time, it had become firmly established; and, by the days of good Queen Anne, was such a necessary of life, that there were in the metropolis alone no less than seven thousand shops where the snuff-boxes of the Londoners could be replenished.

"At that time, indeed, gallants were as proud of their jewelled boxes of amber, porcelain, ebony and agate as they were of their flowing wigs and clouded canes, the handles of which were not unfrequently constructed to hold the cherished dust. We are told by courtly d.i.c.k Steel, that a handsome snuff-box was as much an essential of 'the fine gentleman' as his gilt chariot, diamond ring, and brocade sword-knot. We know them to have been manufactured of the costliest material, heavy with gold and brilliant with jewels, as they needed to be when their masters carried wigs 'high on the shoulder in a basket borne,' worth forty or fifty guineas, and wore enough Flanders lace upon their persons to have stocked a milliner's stall in New England.

"Unfortunately, but very naturally, this extravagance rendered snuff a b.u.t.t for the wits (who all took it, by the way), to shoot at. Steele, whose weakness for dress and show were proverbial, levelled many of his blunt shafts at its use; and Pope, who himself tells us 'of his wig all powder and all snuff his band,' let fly one of his keener arrows at the beaux, whose wit lay in their snuff-boxes and tweezer cases. As the men laid by, in the Georgian era, much of the magnificence of their attire, so their snuff-boxes became plainer and decidedly uglier. Rushing into an opposite extreme, the most outrageous receptacles for the precious dust were devised. Boxes in the shape of bibles, boots, shoes, toads, and coffins outraged public taste. The strangest materials were used in their construction; the public taste leaning towards relics possessing historical interest. Thus the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare, the hull of the Royal George, in which 'brave Kempenfelt went down, with twice four hundred men,' and the deck of the Victory, on which Nelson died 'for England, home, and beauty,' have alone been supposed to supply material for snuff-boxes to an extent which, if known, must considerably weaken the faith of their possessors in their genuineness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fancy snuff-boxes.]