THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [November t, ibb8. 
75? the Editor. 
OUR CINCHONA BARK INDUSTRY. 
London, 14th Sept. 1888. 
Dear Sik, — Your valuable editorial under the 
above heading has only this day come under my 
eyes in the Tropical Agriculturist. Your figures 
appear to me to be most valuable, because most 
practical. Whether Oeylon bark be likely to average 
so high a test as that at which you put it, or 
whether in all their other details your figures are 
likely to be in detail borne out by facts, are 
doubts incidental to the fact of your figures being 
a forecast and as such only intended to give very 
approximative information. 
Roughly speaking, however, you lead us and lead 
us correctly to expect a 50 per cent increase during 
the next four years in the production of quinine 
in the bark and a 30 per cent increase in the 
total amount of quinine required for consumption, 
and you show that at the end of four years we 
are likely to find consumption ahead of production 
if — but here th6 if ccmes in — if your hope should 
be realized : " but there is against this the proba- 
bility of new uses being found for quinine, its 
gradual supersession of opium, &c, &c." 
You have without doubt hit the right nail hard 
on the head. The consumption of quinine must 
be fostered and facilitated, and the only way to 
foster the sale of any article on a large scale is 
to make it easily accessible to the million at a 
price which the million can afford to pay. 
There is no reason but one why the consump- 
tion of quinine should not soon be 20 millions of 
ounces a year and rapidly increasing from that 
figure, and that one reason is that the people who 
want it most, cannot now get it at all. 
Denizens of temperate climate or emigrants 
earning good wages can buy quinine. The Indian 
native earning a few annas a day, the Chinaman 
earning his few cash, cannot buy quinine ; if they 
could the consumption would soon begin to multiply 
itself. 
As those who are interested in this matter on a 
large scale do not seem to push the sale, I am 
doing my best in this direction, small as that best 
is, and I enclose you a pamphlet descriptive of 
my " penny quinine," and send you by sample post 
a few boxes of the pills. 
When quinine shall have been made known and 
available to those for whom it was intended, we 
shall hear less of distress in the bark trade whether 
it be in the growing, the selling, or the manufac- 
turing part of it. 
Then and then only we shall return to a solid 
improvement in prices so large, that it shall sur- 
prise those who think that rings, syndicates, and 
other artificial contrivances can help a trade and 
who are even now finding how little such things 
can do for them, but so long as high retail 
prices of quinine shall stand in the way of 
largely increased consumption, so long shall we 
continue anxiously to watch whether Java send 
a million or two moro lb. of richer bark, or Ceylon 
a million or bo less lb. of poorer bark. 
The operator of last November missed his chance 
of slipping out between the showers ; of realizing 
for himself a fine profit, and of giving the trade a 
fillip before Java should become a really serious 
factor in the question. Now he must bear the 
burden for the market, and wo must turn for relief 
to the only legitimate source of revival which as 
you point out, is to bo found in an incroased Con- 
sumption of Quinine.— Your faithfully, 
RIVERS HICKS. 
THE DISCUSSION ON TEA IN THE 
LONDON STANDARD. 
London, 14th Sept. 18S8. 
Sir, — I propose leaving Brindisi on the 12th 
November in the P. & 0. steamer " Massilia " 
and hope to remain in Ceylon till the mail follow- 
ing which, as it will be carried in the "Oceana," 
will not allow more than 12 clear days at the 
most. I send you cuttings from the Standard upon 
" The Tea We Drink," and think that the leading 
article and the letters which it has brought fortli 
are a good sign that attention is being directed to the 
wretched quality of tea that so many of thoso well-to- 
do are content to drink day after day. — Hoping to 
see you soon, believe me, faithfully, 
JOHN HUGHES. 
THE TEA WE DRINK/ 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD." 
35, Eastcheap, E. C, Sept. lotli. 
Sir, — Your well-timed Leading Article on the Tea 
we drink will doubtless prove of distinct advantage, by 
opening the eyes of the public to the trash winch is 
too often consumed for Tea. 
As you suggest, the stuff mentioned by jour Cor- 
respondent at one shilling per lb. is a price so low that 
nothing but rubbish can be expected. But at two 
shillings per IB, excellent Tea can be supplied, ami is 
supplied by all grocers worthy of the name. I do not 
mean Tta possessing in its own degree the merits of 
"Lafitte, one hundred and thirty shilling the dozen," 
but Tea which, for this comparison, might be placed 
against claret at half one hundred and thirty shillings. 
The trouble is, as you suggest, "the cutting compe- 
tition in Mincing-lane," which has debased the public 
taste, and caused a demand for low-priced Tea, quite 
irrespective ol quality. Certain Wholesale Tea Dealers 
of Mincing. lane are engaged in retail trade, under as- 
sumed names, and in their competition with each other 
and the grocers, their main object seem to have been 
to sell the lo,vest possible priced Tea. Who has not 
seen at railway stations the notice, that by buying a 
certain firm's Tea at one shilling and threepence per 
lb. the public save one shilling per lb. ? This tea, for 
an extra threepence per lb., is delivered, post paid 
in the country ; but the postage on the Tea, and the 
invoice and receipt, which are sent to customers, cost 
fourpence-halt'penny ; thus the Tea is retailed at one 
shilling and three-halfpence per lb. and has to bear 
its share of enormous advertising expenses. 
Another large firm, w hose quotations commence from 
one shilling and fourpence per lb. announce to the 
public that tbey sell "at a bare commission on the 
prices actually paid at the place of growth." But 
everyone, however unacquainted with the trade, will 
see, on reflection, that the price of this Tea, somehow 
or other, has to cover cost of freight to England, dock 
and warehouse charges, expenses of distribution, great- 
ly swollen by heavy advertising, as well as the Cus- 
tom's duty of sixpence per lb. 
The evil does not end here. Consumers see at every 
turn these low-priced offerings of common Tea, and 
so the grocer is compelled to devote his attention to 
price, rather than to quality, with the result that the 
public taste in the matter of Tea becomes more de- 
praved every year. — I am, sir your obedient servant, 
John Hbnby Betts. 
Enfield, September 10th. 
Sir, — I find from a note-book of mine that your re- 
marks in 'The Standard of today on the purity of Tea 
in Dr. Johnson's time were slightly optimistic. In 
1777 an Act was required to prohibit counterfeiting 
Tea with aloe, liquorice, ash, or elder leaves, by impos- 
ing a penalty of five pounds for every pound sold or 
found in possession. 
In 17B4, the year when Johnson finally bade fare- 
well to the Teapot, the accountant of the East India 
Company estimated that over twelve million pound 
a year of the leaf were either counterfeited or smug 
