.Part of a very long article printed as a letter, titled…

Our American Letter,  Boston U.S.  March 1875

Taken from        The Preston Herald.

I may mention one curious and very dirty practice which prevails amongst the young female mill hands in the New England States.  It is called “snuff dipping,” and is performed by dipping the wetted end of a cop bottom or piece of waste into a snuff-box, and then putting the pungent and tittillating dust so gathered up, not into the nostrils, but into the mouth, or at least, between the gums and cheeks. It is supposed to act as a stimulant, and is the Yankee feminine substitute for, and a far dirtier habit than - chewing.    That the habit is not at all rare may be judged from the fact that though there are few snuff takers in the ordinary sense of the word, there are no less than four snuff factories on one stream in this State.

…

Perhaps our American snuff takers could let me know what a cop bottom was. 

 I Googled it and unfortunately  came up with a load of pornographic references,    so the meaning would appear to have changed over the years.

What did it mean back in 1875?

I know when my grandmother would dip scotch snuffs she would chew the end of a twig until it was very frayed like a tiny broom before dipping it into her can of Peach snuff and putting it in her cheek. I don’t know if it’s connected or not though.

A cop is a bobbin of thread or yarn. My guess would be the women saved the last bit of the yarn from the bobbin, wet it, and dipped it in snuff.

Harlequin and WickedPissah    I think you have sorted out the mystery to me.

My Grandmother used to take snuff but nasally, her daughters thought that a horrible, filthy habit.

She was born in the late 1800s and it was the norm for a lot of  women then.

There are  a few more stories about dipping snuff (not my thing though) but if you are interested I will find a few and print them here.  Mostly the British looking on in digust at this mode of using snuff.

My granny dipped Peach snuff all of her life. It was popular for women in the southern US. I have seen a few young women (some are even on YouTube talking about it) with Skoal and similar products but they are rare.

I always love your historical posts, @ArtChoo !  Thanks for sharing your finds.

Dipping the “wetted end” of a “piece of waste” made me cross my eyes a second.  lol

^^^ :-& =)) Maybe they started doing that because they were sick of the throat hits and coughing fits from trying to use it properly :O) Has USA snuff (prior to the Chef) always been scotches, or is there any history of “easier” snuffs which have fallen out of circulation?

VERY early snuff use in American history was nasal snuff, but around the early 1800s it switches primarily to oral use. People just give you odd looks these days if they catch you sniffing “that stuff my grandma used to dip”.

I’ve been told that my great grandmother was a heavy dipper. She ran a boarding house somewhere along the Mississippi River.

All of the American Scotch snuffs are marketed as being for dipping purpose. The manufacturers get rather upset if anyone promotes them as being for nasal snuffing (I’ve heard that Youtube snuff reviewers are asked to take down videos showing them talking about the nasal uses for their products). Makes me wonder if there are legal reasons why this is so.

I have found a large article on American snuff taking , taken from an English newspaper in 1902.  It is a general article about people and snuff and snuff sales in America. It is a bit long winded but I will post it under this topic early next week.     I am a very slow typist.

Meanwhile, another advert under the title History No.8   see separate article.

Seems more common then we realize that the females of the past used tobacco these ways.I brought the subject up with my aunt. She said that her grandmother used Copenhagen as nasal snuff! Maybe that is why my grandfather dipped Copenhagen his hole life. That probably was more of a respectable way to use tobacco as I know he was a bus driver for over 50 years. He once told me that when he started using it that it was pretty expensive at 8 cents a can.

I think that dipping snuff is quite common in India. It is used as a dentifrice I believe. Perhaps @sixphoto could elaborate?

Yes using tobacco powder as a dentifrice is fairly common in India . Snuff , both plain as well as perfumed & mentholated and Gul are used extensively for this purpose. It is precisely for this reason that Indian Snuffs contain a very tiny amount of menthol as compared to European snuff. Even the use of Gul - a dry powdered tobacco without menthol or perfume is huge

@sixphoto 

so you mean Gul is used primarily for dipping?

What is Gul?

@MrSnuff as I wrote earlier Gul is an unflavoured tobacco powder used primarily as a dentifrice in rural india. It is very strong as it contains a heavy dose of calcium carbonate Unlike nasal snuff the Gul industry is located primarily In one city -Kolkata We too have recently launched our variety of Gul under the familiar brand name of Cheeta chhap Gul

@sixphoto wait, so you use tobacco to brush your teeth? Is it effective? I never knew you could brush your teeth and get a nicotine hit at the same time!

@ Aamon - it is how snuff is used primarily in India as a dentifrice

I ve seen snuff used for teeth cleaning by pan chewing , street trading women in Karnataka and stocked in a local street chemist ? This was a few years back mind ,2010 . I think it was @sixphoto anarkli or a black rose snuff very similar . It definitely wasn’t a plain gul they were using …

It was in a pigramge spot though , so there was evidence of a wide array of regional customs and peoples .Those traders might have travelled hundreds of miles for the season …or migrated thousands .