170 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
quantities of snuff being consumed in this manner. 
When a mountain woman refers to her " toothbrush " 
the snuff-stick is what she means. She says that to 
dip snuff preserves the teeth and strengthens the 
constitution. A young girl scarcely grown out of 
childhood gravely told how thin and sickly she had 
been until her father brought her some snuff and 
ordered her to use it. The child had not wanted to 
take it, having a natural repugnance to the habit, 
but her father insisted, and she had no sooner begun 
its use, so she said, than she began to improve until 
she finally became strong and plump like the rest of 
the girls! 
The men do not use snuff as a rule, nor do many 
of them smoke, though they sometimes chew. To- 
bacco is not raised to any extent in the mountains, 
and the snuff habit is the one extravagance of the 
people, who back in the mountains are not ashamed 
of it, but near the villages they are getting sensitive 
and hide the snuff-stick when they see you coming. 
The first step, no doubt, in the passing of the snuff- 
box. That the habit is not a polite one is recognized 
even out in the country where you are informed it is 
the " illest manners" to dip snuff in company. In the 
villages, although the people may not have "all the 
modern improvements" in their houses, neither do 
they, to the same extent, use the snuff-stick, nor fol- 
low the more homely manners and habits of the 
country people, although they closely resemble them 
in one respect — they show the same spirit of kindli- 
ness to each other and to the harmless stranger. 
