FOOTNOTES:
[5] "It is not safe, in regard to the action of a drug on animals, to conclude that its effect will be the same on men. For instance, belladonna, which is a deadly poison for men, does not hurt rabbits."—Professor Rolleston.
[6] There may be some truth in this statement. "I do not remember any mention of tea in Wycherley, but in Congreve's 'Double Dealer' (Act 1, Scene 1, p. 175 a), the scene is laid at Lord Touchwood's house; and when Careless inquires what has become of the ladies, just after dinner, Mellefont replies, "Why, they are at the end of the gallery, retired to tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.""—Buckle, Common-Place Book.
CHAPTER VIII.
TEA AS A SOURCE OF REVENUE.
Tea heavily taxed—How it was adulterated in the "Good Old Times"—Efforts to secure a reduction in the duty—Why crime and ignorance prevail—Mr. Disraeli's proposal to reduce the duty on tea, opposed by Mr. Gladstone—Mr. Gladstone's legislation—The Chancellor of the Exchequer memorialized to reduce the duty on Indian tea—The annual expenditure on tea—Professor Leoni Levi's estimate of its consumption by the working classes.
Tea had not been in use many years before the government discovered in it a valuable means of replenishing the national exchequer. Accordingly they passed a law, in 1660, imposing a duty of eightpence per gallon on all tea made and sold in coffee-houses, which were visited twice daily by officers. It would occupy too much space to describe subsequent legislation, but the subject appears at times to have been almost as perplexing as the liquor traffic to the various governments.
The tea duties have, however, always been excessively heavy, and it is therefore not surprising that a great deal of smuggling was carried on in the "Good Old Times," and that deceptions were practised to a very large extent by unscrupulous tea-dealers. Parliament at last interfered. In the reign of George II. an Act of Parliament recites that "several ill-disposed persons do frequently fabricate, dye, or manufacture very great quantities of sloe-leaves, liquorice-leaves, and the leaves of tea that have before been used, or the leaves of other trees, shrubs, or plants, in imitation of tea, and do likewise mix, colour, stain and dye such leaves with terra japonica, sugar, molasses, clay, logwood and with other ingredients, and do sell and vend the same as real tea, to the prejudice of the health of his Majesty's subjects, the diminution of his revenue, and to the ruin of the fair trader." The Act then declares, "that the dealer in and seller of such sophisticated teas shall forfeit the sum of ten pounds for every pound-weight." In a report of the Committee of the House of Commons, in 1783, it is stated that "the quantity of fictitious tea annually manufactured from sloe, liquorice, and ash-tree leaves, in different parts of England, to be mixed with genuine teas, is computed at four millions of pounds, and that at a time when the whole quantity of genuine tea sold by the East India Company did not exceed more than six millions of pounds annually." The Act does not seem, however, to have done much to check the evil, for in the year 1828 the existence of several tea manufactories was disclosed, the penalties for defrauding the revenue amounting in one case to 840l. It is impossible to estimate the amount of smuggled tea consumed, but the official accounts indicate a large consumption.