(N.B - For historically minded snuffers only) Prime Minister William Pitt (the Pitts were elected MPs to represent the rottenest of rotten boroughs, an uninhabited waste called Old Sarum) introduced income tax in Britain as a temporary measure to pay for national defence against Napoleon in 1798. Because it was temporary it expired each year on the 5th April with continuation subject to the fortunes of war. Now, by my reckoning the Napoleonic Wars ended at Waterloo. Why then are British citizens still paying income tax for a crisis that passed into the history books 195 years ago? Simply revoking income tax will not suffice. Anyone who has paid this so-called temporary tax should be entitled to a full rebate plus ancestral claims adjusted for inflation dating back to 1815. By the same token: American citizens north of Dixie should be aware that their income tax is paying for the war effort against the South. Rebels, meanwhile, should be conscious that they are paying income tax to the Union to support the Yankees’ efforts against their own Confederacy. Wake up! Income tax was a temporary measure that, according to Lincoln, “would terminate in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six". Demand your rebate plus compensation now. Anyway, below is a link to the cartoon ‘Strong snuff or 37 discarded for Prince’s Mixture’ “An early caricature by William Heath on the Income Tax. The debonair figure of Nicolas Vansittart M.P. (1766-1851) stands at the counter of a snuff shop, one hand resting on it as if on the Clerk’s Table in the House of Commons. He addresses the shopkeeper, a hideous, stout, bottlenosed John Bull, wearing an ill fitting wig, saying …I’ll have no more 37 its too strong for me and makes me sneese. I intend now to discard it & take once again to Prince’s Mixture. On the shelf behind are four large snuff jars, three labelled 37 and one upturned inscribed Prince’s Mixture. Beneath this jar is pinned a notice reading A pleasant mixture of 37 just arrived from St. Stephens. Outside a crowd chants Last Dieing Speech of the Property Tax. On March 18th 1816 Vansittart had brought in a bill for the continuance of the Income Tax at a reduced rate of 5%, with special abatements and exemptions for farmers. A majority of 40 in support of the motion was expected, but to general surprise the measure was defeated by 37 votes to ‘loud cheering which continued for several minutes’. The result was attributed to the many petitions against the tax and general impatience amongst the population for the rewards of Peace.” http://www.michaelfinney.co.uk/catalogue/category/item/index.cfm?asset\_id=2968 Prince’s Mixture, made by Fribourg & Treyer for the Prince Regent (George IV) was a black rappee flavoured with Attar of Roses. The snuff described as 37 refers to Hardham’s 37 which was still available as late as the 1950s. Despite the Commons majority of 37 in 1816 against Income Tax it was re-introduced in the UK by Peel in 1842.
Many thanks, that was very interesting. I was able to fish a larger version of the image: 