Note 13 — Chapter VI · SNIFFING AND SNEESHIN.

Lord Stanhope makes the following curious estimate:——“Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker, at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes. Every pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose, and other incidental circumstances, consumes a minute and a half. One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of every ten. One day out of every ten amounts to thirty-six days and a half in the year; hence, if we suppose the practice to be persisted in for forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker’s life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blowing it.” The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs, is also alluded to; and it is calculated that “by a proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt.”