Note 169 — FEMALE DRESSES OF LAST CENTURY.

Snuff-taking was prevalent among young women in our grandmothers’ time. Their flirts used to present them with pretty snuff-boxes. In one of the monthly numbers of the Scots Magazine for the year 1745 there is a satirical poem by a swain upon the practice of snuff-taking; to which a lady replies next month, defending the fashion as elegant and of some account in coquetry. Almost all the old ladies who survived the commencement of this century took snuff. Some kept it in pouches, and abandoned, for its sake, the wearing of white ruffles and handkerchiefs.