USES TO WHICH [Chap. 



from that wheat is well known to ])e the best in 

 the world. Will our labouring people, then, still 

 insist upon lapping up tea-water, expensive vil- 

 lanous tea-water, sweetened with the not less 

 expensive result of the sweating bodies, the 

 aching limbs, and the bleeding backs of the 

 Africans ? will they still insist upon blowing 

 themselves out with this costly stuff, which all 

 the world knows has no nutrition in it ? will they 

 i'lsist upon squandering their earnings away on 

 the filthy and heel-svv'elling potatoes; when they 

 can here, at a tenth part of the expense, or 

 thereabouts, without even an oven, and without 

 any plaguing utensil; will they continue to do this, 

 in spite of reason ; in spite of the example of a 

 nation of the best livers in the world; in spite of 

 their own interest and their health ; having nothing 

 to plead in their defence, except the well-known 

 and not very rare fact, that they never have 

 eaten any of these things ? People, in observing 

 upon conduct like this, generally call it preju- 

 dice ; a very pretty word to supply the place of 

 wilfulness, obstinacy, 2jerverseness, and brutal 

 disregard of the dictates of reason. They have 

 ?i prejudice against it. It unfortunately happens 

 that they never have a prejudice against any 

 food or drink, to indulge in which is ruinous. 

 I speak of the middle class as well as of the 

 labourers ; for as to the rich, they can squander 



