I.] BREWING. 19 



29. But, I look upon the thing in a still more seri- 

 ous light. I view the tea drinking as a destroyer of 

 health, an en feebler of the frame, an engenderer of 

 effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and 

 a maker of misery for old age. In the fifteen bushels 

 of malt there are 570 pounds weight of sweet ; that 

 is to say, of nutricious matter, unmixed with any 

 thing injurious to health. In the 730 tea messes of 

 the year there are 54 pounds of sweet in the sugar, 

 and about 30 pounds of matter equal to sugar in the 

 milk. Here are 84 pounds instead of 570, and even 

 the good effect of these 84 pounds is more than over- 

 balanced by the corrosive, gnawing and poisonous 

 powers of the tea. 



30. It is impossible for any one to deny the truth 

 of this statement. Put it to the test with a lean 

 hog : give him the fifteen bushels of malt, and he 

 will repay you in ten score of bacon or thereabouts. 

 But give hirh the 730 tea messes, or rather begin to 

 give them to him, and give him nothing else, and he 

 is dead with hunger, and bequeaths you his skeleton, 

 at the end of about seven days. It is impossible to 

 doubt in such a case. The tea drinking has done a 

 great deal in bringing this nation into the state of 

 misery in which it now is ; and the tea drinking, 

 which is carried on by " dribs" and " drabs ;" by 

 pence and farthings going out at a time ; this, mise- 

 rable practice has been gradually introduced by the 

 growing weight of the taxes on malt and on hops, 

 and by the everlasting penury amongst the labourers, 

 occasioned by the paper-money. 



31. We see better prospects however, and there- 

 fore let us now rouse ourselves, and shake from us 

 the degrading curse, the effects of which have been 

 much more extensive and infinitely more mischiev- 

 ous than men in general seem to imagine. 



32. It must be evident to every one, that the prac- 

 tice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble and 

 unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, 

 while, as I have shown, it deducts from the means 

 of replenishing the belly and covering the back. 



