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Spices J and their Importation into Great Britain. 



ScHLEiDEN has declared that professional vanity induced him to write 

 his work, 'The Plant;' that he wanted to dispel the popular notion that 

 a botanist was merely a man who dried herbs, and afterwards named this 

 artificial hay. We wish that sort of vanity would spread ; but unfor- 

 tunately the great mass of botanists fully deserve the estimate in which 

 they are held, for whenever there is any chance to show the practical 

 application of their science, by solving some question of general inte- 

 rest, no one stirs. Nutmegs and other spices have lately caused a 

 discussion in this country ; yet no naturalist has taken a part in it ; 

 and had it not been for one of the daily papers it would not have 

 been settled. In transferring, therefore, the following valuable extracts 

 to the pages of our journal, we do it not without blushing, because we 

 feel that our botanists have been guilty of neglect. 



" It appears from the public accounts of 1851," says the ' Daily 

 News,' " that the total gross revenue derived from spices in thai year 

 amounted to £117,768, and was levied on 4,220,399 lbs. of spices of 

 all kinds. A general reflection obtrudes itself on considering this fact. 

 Spices evidently belong to that category of commodities, which the 

 financiers who recommend the concentration of Customs' imposts on 

 a few articles of universal and extensive consumption would strike out 

 of the Customs' tariff altogether. The revenue derived from them 

 scarcely compensates the increased annoyance to trade and the 

 increased expense of the Customs' establishment, which the multi- 

 plication of duty-paying commodities occasions. On the other hand, 

 spices being, although wholesome, not an article of prime necessity, 

 are fair objects of taxation. The reasons for and against retaining 

 them on the Customs' tariff are pretty equally balanced. But if they 

 are retained the assessment of duties levied on them ought clearly to 

 be as equitable and as little embarassing as possible. Unfortunately, 

 however, the tariff of duties on spices is most unequal and anomalous 

 and clearly assessed upon no fixed principle. 



"We begin with pepper. This is emphatically the poor man's 

 spice, being the only one within reach of his narrow means, and 

 largely consumed by the less wealthy classes. Of the 4,220,399 lbs. 

 of spices taxed in 1851, no less than 3,303,402 were pepper; and of 

 the £117,768 of revenue derived from spices, £86,729 were levied upon 

 pepper. The average price of black pepper (white pepper is merely the 

 fruit of the same plant, with the flesh removed by washing, and much 



