20 BREWING, [No. 



Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking 

 for the fire-side, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, 

 all the characteristics of idleness, for which, in this 

 case, real want of strength furnishes an apology. 

 The- tea drinking fills the public-house, makes the 

 frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as 

 they are able to move from home, and does little less 

 for the girls, to whom the gossip of the tea-table is 

 no bad preparatory school for the brothel. At the 

 very least,- it teaches them idleness. The everlast- 

 ing dawdling about with the slops of the tea tackle, 

 gives them a relish for nothing that requires strength 

 and activity. When they go from home, they know 

 how to do nothing that is useful. To brew, to bake, 

 to make butter, to milk, to rear poultry ; to do any 

 earthly thing of use they are wholly unqualified. 

 To shut poor young creatures up in manufactories 

 is bad enough ; but there, at any rate, they do some- 

 thing that is useful ; whereas, the girl that has been 

 brought up merely to boil the tea-kettle, and to assist 

 in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere 

 consumer of food, a pest to her employer, and a 

 curse to her husband, if any man be so unfortunate 

 as to fix his affections upon her. 



33. But is it in the power of any man, any good 

 labourer, who has attained the age of fifty, to look 

 back upon the last thirty years of his life, without 

 cursing the day in which tea was introduced into 

 England? Where is there such a man, who can- 

 not trace to this cause a very considerable part of all 

 the mortifications and sufferings of his life? When 

 was he ever too late at his labour ; when did he ever 

 meat with a frown, with a turning off, and pauper- 

 ism on that account, without being able to trace it to 

 the tea-kettle ? When reproached with lagging in 

 the morning, the poor wretch tells you that he will 

 make up for it by working during his breakfast 

 time ! I have heard this a hundred and a hundred 

 times over. He was up time enough ; but the tea- 

 kettle kept him lolling and lounging at home ; and 

 now, instead of sitting down to a breakfast upon 



