4S6 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Jan. I, 1887, 



9,000 roaunds with a taxatiou of 10,000Z. only. The 

 law which imposed the tax was passed about ten 

 years ago, and he was surprised that the difference 

 referred to had heen lost sight of. These quantities 

 did not represent the total produce of Indian lienip. 

 Two thousand luaunds were yearly exported from 

 Bombay to Liverpool and Loudon- duty free, the 

 result being that it could be bought in London at 

 oue-tweutieth the price at which it was sold in 

 Bombay, (Laughter.) The wouder was what became 

 of it, and he fearcl that it was re.shipped for con- 

 sumption in India after escaping the customs. Dr. 

 Watt next gave an interesting account of the cul- 

 tivation of the drug in India. He said that the 

 wild variety — known as Bhang — differs from the 

 cultivated ganjah. It is much weaker, and is used 

 for the preparation of an intoxicating liquor and 

 sweetmeats. The liquor is called Hasheesh, this wonl 

 being the source of oui: word assassin, a corrup- 

 tion of the native word " Uasheesheeu "' applied to the 

 intoxicated and homicidal persons who drink the liquor. 

 The sweetmeats are made by digesting the bhaug in 

 ghee, a kind of butter — the mixture being after- 

 wards made into a suitable mass. Ganjah is entirely 

 smoked, never eaten. The drug, Dr. Watt explained, is 

 placed in a pipe, ignited in a certain way, and 

 two or three whiffs arc all that is necessary 

 to make a man delightfully drunk. (Laughter.) 

 Bhang is smoked in a different way. It is placed 

 on a fire in the middle of a room in which a num- 

 ber of persons sit, and as the fumes fill the apart- 

 ment all in the room get drunk together. (Laughter). 

 After explaining that these details were not taken 

 from personal experience but from observation. Dr. 

 Watt proceeded to describe the collection of Churrus, 

 the resinous exudation from the stems of the plant. 

 For the purpose a number of men are employed. 

 They are stripped of the little clothing which they 

 wear, their bodies well oiled, and they are made to 

 run through the hemp fields in all directions. As 

 thpy press their way through the stems, their bodies 

 become covered with the resin. Tluy are then con- 

 veyed to head-quarters and scraped. Another sub- 

 stance, termed Mammia, is a much more nasty pre- 

 p-itration. This is referred to in the last edition of 

 Johnstoa's ' Ohemistry of Common Life.' The pre- 

 paration is made in Nepaul. A certain plant is ad- 

 ministered to miserable wretches, and it produces 

 upon them a loathsome eruption. It is this eruption 

 ■which is scraped off their bodies and used like ghee 

 along with bhang. Incidentally Dr. Watt, remarked 

 that he did not consider that much was to be learnt 

 by associating with the native doctors. They knew 

 all about the many hundreds of drugs which were in 

 India, and there were not more than 40 or 50 of 

 them of any real use. Moreover, the natives kept 

 the drugs in their shops until they were perfectly 

 rotten and worm-eaten, and as they were dependent 

 upon them for many of them, that fat accounted 

 for numerous specimens in the Indian Court being 

 in a bad condition. Again 'referring to ganjah, he 

 said that it was essential for its production tiiat the 

 fields of it should be quite free from male flowers 

 otherwise a single male fii)Wer present in a fielrl would 

 by fertilisation, convert it into bhang. In cultivated 

 fields of the hemp the male flowers were separated 

 by native doctors, who are most proficient in their 

 work. When the plant consipts only of a short stem, 

 IJ feet high these doctors after striking a bnrg*in, 

 go through the fields, and, singling out every male plant 

 cut it down and Ipave not a single one stsndiug. 

 Dr. Watt had endeavoured to get at the bottom of 

 this wond'-'rful skill, but even with the help of a 

 Microscope he had failed to find any satisfactory 

 point of distinction between the male and female 

 plants at this point of growth. He described how 

 the heads are prepared for market. A hollow space 

 is made in the earth, and the freshly-pulled lifads 

 are placed in it; the workpeople thou roll it hbout 

 with a shuflfling motion of their bare feet the amount 

 of pressure which the heads are subjected to deter- 

 mining the form of the product and streugth." — Nil- 

 iri Express. 



