SNUFF-MAKING. 315 



used in the tobacco shop, add their quota to the mass.* 

 When the whole is placed in the " snuff bin," it is well 

 wetted, and allowed partially to ferment ; as it heats it 

 is turned with a shovel, and the mass ultimately assumes 

 that dark colour valued in rappee ; the blacker kind of 

 that snuff being subjected to a longer residence in the 

 bin. Agreeable and delicate as scents may be, they 

 are generally eschewed by all who admire tobacco for 

 its own sake. Some of the old snuff-takers, who were 

 sticklers for pure Scotch, did not object to place a Ton- 

 quin-bean in their snuff, which gave out a slight aroma 

 like the scent of new hay ; a power the bean retained 

 for years ; but even this was objected to by many 

 snuff-takers, who held that this, as well as all other 

 scenting, was injurious, and tended to produce head- 

 aches. 



We have already reverted to the simple old process 

 of rasping the tobacco rolls to form a rough snuff, and 

 how these coarse " brans " were afterwards pounded in 

 mortars with a pestle of peculiar form. Snuff thus 

 made by hand-labour was not supplied equal to the 

 demand, it was also too expensive, and snuff-mills 



* Soyer, in his Shilling Cookery for the People, has an awful story 

 about snuff adulterations. He says: "In many parts, and even in 

 Ireland during the year of the famine, those who were starving would not 

 partake of ox-liver. These are bought up in that country, put into casks 

 with salt, sent over to a seaport in England ; they are then subjected 

 to a cold pressure by which the liquid is extracted, which is used for 

 adulterating an article in universal use ; the remains are then dried in 

 ovens, pounded, and sent back to Ireland to be made into snuff." The 

 wood of old coffins, broken up by dishonest sextons, was also popularly 

 believed to have been ground down for snuff. But we believe all these 

 tales " weak inventions of the enemy" to snuffing ! 



