I.*] BREWING. 15 



municates no strength to the body ; it does not, in any 

 degree, assist in affording what labour demands. It 

 is, then, of no use. And, now, as to its cost, compared 

 with that of beer. I shall make my comparison ap- 

 plicable to a year, or three hundred and sixty-five days. 

 I shall suppose the tea to be only five shillings the 

 pound ; the sugar only sevenpence ; the milk only two- 

 pence a quart. The prices are at the very lowest. I 

 shall suppose a tea-pot to cost a shilling, six cups and 

 saucers two shillings and sixpence, and six pewter 

 spoons eighteen-pence. How to estimate the firing- 

 I hardly know; but certainly there must be in the 

 course of the year, two hundred fires made that would 

 not be made, were it not for tea drinking. Then 

 comes the great article of all, the time employed in 

 this tea-making affair. It is impossible to make a fire, 

 boil water, make the tea, drink it, wash up the things, 

 sweep up the fire-place, and put all to rights again, in 

 a less space of time, upon an average, than two hours. 

 However, let us allow one hour; and here we have a 

 woman occupied no less than three hundred and sixty- 

 five hours in the year, or thirty whole days, at twelve 

 hours in the day; that is to say, one month out of the 

 twelve in the year, besides the waste of the man's time 

 in hanging about waiting for the tea ! Needs there 

 any thing more to make us cease to wonder at seeing 

 labourers' children with dirty linen and holes in the 

 heels of their stockings ? Observe, too, that the time 

 thus spent is, one half of it, the best time of the day. 

 It is the top of the morning, which, in every calling 

 of life, contains an hour worth two or three hours of 

 the afternoon. By the time that the clattering tea 

 tackle is out of the way, the morning is spoiled ; its 

 prime is gone ; and any work that is to be done after- 

 wards lags heavily along. If the mother have to go 

 out to work, the tea affair must all first be over. She 

 comes into the field, in summer time, when the sun 

 has gone a third part of his course. She has the heat 

 of the day to encounter, instead of having her work 

 done and being ready to return home at any early 

 hour. Yet early she must go, too : for, there is the 



