30 APRIL 1870, Page 3

Texan ladies eat snuff, are always eating it, and are

sallow in consequence. So do women throughout the Southern States. " Horrible !" say English papers, and of course, therefore, there is horror in the practice, but we should like to know why. It is quite open to anybody to say tobacco is a poison, and quite true besides,—the writer speaks from the experience of years and of to-day,—but why is that particular mode of imbibing poison so very bad? Swallowing tobacco through the mouth would appear to be at least as natural as swallowing it through the nose, and our grandmothers all did that. It is curious to observe the only point on which civilized men still maintain a morality of the stomach differing as between the sexes. For a man to drink spirits is a bad habit, for a woman it is a vicious one. A male snuff-taker is a person with a dirty way, a female snuff-eater is a criminal.