Chapter SMITH to Snitchey and Craggs of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Miss Farren took leave of the stage in 1797, and her concluding words were: “Let me request, lady Sneerwell, that you will make my respects to the scandalous college of which you are a member, and inform them that lady Teazle [about to be countess of Derby], licentiate, begs leave to return the diploma they granted her, as she now leaves off practice, and kills characters no longer. A burst of applause followed and no more of the play was listened to.—Mrs. C. Mathews.

Sneeze into a Sack (To), to be guillotined.

Who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.—Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, iii. 4 (1859).

Sneezing. A person who sneezed was at one time supposed to be under the influence of fairies and demons, and as the name of God repelled all evil spirits, the benediction of “God bless you!” drove away the demon, and counteracted its influence.

(Judge Haliburton has a good paper “On Sneezing,” in Temple Bar, 345, 1875.)

Bul. I have often, Dr. Skeleton, had it in my head to ask some of the faculty, what can be the reason that when a man happens to sneeze, all the company bows.

Skel. Sneezing, Dr. Bulruddery, was a mortal symptom that attended a pestilential disease which formerly depopulated the republic of Athens; ever since when that convulsion occurs, a short ejaculation is offered up that the sneezing or sternuting party may not be afflicted with the same distemper.

Bul. Upon my conscience, a very learned account! Ay, and a very civil institution too!—Bickerstaff and Foote: Dr. Last in His Chariot (1769).

Snevellicei (Mr.), in Crummles’s company of actors. Mr. Snevellicci plays the military swell, and is great in the character of speechless noblemen.

Mrs. Snevellicci, wife of the above, a dancer in the same theatrical company.

Miss Snevellicci, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Snevellicci, also of the Portsmouth Theatre. “She could do anything, from a medley dance to lady Macbeth.” Miss Snevellicci laid her toils to catch Nicholas Nickleby, but “the bird escaped from the nets of the toiler.”—Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby (1838).

Snitchey and Craggs, lawyers. It was the opinion of Mr. Thomas Craggs that “everything is too easy,” especially law; that it is the duty of wise men to make everything as difficult as possible, and as hard to go as rusty locks and hinges which will not turn for want of greasing. He was a cold, hard, dry man, dressed in grey-and-white like a flint, with small twinkles in his eyes. Jonathan Snitchey was like a magpie or raven. He generally finished by saying, “I speak for Self and Craggs,” and, after the death of his partner, “for Self and Craggs deceased.”

Mrs. Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs, wives of the lawyers. Mrs. Snitchey was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. Craggs was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. Mrs. Craggs would say to her lord and master— Your Snitcheys indeed! I don’t see what you want with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may never find my words come true.

Mrs. Snitchey would observe to Mr. Snitchey—

Snitchey, if ever you were led away by man, take my word for it, you are led away by Craggs; and if ever I can read a double purpose in mortal eye, I can read it in Craggs’s eye.—Dickens: The Battle of Life, ii. (1846).