Snuff and nonsense

I see Terry Pratchett is working on a book by the title of Snuff. He says this title will play on the fact that the word “snuff” has more than one meaning (I can think of three). I’m guessing the scenario will be something along the lines of “snuff becomes popular in Ankh-Morpork and there’s a murder, also some candles need putting out fast.”

Snuff, perhaps sadly (perhaps not, depending who you are) is a habit that’s virtually dead in this country. Despite the fact that smoking is becoming less and less legal, there’s no sign of any major resurgence, either. Snuff, if you aren’t familiar with it, is powdered tobacco taken nasally. It’s normally taken either in the form of a pinch between the forefinger and thumb, sniffed from there, or snorted off the back of the hand. Particularly enthusiastic snuffers may choose to snort a line of the length of their forearm. It commonly induces sneezing, but I’m informed this is more common among beginners.

Enthusiasts of the brown stuff point out that it’s probably safer than smoking, and the British Medical Journal notes that it doesn’t involve taking carbon monoxide and tar into your lungs – they note that there may possibly be a risk of nasopharyngeal cancer. I’m going to put in the fact that nicotine – the most addictive substance on the market – is still a thing with snuff. However, one thing both its enthusiasts and detractors have to admit is that the habit is so uncommon these days that it’s impossible to come to any definite conclusions about it. Still, speaking as a non-smoker, it’s a lot less annoying to the rest of us than smoking. Just don’t sneeze on me, yeah?

Snuff first appeared in the sixteenth century, but reached the height of its popularity in the eighteenth. The reason for this was largely availability. During the 1702 Battle of Cadiz, Sir George Rooke seized fifty tons of fine Cuban snuff, which was distributed among the sailors and sold on dirt-cheap at the English ports. With the habit firmly established, a kind of snuff culture began to grow up. Accessories such as the rather exciting snuff box above began to appear (and now fetch a pretty penny at antiques markets). Rules and etiquette were established for the offering of snuff – depending on the person, you could offer them the Pinch Careless, the Pinch Surly, the Pinch Politick, the Pinch Scornful, and presumably some nice ones as well. There were those who condemned the habit on health grounds, but also those who believed it could be beneficial (for instance, the Gentlewoman’s Magazine advised that it could cure sight problems).

There were many varieties of tobacco available, and more could be created by careful blending. Later in the century, artificially scented varieties became available. Ingredients used included prunes, port wine, ale and even strong cheese. Why you’d want prune-flavoured tobacco, I don’t know. Mind you, I also don’t know why you’d want to wear a periwig, but people still did it.

I think I can safely say that the most devoted snuff-taker in England is one described by H. W. Morton, one Mrs Margaret Thompson of Burlington Gardens. Such was her enthusiasm for the powder that when she died in 1776, she stipulated in her will:

I desire that all my handkerchiefs that I may have unwashed at the time of my decease, after they have been got together by my old and trusty servant, Sarah Stuart, be put by her, and by her alone, at the bottom of my coffin, which I desire may be made large enough for that purpose, together with a quantity of the best Scotch snuff (in which she knoweth I had the greatest delight) as will cover my deceased body; and this I desire more especially as it is usual to put flowers into the coffins of departed friends, and nothing can be so precious and fragrant to me than that precious powder.

She also requested that the aforementioned Ms Stuart should walk in front of her bearers, scattering snuff in their path and on to the crowd. The said bearers should the six greatest snuff takers in St James, each of whom should carry a box of snuff from which they should feel free to take as much as they fancy. Instead of black, they were to wear brown.

I think if I were a smoker, I should demand similar arrangements as an up-yours to the healthcare profession.

What really killed snuff as a habit for all but a handful of devotees was the appearance of cigarettes in the middle of the nineteenth century, again as a result of war – British soldiers in the Crimea picked up the habit from their Turkish allies. Another contributing factor may have been a fashion for white handkerchiefs – without getting too detailed, it’s a little difficult to keep a clean handkerchief when you spend your day shoving brown powder up your hooter.

Will snuff ever make a return? I rather doubt it, unless cigarettes were banned outright. Still, it is worth noting that it’s not covered by the smoking ban, so you can get a snozzfull in the pub and no one can stop you. Try it some day.

Beau Selecta

One of the most disagreeable phenomena of modern times must surely be the gossip magazine celebrity. The person whose fame (and thus wealth) is out of all proportion to their talent. Take, for instance, Peaches Geldof, who is classed as a writer and model due to an administrative error. Or Paris Hilton, the only person who could make me yearn for a Communist revolution.

