338 TEA ARTHUR YOUNG AND OTHERS. 



now universal, habit of drinking TEA. The late 

 Mr. Arthur Young, with perhaps a less profound 

 attention than he usually bestowed on his subjects, 

 took every opportunity of expressing his unwilling- 

 ness to allow to the sons and daughters of labour 

 their share in this common privilege ; and Mr. 

 Young, I observe, has successors in this opinion. 

 Tea-making, it is objected, is a great consumer of 

 time, and the beverage itself, a debilitant, rendering 

 those who use it, delicate and unfit for labour. It 

 may be replied, that the most expeditious meals, 

 necessarily, consume time; that, in order to make 

 the too often bitter draught of labour go down, 

 (more especially when so much of the sic vos non 

 vobis is intermingled with it,) and so insure a degree 

 of cheerfulness and good-will, some portion of re- 

 spite and relaxation is necessary. Tea is certainly a 

 mere diluent and detergent, altogether devoid o 

 the nutritive properties of beer ; it is, at the same 

 time, a cooling, sedative, and refreshing drink, ex- 

 tremely agreeable and cleansing to the stomachs of 

 those who are fed with the most ordinary, the hard- 

 est, and coarsest provisions. As a relaxant, it often 

 proves equally beneficial as agreeable to the robust, 

 and to those of the rigid fibre. Nor have I ever 

 known an able labourer, or any well-fed labourer, 

 injured in his strength by the custom of drinking 

 tea. A partiality for this Asiatic herb has long 

 since taken possession of the whole people of this 

 country; and, I must confess, I see no reason for 

 attempting to divest the great majority of their share 

 of a common right, which really ought, in this com- 