COFFEE ADULTERATION. 



Not before it was time, an influential meeting has 

 been held of those interested in the growth of Indian 

 and Colonial Coffees, to concert measures for putting 

 a stop to the prevalent adulteration, which is slowly 

 but surely destrojiug the Coffee trade of this country. 

 Though i)eople are often unaware of the precise reason, 

 all articles of food and drink are consumed for some 

 useful part that they i)erform in the human frame. 

 They may bo nutritious or stimulative, or they may 

 prevent waste of tissue, and it is for the two latter 

 purposes, so physiologists say, that substances like Tea 

 or Coffee are used. These "effects depend upon the 

 alkaloids — Theiue in the case of Tea and Caffeine in 

 (loffee — which tiiose drinks contain. But if these 

 essential properties are ovt rwhelmed with a massof burnt 

 woody fibre, such :is Chicory consists of, the object of 

 Coffee-drinking is at an end. Nevertheless, in the 

 case of Coff(>e, if advertisements on tins and other- 

 wise are to be believed, the very thing that destroys 

 its efficacy, is vaunted to bo an improvement. This 

 would matter little if the public were not misled by 

 such statements, as they undoubtedly are. English 

 people, as a rule, through the long course of medi- 

 cinal Chicory they have undergone, are totally ignorant 

 of what true Coffee is like, and a degraded public 

 taste has been created which actually calls for a certain 

 amount of the bitterness and thickness which Chicory 

 gives to Coffee. But this is no reason for the public being 

 kept in ignorance of the proportion of Chicory they 

 are buying, and the present law, by which a simple 

 declaration of admixture, covers the addition, even of 

 80 p>-r cent of Chicory, simply leads to the grossest 

 abuse. No substance ought to be sold as Coffee unless 

 it contains at the very least 50 or CO per cent of the 

 substance by the name of which it is called ; and in 

 this, as in all other admixtures, the amount of foreign 

 matters added should be clearly declared to the 

 purchaser by a distinct printed label. The present 

 Government stamp ou mixtures of Chicory and 

 Coffee, with other things, simply puts the official sf al 

 of approval on what is som'-limes a fraud. A number 

 of samples of "Coffee" have recently been analysed 

 in London, and proportions of 60, 70, and in one 

 case 92 per cent of Chicory and the like substances, 

 have been found in them. Certainly no such compounds 

 should be allowed to be sold as Coffee at all. If the 

 word " French " be a recommendation to these 

 mixtures, it would equally recommend the word 

 '•Chicory," and the pr(>portion of Coffee could then 

 be declared. There is a sort of pnci^dent for dealing 

 with Coffee in the recent Spirit laws, which do not 

 allow Spirits of less than 25 degrees of alcoholic 

 streugth to be sold without a legible declaration on 

 the bottle of the exact amount of added water. 

 But this precedent dois not go far enough in the 

 case of Coffee. The addition of water in large 

 quantities is absolutely necessary in the case of pure 

 alcohol, which is simply a poison if undiluted. The 

 addition of Chicory to coffee is in no WHy essential 

 or desirable, and the purer a Coffee is, the better is 

 its effect upon the human frame. It would seem fair, 

 therefore, to go a ftep further than with Spirits, 

 and to say that the proportion of all Chicory, whether 

 much or little, added to ct.ffee, should be legilily 

 decUred. The planters in their proposals as reported 

 in The T'nnei of Wednes^day lact, went further than 

 this, and were inclined to ask that no adnjixture 

 whatever should be permitted, and that people who 

 want Chicory should be compelled to buy it separately, 

 and mix it themselves. Thi.s, however, has been 

 already tried in this country, and has been given np, 

 as it was found to bo unworkable. . Since the first 

 meeting of the Planters, it is understood that a 

 compromise may ba entertained, by which a certain 

 proportion of Chicory f-hould be allowed to be admixed, 

 without declaration. To admit this, however, would 

 be practically to defeat the object of the movement, 

 and if such a weak compromise be accepted, the agi- 

 tation would be better left alone. Those who like 

 Chicory in their Coffee, and tens of thousands do so, 

 would have uo objection, but the contrary, to th. 

 declaration of the proportion added, while those who 



