SNUFF IN FRANCE. 265 



freely, to act as a bugbear for snuffers, as for smokers; 

 and grave doctors were not wanting to declare that 

 the brains of snuff-takers were found after death, 

 dried to a sort of dirty membrane, clogged with soot.* 

 Cancer of the nose was another pleasant threat held 

 out as the goal to which all snuff-takers must arrive ; 

 but the threats of the medicals had no effect on snuff- 

 takers, because they found very many doctors of an 

 opposite -way of thinking, who used snuff in their gold- 

 headed canes, as a disinfectant, and believed in its 

 utility when used in moderation. 



The author of the Toilette des Dames, ou Encyclo- 

 pedic de la Beaute, published in Paris about 1760, is 

 very hard on his fair countrywomen who take snuff. 

 He says : " Everything in France depends upon la 

 mode ; and it has pleased the mode to patronise this 

 disgusting custom, and carry about with them small 

 boxes, which they term demi-journees" He declares 

 that it " deforms the nose, stains the skin, taints the 

 breath," and asks what would be thought of Venus or 

 the Graces, if all were engaged in snuff-taking.f But, 

 as every medal has its reverse, Arbuckle, in his Poem 



20cedia ends a short but severe article on snuff with the significant reference, 

 See Poisons. 



* Hoffman says ''that the heads of some executed criminals (who had 

 been great snuffers) being dissected, the patera of the brain was black with 

 snuff ; and he was informed that of the heads of the English soldiers who 

 were killed in the Bohemian war, all who snuffed had their brain in that 

 condition. — T. Short's Discourse on Tea and Tobacco. 1750. 



+ Those who may be curious to see the lengths to which coarse attacks 

 on the lady snuff-takers were carried, may refer to Henry Season's 

 Almanack for 1743 : the passage cannot now be reprinted pro causd 

 pudoris. 



