A frequent sign-device among dealers in snuff was the Crown and Rasp.  The oldest method of taking snuff, says Larwood, in the “History of Signboards,” was “to scrape it with a rasp from the dry root of the tobacco plant; the powder was then placed on the back of the hand and so snuffed up; hence the name of rape (rasped) for a kind of snuff, and the common tobacconist’s sign of La Carotte d’or (the golden root) in France.” Rape became in English “rappee,” familiar in snuff-taking days as the name for a coarse kind of snuff made from the darker and ranker tobacco leaves.  The list of prices and names given by Wimble, a snuff-seller, about 1740, and printed in Fairholt’s “History of Tobacco,” contains eighteen different kinds of rappee—­English, best English, fine English, high-flavoured coarse, low, scented, composite, &c.  The rasps for obtaining this rape, continues Larwood, “were carried in the waistcoat pocket, and soon became articles of luxury, being carved in ivory and variously enriched.  Some of them, in ivory and inlaid wood, may be seen at the Hotel Cluny in Paris, and an engraving of such an object occurs in ‘Archaeologia,’ vol. xiii.  One of the first snuff-boxes was the so-called rape or grivoise box, at the back of which was a little space for a piece of the root, whilst a small iron rasp was contained in the middle.  When a pinch was wanted, the root was drawn a few times over the iron rasp, and so the snuff was produced and could be offered to a friend with much more grace than under the above-mentioned process with the pocket-grater.”

The tobacconists’ sign that for very many years was in most general use was the figure of a highlander, which may still perhaps be found in one or two places, but which was not at all an unusual sight in the streets of London and other towns some forty or fifty years ago.  Most men of middle age can remember when the snuff-taking highlander was the usual ornament to the entrance of a tobacconist’s shop; but all have disappeared from London streets save two—­I say two on the authority of Mr. E.V.  Lucas, who gives it (in his “Wanderer in London”) as the number of the survivors; but only one is known to me.  This is the famous old wooden highlander which stood for more than a hundred years on guard at a tobacconist’s shop in Tottenham Court Road.  About the end of 1906 it was announced that the shop was to be demolished, and that the time-worn figure was for sale.  The announcement created no small stir, and it was said that the offers for the highlander ran up to a surprising figure.  He was bought ultimately by a neighbouring furnishing firm, and now stands on duty not far from his ancient post, though no passer-by can help feeling the incongruity between the time-honoured emblem of the snuff-taker and his present surroundings of linoleum “and sich.”