118 PRESENT AND FUTURE CONSUMPTION. 



Probable expense in China, per Ib. 4 to 5 cents. 



Java contract price for delivery, - per Ib. 5 cents. 



Probable expense in America, per Ib. 2 to 3^ cents. 



The first question then to consider is, is tea necessary to 

 man 1 To a very large portion of the human race it is a 

 necessary of life. It may be replied that a man can do 

 without tea. So he could ; he could do without coffee, 

 without meat, without fish, without milk or butter or 

 cheese, yet all these things are necessaries. To the 

 Chinese, habit has rendered tea necessary. Tobacco 

 is necessary to the habitual smoker, and see to what 

 lengths he will go in the use of it.* Tea is necessary 

 to every tea drinker ; and perhaps there is no period 

 in the twenty-four hours when a man, or the family of a 

 house, are so sociable and cheerful as at tea time. Genu- 

 ine tea is a healthy beverage, corrective of a tendency 

 to over secretion of bile ; and there is in it a very soothing 

 quality, which refreshes both mind and body, without 

 bringing on after depression of spirits. These qualities 

 may be in some way interfered with by the large ad- 

 mixture of other leaves, by coloring matter, or by milk, 

 which is so liable to grow sour. 



If the poor Chinese woman did not think tea a necessary 

 for her, she would not card, spin, and weave cloth and sell 



* It is a well established fact, although not probably well known, 

 that tobacco contains one of the most powerful poisons nicotine in 

 quantities from 2 to 9 per cent, five drops of which would kill even 

 a dog. From a great deal of experience, I can eay that a tobacco 

 smoker has but a poor chance against jungle fever. Out of all who I 

 know got that fever, none recovered but myself and two others. 

 Two of us did not smoke ; the other smoked very moderately. 



