| Gals. | ||
| Generally, | 2 boilers full per day | 17 |
| Occasionally, | 2½ " " | 21¼ |
| On one day, | 3 " " | 25½ |
My calculation is, that they drink on the average two-thirds of a gallon each per day, at a cost of 2d. Thus I pay them, in lieu of beer, 8d. per day in money, and 2d. in tea, or 10d. in all. But if the change involved a much larger expenditure than the cost of the beer, employers would be amply remunerated in the better and larger amount of work done, the better disposition of their labourers, the decrease of pauperism, and the general well-being of the people."
Mr. Garland, having benefited so much by the substitution of tea for beer, was naturally anxious that other farmers should follow his example, and urged them to "let the additional wages be given to the full value of the beer; let the tea be good, and made with care in the field, not sent out from the house, or there will not be enough; be sure that it is always within the reach of every labourer, without stint. See to this yourself: trust it to no one; beer has many friends. Be firm in carrying out the change, and it will be a source of great satisfaction to you and to your labourers, with very little trouble and at no extra expense." The late Sir Philip Rose testified that the men on his farm "were in better condition at the conclusion of the day, less stupid and sullen, and certainly much better fitted the next morning to resume their labours, than with the old system of beer." It would be easy to multiply extracts, but enough has been said to prove the benefit of tea over alcohol, whether in marching or fighting, cricketing or sculling, cycling or mowing. We may add that cold tea is considered by many writers on the subject one of the most refreshing and satisfactory summer drinks, provided it be not spoiled by the addition of milk and sugar. It ought to be made early in the day, and left to stand in a stone jar until thoroughly cool, and should then be flavoured, in the Russian fashion, with slices of fresh lemon.
CHAPTER VI.
TEA AS A STIMULANT.
Rum-punch and poets—Alcohol as a stimulant—The king of the tea-drinkers—Dr. Johnson's teapot—Jonas Hanway's attack—Eloquence inspired by tea-drinking—A delightful tea-story—An absent-minded poet—George Dyer's breakfast-party—An empty cupboard—Hazlitt a prodigious tea-drinker—Barry Cornwall disgusted with Hazlitt's teetotal principles—Wordsworth's love of sugar in his tea—Testimony of other authors—Tea as a tonic—Tea denounced—Tea at St. Stephen's—Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and M. Clemenceau quoted—Hartley Coleridge's poem on tea.
When James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," visited Keswick, he invited Southey to his inn. The invitation was heartily accepted. Southey stayed half an hour, but showed no disposition to imbibe. "I was," says Hogg, "a grieved as well as an astonished man when I found that he refused all participation in my beverage of rum-punch. For a poet to refuse his glass was to me a phenomenon, and I confess I doubted in my own mind, and doubt to this day if perfect sobriety and transcendent poetical genius can exist together; in Scotland I am sure they cannot." No doubt; but, since Burns and Hogg have passed away, a new generation has arisen. The poet, the essayist, the historian, and the journalist no longer write under the influence of alcohol. As Mr. George R. Sims says, the idea that drink quickly excites the brain is exploded. Healthier stimulants have taken its place. It cannot be denied that some good work has been done under the influence of tea. Look at Dr. Johnson, for instance. That fine old Tory is worthy of the title of the king of the tea-drinkers. He loved tea quite as much as Porson loved gin. Tea was Johnson's only stimulant. He drank it in bed, he drank it with his friends, and he drank it while compiling his dictionary. One of his friends thus describes his mode of life: "About twelve o'clock I commonly visited him, and frequently found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters. He declaimed all the morning, then went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly stayed late, and then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he loitered a great while, but seldom took supper." At his house in Gough Square, off Fleet Street, he frequently drank tea with his dependants, some of whom were blind, and some were deaf. Boswell has left us a graphic picture of these interesting gatherings:—"We went home to his house to tea. Mrs. Williams made it with sufficient dexterity, notwithstanding her blindness," though he describes her putting her fingers into the cups to feel if they were full; but then it was Johnson's favourite beverage, and he adds, "I willingly drank cup after cup, as if it had been the Heliconian Spring. There was a pretty large circle there, and the great doctor was in very good humour, lively and ready to talk upon all sorts of subjects." Mr. F. Sherlock, a fertile writer on the temperance question, claims Dr. Johnson as a teetotaler, and has placed him in his gallery of "Illustrious Abstainers." If the learned doctor was an abstainer from alcoholic drinks, he made up for his abstinence from wine by indulging to excess in the milder and less dangerous stimulant of tea. If he did not write his dictionary by the aid of the Chinese drink, his teapot was never far away from his writing-table. "I suppose," said Boswell, "that no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank at all hours were so great, that his nerves must have been uncommonly strong not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it; but he assured me he never felt the least inconvenience from it."
Johnson's indulgence did not escape the notice of Jonas Hanway, who was so alarmed for the safety of the nation that he wrote an essay on "Tea and its Pernicious Consequences," pronouncing it the ruin of the nation, and of every one who drank it. Johnson replied to the attack, and described himself as a "hardened and shameless tea-drinker, whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning." Johnson's defence did not, however, silence, his critics. Sir John Hawkins characterized tea-drinking as unmanly, and, like John Wesley, almost gave it the colour of a crime. The worthy lexicographer, it must be confessed, was a thirsty soul, for his teapot held at least two quarts. But Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton writes of a clergyman whose tea-drinking indulgences exceeded those of Johnson. This self-denying Christian, who "from the most conscientious motives denied himself ale and wine, found a fountain of consolation in the teapot. His usual allowance was sixteen cups, all of heroic strength, and the effect upon his brain seems to have been altogether favourable, for his sermons were both long and eloquent."