HISTORY NO. 18. Parliamentary Expenses, Snuff Fiddle ?

From an English newspaper in      1906.

                                                                      200 POUNDS FOR M.P.'S SNUFF

A suggestion is now being made that tobacco shall be supplied free in the library of the House and shall become a charge on the Estimates.

It is not generally known that members and officials are already gratuitously supplied with snuff, and that a generous country sets aside 200 pounds a year to indulge M.P.s vicious habit.   The common snuff-box is kept at the entrance to the House, under the eye of an official, and all are free to replenish their private stores.   Formerly snuff was described in the Estimates as such, but to ward off the objection aroused by improving habits the charge of 200 pounds a year was mixed up or covered in the Estimates as “lamp oil.”


An English newspaper 1911.

The Commons snuff box has been replenished.  There are really two-one in the Library and one in the Inner Lobby-and a grant of 3 pounds from funds is made annually for supplies to both Houses.


My comment…From 200 to 3 pounds in 5 years?          Looks like they were rumbled.   

                                     200 pounds would buy a nice, three bedroomed , terraced house with gardens front and rear in 1909. 

                                                                A figure not to be sniffed at, unlike the snuff.

So from 200 pounds to 3 pounds…the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Makes me wonder if it was mostly covered by a less specific expense, like general upkeep of the room or somesuch.