urn the joke against Schwerin, the king
called attention to the snuff-box. The Duchess took it up
and opened it. Immediately she exclaimed, 'What a striking
likeness! In truth, brother, this is one of the best
portraits I have ever seen of you.' Frederick, embarrassed,
thought his sister was carrying the jest too far. She passed
the box to her neighbor, who uttered similar expressions to
her own. The box made the round of the table, and every one
was fervently eloquent about the marvelous resemblance. The
king was puzzled what to make of all this. When the box at
last reached his hands, he saw, to his great surprise, that
his portrait was really there. Count Schwerin had simply,
with exceeding dispatch, employed an artist to remove the
ass's head, and to paint the king's head instead. Frederick
could not help laughing at the Count's clever trick, which
was really the best rebuke of his own bad taste and want of
proper and respectful feeling."

"As Frederick William I., of Prussia, was eminently the
Smoking King, so his son Frederick the Great was eminently
the Snuffing King. Perhaps smoking harmonizes best with
action; and it might, without much stretch of fancy, be
shown that as the Prussian monarchy was founded on tobacco
smoke, it flourished on snuff. Possibly, if Napoleon the
Great, who like Frederick the Great, was an excessive
snuffer, had smoked as well as snuffed, he might have
preserved his empire from overthrow, seeing that smoking
steadies and snuffing impels. The influences of smoking and
snuffing on politics and war are ascertainable. What the
effect of chewing is on political and military affairs, it
is not so easy to discover. We recommend the subject for
meditation to the profoundest metaphysicians. How many of
the American politicians and generals have been chewers as
well as snuffers and smokers? Is there to be some mysterious
affinity between chewing and the revolutions, especially the
social revolutions of the future? May not apocalyptic
interpreters be able to show that chewing is the symbol of
anarchy and annihilation?"

[Illustration: Scotch snuff-mills.]

When first used in Europe snuff was made ready for use by the
takers--each person being provided with a box or "mill," as they were
termed, to reduce the leaves