Not to be sneezed at

The ritual and performance of snuff, the 'titillating dust' that has fuelled creativity and enhanced social situations since the 16th century, is still popular today, discovers

- Harry Pearson

IN these days of austerity, the news that British MPs are entitled to free snuff when attending sessions in the House of Commons is likely to set nostrils flaring. Smoking has been outlawed in the Houses of Parliament since 1694-not for health reasons, but for fear of fire. For centuries, MPs seeking a mind-clearing hit of nicotine would help themselves to a pinch of snuff before standing up to speak.

In the Georgian age, when snuff was all the rage, the cost of the parliamentary supply was not to be sneezed at, but those who fear that the snorting of this finely ground tobacco by our own elected representatives is blowing holes in the budget can rest easy. The snuff available to them is a variety named English Rose from one of England's two remaining mills, Gawith Hoggarth of Kendal, Cumbria.

It's stored in a box fashioned from an oak beam rescued from the old debating chamber that was destroyed during the Blitz. The exact cost of maintaining the parliamentary snuff allowance is unavailable, but when figures were last made public, in 1989, consumption amounted to 1/2oz per year at a cost of 99p. You don't fund many libraries with that.

We might think of smoking bans as a development of our own health-conscious age, but they enjoyed a great vogue in the 18th century, too. In 1705, Richard 'Beau' Nash took over as Master of Ceremonies in Bath and promptly banned smoking in all the city's public rooms. Nash set the tone for fashionable gatherings. Until the 1850s, smoking would be frowned upon in all high-tone places, including gentlemen's clubs. The beneficiary of the banishing of pipes and cigars was the snuff trade. Thanks to Nash and other Georgian dandies, snuff became the tobacco of choice for High Society-the common people puffed, the aristocracy sniffed.