The sad thing is, though, that this vile situation was in place long before the age of mass media. I’d like to take you back in my magical time machine, the RETARDIS, to  the Regency. This is perhaps my favourite historical period, because you just couldn’t make up the stuff that happened then. Well, you could, but you’d be criticised for being unimaginitive.

The gentleman we’re going to look at today is George “Beau” Brummell, possibly the world’s first fashion guru. He was firmly of the opinion that, when it came to fashion, less is more. Notice in his picture on the left that he favoured a basic cut in understated fabric.

However, to achieve such understated elegance took a hell of a lot of effort. He claimed to have three hairdressers, each one taking a different part of his head. He was said to take five hours to dress, and at the end his room would be covered in rejected clothes. He was unable to find a stock that looked right, so he invented his own in starched muslin, a foot wide. He believed that the best shine on boots was achieved with champagne – and his taste in champagne was not exactly restrained (at one dinner party where the champagne was second-rate, he was heard to call, “Bring me some more of that cider!”) His taste in clothing was so influential that, legend has it, he was once able to make the Prince of Wales (later King George IV) burst into tears when he insulted Prinny’s coat. This tale doesn’t sound all that implausible, but it can’t be denied that the Prince was an enthusiast for Beau’s fashion tips – before he met Brummell, he was in the habit of wearing brightly-patterned, flamboyant clothing. After, he became more restrained in his tastes.

The Prince of Wales prepares for a night on the town.

Yes, Brummell was part of the Prince’s social circle, men who favoured heinous amounts of drinking, gambling and whoring even on a school night. How did he rise to such a prestigious position? Well, now, that’s the odd part.

Brummell was not born an aristocrat. He did not come from old money. In fact, he only acquired wealth by chance. His grandfather ran a lodging house, one of whose guests was father of a future Prime Minister, Lord North. North Senior was able to get Old Man Brummell’s son a post in the Treasury, and the son rose to be the Prime Minister’s private secretary, amassing a fortune of over £200,000 (which, accounting for inflation, comes to… ooh, lots). Thus, through hard work and opportunity the Brummells rose from the servant class to the cream of society.

Young George Brummell didn’t particularly intend to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was briefly in the Army, but sold his commission when his regiment transferred to Manchester (because, so the story goes, that would have taken him away from the London social scene). He quickly became a fixture of West End society thanks to having met the Prince at Eton. And, as mentioned before, his fashion sense took London by storm – this perhaps owed something to the fact that his grandfather had been a valet before he had been a landlord, and thus would have been expected to know what was what clothing-wise.

Brummell was famous for his bitchiness as much as for his sartorial mastery, though. For instance, an up-and-coming industrialist once invited him to a dinner party. Brummell asked him how many would be attending. The host said, “Well, there are to be ten other guests, plus you and me, so twelve in all.” “Good Lord,” Brummell reputedly replied, “you don’t mean to say you are to be one of the party?”

Of course, his most famous bitchy remark was to be his downfall. Like most socialites, Brummell thrived off attention. So when the Prince showed up at a party with Lord Alvanley in 1812 and totally ignored him, Brummell’s nose was rather put out of joint (well, actually, that had been the result of a kick in the face by a horse during his army days, but metaphorically). Eventually, he went up to Lord Alvanley and said, as loudly as possible, “I say, Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?”

Now, the Prince was rather sensitive about his weight, and he had a lot of weight to be sensitive about (20 years later, Charles Lamb would dub him “The Prince of Whales”) and, as we have seen, something of a vain man. And so he proved that he was just as adept as Brummell at being a total prick and cut the fop off entirely.

Beau might have recovered from this, were it not for his weakness for gambling. Gambling was taken very seriously in the 18th century, with almost unimaginable amounts being made and lost in a single night at the card table. Yr. Humble Chronicler is no puritan, but there’s something mildly revolting about a man thinking nothing of losing the price of a townhouse in a hand of poker. If you were lucky, you could be set for life. Unfortunately, no one’s luck lasts forever, and by 1816 Brummell found himself hopelessly in debt. Few were willing to lend him money, and those that were were disappointed to see him back at the tables soon afterwards.

He fled to France in order to escape his many, many creditors and eked out a bare bones existence working for the British Consulate in Caen, thanks to Lord Alvanley’s influential word (obviously Alvanley found the “fat friend” joke funny). He would eventually die in hospital, apparently quite insane and, so the story goes, in a vile state of undress and filth.

We can only hope.

Still, on the bright side, that might yet happen to Peaches Geldof as well.