Taken from an English newspaper dated 1902.
THE USE OF SNUFF IN AMERICA.
Does anybody take snuff nowadays? said a man acquainted with the snuff trade, repeating a question put to him. Why the snuff production of this country, substantially all consumed here, will amount in the current year to about 19,000,000 pounds; it was 9,221,000 pounds in 1890. So you will see that the production has more than doubled in twelve years, and it is still increasing.
Notwithstanding the large consumption of snuff in this country, the Americans are not snuff takers as a people, though there are regions in which people do use snuff extensively, as in the South. But the greater part of this large snuff production is consumed by people of foreign birth.
The snuff trade in this country might seem curiously distributed if you did not know the facts… Thus Worcester, Mass., takes about 100,000 pounds of snuff a year, or say a ton a week. This demand is due to the pressure there of a large amount of Swedes and Norwegians employed in Worcester iron and steel mills.
Minneapolis and St. Paul together take about 200,000 pounds of snuff annually, and Minnesota is a big consumer, the consumption being due to the presence in the state of a large number of Scandinavians.
Here in Chicago the consumption of snuff is about half a million pounds yearly.
Formerly considerable quantities of snuff were imported; now all but a minute fraction of the snuff used in this country is made here.
American snuffs are without exception the best made anywhere.
There is indeed one American snuff that is quite unrivalled, this being a superb snuff made in Louisiana from Perique tobacco. Perique tobacco, as you know is grown nowhere in the world excepting in two counties of Louisiana.
The snuff produced from it has been made in the same old mill for a hundred years. It has a wonderful and delightful natural bouquet.
This most delectable snuff is known to connoisseurs the world over. It has for many years been supplied to the Vatican, as it has also been for many years to the Sultan of Turkey.
Among the snuff takers in general in this country there would still be found some fine old gentlemen who take snuff, as for that matter there would be found some old ladies; but there are not so many of these as there were, and the younger generation doesn’t take snuff. Use of snuff has been checked and its place supplied by cigars and cigarettes. Snuff taking, however, is the most economical way of taking tobacco, as it is in various ways the most satisfactory and agreeable.
There have lately been presented on the stage two or three plays in which characters carry snuff boxes, indicating apparently a revival, or the springing up, of the snuff taking habit in society, and a year or two ago there was talk of this. Lately I have read that King Edward of Great Britain has taken up snuff-taking.
Notwithstanding these various circumstances, I cannot see in the snuff trade any particular indication yet that society has gone to snuff-taking.
And, anywhere, the trade of society, if it should take it up, could amount comparatively to but little.
Not all snuff-takers inhale it. In fact, there is more snuff chewed than snuffed.
Referring again to individual snuff-takers, there are philosophers and scholars who clear their brains and tranquilize their minds by taking snuff.
It has some medical uses.
I have heard Scotch and Irish counted with continental nations with snuff-taking people, but my observation is that the Scotch and Irish are not great snuff-takers. Old Irish people may be snuff-takers, but the younger generation are not.
It used to be the custom-- I daresay it still is-- to provide at wakes, with the tobacco and other refreshments , a dish of snuff, which reminds me that it is the custom in some German beer saloons to put a dish of snuff on the counter, as they might any item of free lunch, this snuff being free to anybody who desires to partake of it.
In old times snuff universally sold by the ounce, was kept in a jar and commonly ladled out with a spoon, and weighed out when called for. A tobacconist with a busy trade might keep a number of packages done up ahead to be ready, but weighing it out to the customer was the common method of selling it.
Within ten years or thereabouts is has come to be the custom of the manufacturers to put up the various kinds of snuff used in convenient, merchantable shapes. Snuff is still put up, to be sure, in stone and glass jars, but it is also put up for retail trade in packages and in glass bottles of various sizes, ranging from one ounce to one pound.
Snuff boxes are made in various sizes and in pretty nearly endless variety. the costly and beautiful snuff boxes of silver, and of gold, boxes such as would be most likely to be sold for gifts, are made in this country. The great majority of the boxes commonly used come, the horn boxes, from France, and those papier mache, the familiar black, lacquered, and it may be inlaid, boxes from Germany.
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