“Yes, my dear. This one garden is fifteen miles round.”
“Well, why cannot the people steal as much as they please? If I were a poor native, I would cut down all I could get, and sell enough to make a great deal of money, and then buy what I wished for.”
“As for the cutting it down, my dear, the natives would have little scruple; for, like all people who are cruelly pinched, they are apt to take what they can get without caring to whom it belongs. But how are they to sell it when they have got it?”
“I thought you said that cinnamon grew scarcely anywhere in the world but here; and I am sure there are plenty of people all over the world who are fond of it, and would be glad to buy it.”
“Very true; but those who long to sell and those who long to buy cannot get at each other. Somebody steps between to prevent the bargain. The English government lets the East India Company have all the cinnamon you see, on condition of the Company paying so much a-year. So the spice is carried away to be sold, instead of foreign nations being allowed to come here to buy; and none is left but that which the Company does not think it worth while to carry away; and even that is sometimes burned to keep up the price.”
“Burned! when so many people would be glad of it! Would not the common people in England like it, if they could get it as cheap as salt? If they did, they would make the fortunes of the people here.”
“And then the people here would make the fortunes of a great many of the working people in England. This would certainly be the case.—What do you think the people in England eat most of, Alice?”
“Bread, I suppose.”
“Yes; and salt comes next. And what next?—Another sort of seasoning.”
It was not pepper, nor mustard; but something that every body liked and used,—from the infant that will leave sucking its thumb for it, to the old man that has but one tooth left in his head;—from the king who lets his queen put it into his coffee, to the labourer’s wife who carries home a coarse sample of it on the Saturday night.