A GOOD, WHOLESOME, AND CHEAP SUBSTITUTE FOR COFFEE. 27 



plantations in the Brazils, in Cejdon, in Cuba, and in other suitable 

 localities, profitably opened up every daj^, altogether fail to keep down 

 prices, and will long continue to offer the strong inducement of large profits I 



Taking advantage of this great public want, the unscrupulous and 

 fraudulent trader foists upon the easily-duped masses of consumers vast 

 quantities of unwholesome and pernicious stuff, mixed in certain proportions 

 with coffee ; and, although the law has interposed in the case of Chicory, 

 forbidding, under penalties, its being sold mixed with coffee, unless especi- 

 ally so labelled and declared, yet who can tell the thousand and one 

 mixtures that are still made and sold with it ? 



It may be said that all this can be prevented by purchasing only un- 

 ground coffee, in a roasted "state, ready for grinding; but there are those 

 (to be reckoned by hundreds of thousands of families), who, having no 

 means of grinding this roasted coffee, are compelled to buy that which is 

 already ground, or go without altogether. What abominations do these 

 (in too many cases), not jlrink then under the much abused name of Coffee ? 



These reflections are forced upon my mind every time I enter a coffee- 

 house, and am called upon to jivA faith in the purity of the "dish of coffee" 

 set before me ; and at divers other times and seasons, when applying the 

 question in a more general sense, to the public at large, I have then asked 

 myself whether some really good and cheap substitute may not be found 

 which people may use, either alone or mixed with coffee, and with which 

 the incorrigibly dishonest tradesman may adulterate his coffee without 

 injuring the health (in addition to robbing the pockets) of his customers. 

 We know that coffee-leaves have been suggested, of late years, as a new and 

 very brilliant idea ; and from my own experience, in 1882 and 1883, I can 

 testify to the very wholesome and even agreeable nature of the infusion or 

 decoction made from them. The negroes upon West Indian coffee planta- 

 tions used to employ them for that purpose, and full many a time have I 

 also tasted the infusion they made from them. 



Unluckily, however, these said leaves grown on coffee trees, and they do 

 not abound in Great Britain, although a few very tolerable specimens may- 

 be seen alive at the Crystal Palace, and at Kew Gardens. Chicory, like 

 tobacco, is an abomination, unwholesome and deleterious ! and, as such, 

 it may be used and abused, and may even have its advocates. 



But the substitute, which appears to be really and truly a good, whole- 

 some, and useful one, is the root of the common Dandelion, one of the 

 hardiest and most prevalent weeds in England.* My attention was first 



* Our friend and correspondent seems to forget that dandelion is a near ally of the 

 chicory, which he abuses, belonging to the same sub-order, Cichoracese. The cultivated 

 root ought, by consequence, to be superior to the wild root, and probably is, when 

 obtained genuine ; it is sold at f ourpence the pound. In'the Pharmaceutical Journal for 

 this month (August), we have written an article "on the Cultivation and Commerce of 

 Chicory." The milky juice of the dandelion, in the form of extract, has been used 

 medicinally as a diuretic and alterative. In France the roots and leaves are eaten with 

 bread and butter. On an occasion when locusts had devoured the harvest in the island 

 of Minorca the inhabitants subsisted on this root. — Editor. 



