COFFEE AND TEA.
The bill for attendance at the Dorchester Assizes in 1686 of Mr. John Bragge, the town-clerk of Lyme, presents this novelty—the article coffee is charged 2d. This may have been drunk at a coffee-house. Coffee was introduced from Turkey in 1650.
An advertisement in the "Mercurius Politicus," Sept. 30, 1658, instructs how "That excellent and by all physitians approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations, tay alias tee, is sold at the Sultana's Head Coffee-house, in Sweeting's-rents, by the Exchange, London.—"
There was a "cophee-house" in St. Michael's-alley, Cornhill, about 1657. Tea, coffee, and chocolate were placed under the excise. There was no tax upon these commodities when imported, but when made into drink, as tea was, at 8d. a gallon, and sold at these houses.
REMARKABLE PRESERVATION OF HUMAN HAIR SINCE THE NORMAN PERIOD.
In 1839 a coffin was discovered in the abbey church of Romsey, which had originally contained the body of a female of the above early time. The bones had entirely decayed, but the hair, with its characteristic indestructibility, was found entire, and appeared as if the skull had only recently been removed from it, retaining its form entire, and having plaited tails eighteen inches in length. It is still preserved in a glass case, lying upon the same block of oak which has been its pillow for centuries.
PUBLIC TASTE FOR CONJURING IN 1718.
One of the amusements of 1718 was the juggling exhibition of a fire-eater, whose name was De Hightrehight, a native of the valley of Annivi in the Alps. This tremendous person ate burning coals, chewed flaming brimstone and swallowed it, licked a red-hot poker, placed a red-hot heater on his tongue, kindled coals on his tongue, suffered them to be blown, and broiled meat on them, ate melted pitch, brimstone, bees-wax, sealing-wax, and rosin, with a spoon; and, to complete the business, he performed all these impossibilities five times per diem, at the Duke of Marlborough's Head, in Fleet-street, for the trifling receipts of 2s. 6d., 1s. 6d., and 1s. Master Hightrehight had the honour of exhibiting before Lewis XIV., the Emperor of Germany, the King of Sicily, the Doge of Venice, and an infinite number of princes and nobles—and the Prince of Wales, who had nearly lost this inconceivable pleasure by the envious interposition of the Inquisition at Bologna and in Piedmont, which holy office seemed inclined to try their mode of burning on his body, leaving to him the care of resisting the flames and rendering them harmless; but he was preserved from the unwelcome ordeal by the interference of the Dutchess Royal Regent of Savoy and the Marquis Bentivoglia.
THE TRIUMPHS OF SCIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE.
Distance seems not to have entered into the calculations of the engineers who built those monuments of human skill—carriage-roads over the Alps. They were after a certain grade, and they obtained it, though by contortions and serpentine windings that seem almost endless. Thus the Simplon averages nowhere more than one inch elevation to a foot, and, indeed, not quite that. Thirty thousand men were employed on this road six years. There are six hundred and eleven bridges in less than forty miles, ten galleries, and twenty houses of refuge, while the average width of the road is over twenty-five feet. The Splugen presents almost as striking features as the Simplon. From these facts, some idea may be gathered of the stupendous work it must be to carry a carriage-road over the Alps.